I hadn’t slept most of the night, but I must’ve passed out pretty hard at some point because my own snoring jolted me awake. That only ever happened when I was dead tired. I kept my eyes closed for as long as possible.
Until I felt a warm hand brushing hair from my face. I tucked my chin down and burrowed against him, the bedspread to my nose.
Yum. Someone smelled like soap, clean with a hint of vanilla.
I pried open my eyes, stuck together by tear-dried lashes, as realization dawned on me. I was not alone. My face turned hot as I blinked up at Daniel. He watched me with concerned eyes and an imploring smile.
“Oh…” I pulled back, embarrassed.
Daniel lay on his back, his head turned toward me, partway covered by the bedspread while I was turned into his side. He had one hand beneath his neck and the other on his stomach. The last time we’d lain like this, so comfy and at peace, had been days before the breakup.
My blaring alarm pierced the tranquility from the nightstand behind me, that sober tune I most despised hearing. I turned off the alarm and sat up in bed, way, way on the other side, far from Daniel and his perfect, welcoming body.
He followed suit and sat up, stretching his back and neck, and leaned back on his hands. “Morning,” he said, his voice gritty and rough. He sounded like sex.
No. Stop it. That was just my out-of-control emotions talking.
“Oh, no. You didn’t sleep, did you?” I asked, my voice small and a little hoarse. “Why are you smiling?”
“Am I? Oh, it’s just…you instinctively knew I didn’t get much sleep. Or do I look that awful?”
“I can tell from your voice.”
“Still know me so well, huh?”
My skin flushed. Knowing Daniel this well was easy. “I could say the same for you. For the music last night.”
He licked the corner of his lips, his expression soft, relaxed. “Some things are impossible to forget.”
My breath hitched. “Thank you for the music. I really needed it.”
“I’m just glad that it helped. And my offer stands if you want to talk about it.”
I offered an appreciative smile, trying to hold my tears at bay, struggling to cage the horrors of all the bad things and at the same time diving headfirst into the normality of waking up to Daniel. The anger he’d had since we moved in together had taken a back seat as his natural concern and warmth permeated the space between us. No one had to ask him to help. He just simply knew. He just did it.
“Is there anything…I can do?” he asked, watching me, his body tense.
Yeah. There was. He could hold me, kiss my forehead. But I couldn’t admit that.
“No, thank you,” I replied. “I really shouldn’t.”
“Shouldn’t let it out? If not with me, then with someone else. Your friends?”
“They’re all going through something right now. Reema is on a honeymoon high and I don’t want to fracture that. And Liya, well, she’s dealing with something awful and I can’t add another burden.”
“You are not a burden to any of your friends. Don’t even think that. In fact, if they knew you were suffering this bad and you didn’t tell them, they’d be pretty upset. They were there for you years ago when they called me. Your friends would do anything for you, and none of them would see this as a burden. I can promise you that. Just like I don’t see it as a burden.”
I stared at the bedspread scrunched in my lap and ran a fingernail over the abstract design. “Part of me knows that.”
“Yet the other part prevents you from leaning on them. Doesn’t have to be them. Maybe your parents?”
“They’d worry way too much and they have so many things going on. The next thing I know, they’ll be pressuring me to move back home so they can baby me.”
He smirked. “You were always a daddy’s girl.”
I coughed out a laugh. “I’m an only child. My parents dote on me, and there’s nothing wrong with that or with being close to them.”
“Nah. I’m glad that you are.” He cleared his throat, his expression a little bitter, probing as he asked, “Maybe you can talk to your boyfriend.”
My eyes went wide. “He doesn’t get it. At least, not the way you do.”
He sucked in a big breath, his chest expanding and slowly deflating. Our eyes locked in an intense, unbreakable moment. My chest tingled, in a good, calming way. Our fingers twitched, my hand pressed against the mattress beside his. Without moving his hand, he swept a fingertip over mine. My insides sank like quicksand. His touch was feathery, energizing, and shot a lightning bolt of desire straight to my core.
The alarm shrilled and I startled, my thoughts reeling back into order, to reality.
Saved by the buzzer! I turned it off again. Holding the phone in my hand, my pulse racing, I groaned. “Another day.”
“It’ll be better than yesterday,” he said.
“Probably not,” I replied and slid out of bed. Because death didn’t just disappear after one day.
He outstretched his hand. “Can I add my number to your phone?”
Perplexed at the request, I signed in with my thumb and handed my phone over.
Daniel entered his name, then looked surprised. Oh. Yikes! I still had his old number and a photo of us programmed in.
“You still have this old picture?” he asked, a cocky smile on his face.
I flushed. “Guess so.”
“I remember that day.”
“Me too. There you were, pouting about having to walk because you were so done with school.”
He chuckled. “And their ugly gowns. Is that bad for me to admit?”
“Sort of. I was really proud of you. I mean…we all were.”
My words ended quietly. That was a time when he hadn’t wanted to walk the stage, but earning a master’s degree was his accomplishment. His parents and grandparents had worked hard to make sure that he earned one. I’d convinced him to walk for them. They were so happy. And then things changed. When his father told me in clear-as-day, sharp-as-a-razor words that I was not good enough for Daniel. When around the same time, everyone in the community caught wind of our relationship and it hit my parents like a speeding bus out of nowhere.
He handed me my phone after updating his number and clarified, “Today is better than yesterday because no matter what happens today, you know that I’m here. Doesn’t matter if you call me or text me or see me when you get home.”
Warmth filled me from his kindness. “Thanks, Daniel. I should get ready for work.”
“Yeah. What do you want for breakfast?” he asked, yanking the covers off and swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
“You don’t have to make me anything. You should try to get a couple of hours of sleep.”
But he was already at the door. “Do you want buttermilk pancakes? I feel like some pancakes. They always help the mood.”
“Um…” I watched his backside as he strolled into the kitchen.
“With that butter-crisped edge?” He glanced up from the kitchen as the lights flickered on.
I couldn’t hide my tiny smile at the thought of his pancakes.
He cocked his chin toward the bathroom. “I got this.”
I nodded and disappeared into the bathroom for my morning routine, then came to the kitchen still in my pajamas but with hair combed, face washed, teeth brushed. “What can I help with?”
“Can you not burn the coffee?” he joked, setting out the butter beside a bowl of batter and a cup of freshly whipped cream.
“Hey!” I said, feigning insult.
“I mean, you did burn coffee once.”
“That was my very first time even seeing a coffeemaker.” I poured water into the coffee machine and adjusted the settings. This one was super fancy, seeing that it was Liya’s, but I’d used it before.
“Be right back,” he said and hurried to the bathroom.
Hmph! Like burning coffee was a repeat offense. I heated the skillet and proceeded to make a pancake instead of standing idly by and leaving room for the panic attack to creep back in.
“What are you doing?” Daniel asked.
I jumped. “God, were you trained by ninjas in how to sneak up on people?”
He was at my side, towering and crunching the space between us. “Seriously. What are you doing, though?”
“If I can simultaneously handle L&D and the ER on-call during a full moon, I can handle a pancake,” I argued, armed with a spatula.
He slipped behind me and watched over my shoulder as a dozen bubbles erupted in the pancake. I jammed the spatula underneath it. Daniel hissed.
“What?” I asked tersely.
“Not enough bubbles yet. And gently. The pancake isn’t one of your L&D patients.”
I paused and glanced at him over my shoulder. “You think I ram my hand up my patients?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know how you shove anything up anyone, but that pancake needs a softer touch than this. Let me,” he insisted and went to take the spatula.
I twisted away and muttered, “I don’t understand why everyone acts like I should know how to cook. It’s condescending.”
“I’m not trying to be condescending. Cooking isn’t your thing and nothing’s wrong with that, just like medicine isn’t my thing. How about you let me help you?”
I felt him flinch behind me when I flipped the pancake over, splattering the uncooked side all over the pan. The top was barely golden. It looked so…sickly and pale.
“First one is always bad,” I explained.
“True…”
I shoved the spatula underneath the sickly pancake and dropped it into the trash. Poor thing didn’t stand a chance.
Daniel greased the pan with a nice helping of butter. I took a measuring cup filled halfway with batter and dumped it into the pan.
“Slowly,” he said, lifting my hand to ease the flow of batter. He helped me lower the cup and spread out the batter more evenly by using the bottom of the cup.
I armed myself with the spatula again. I kept trying to check the underside and every time, Daniel tugged my elbow back.
“Wait for the bubbles,” he reminded me, now standing with his chest to my back and his hand on my wrist.
I swallowed hard and stiffened, resisting the urge to melt against him. The last time Daniel taught me how to cook something, this exact same scenario led to his pressing against my backside. Which led to me arching against him. Which led to him kissing my neck. Which led to me gripping his hip. Which led to him running his hands underneath my shirt and…burning pancakes.
He explained, “There’s a good amount of butter in the batter, but adding it to the pan creates nice aromatic, browned, crisped edges and ridges. See?”
I carefully scooped up the pancake and flipped. It was perfect.
“The best pancake flipper in Houston,” he teased.
I transferred the finished pancake onto a plate, my body gliding to the left and then to the right against his chest with barely-there grazes. My skin burned as his chin tickled the back of my head. I inhaled him like he was the breath of life.
What was I doing? What in the world was wrong with me?
When I got the hang of it on the third and fourth pancakes, he stepped away and made a cup of coffee. I had an amazing stack of four pancakes piled perilously high for myself. While I made three more for Daniel, he garnished my stack with powdered sugar, freshly cut strawberries, whipped cream, and, of course, more butter. I liked my pancakes without syrup. He liked his with a bit of everything.
“I’m going to have a sugar crash,” I said as I stuffed a giant bite into my mouth and took a seat on a barstool at the counter.
The toaster oven dinged and Daniel held up a finger. He brought over a plate of breakfast sausage. “Protein. Extra to take with you for when you have a sugar crash.”
“Thanks. I knew I smelled something other than pancakes and coffee.” I stabbed a sausage with my fork and gnawed on it through the heat. My gaze fell to his shirt. “You have some flour there.”
“Where?” he joked, as if he didn’t notice that he was about half covered in flour. “Ah. I accidentally dropped the measuring cup into the bowl and up went flour flying all over.”
“And your hair…” I reached up to scuff off some particles from his twists, my fingers lingering, savoring the touch. “It’s really in there. How…what?”
He leaned down at the same time I jumped up from the barstool. We knocked heads. Hard.
“Ow!” I groaned and grabbed my temple, fully aware of how close he stood to me, our chests only inches apart.
“Sorry!” He cupped my face and kissed my forehead, as if it were simple instinct. The touch was quick, innocent, but his lips were sensual, intoxicating. I shuddered.
I loosely held on to his wrists and a soft breath escaped from my parted lips. His gaze dropped to my mouth, mine fell to his. His lips probably tasted like buttermilk pancakes and whipped cream and strawberries and syrup. I could practically taste him on my tongue.
I winced, pulling away instead of giving in to test my hypothesis. “That really hurt. You’re so hardheaded.”
He chuckled. “You’re one to talk. You might need ibuprofen for that.”
“Sugar high and head injury…are you trying to make me pass out?” I rubbed my forehead and walked to the bedroom before I let out a tremulous sigh.
A forehead kiss was nothing. It was innocent. Right?
I returned dressed in black slacks and a wintergreen blouse, my hair pulled back in a low ponytail. I took the foil-wrapped sausage with thanks, filled my water bottle and coffee tumbler, and left.
My heart rammed in my chest. We couldn’t do that again.
I was determined to face the day, to push aside all the negativity thrown at me and focus on my patients. They weren’t just cases or bad days. They were people and they needed me.
The first thing this morning was rounding. Laura was my second patient.
I sat beside her bed, held her hand, and let her cry.
