A Love Like Ours

Chapter 14

"Some plan," I muttered, and tossed back the rest of my drink. It was only my first, but as the evening drew nearer—as seeing her, alone, became more of a reality—I found I needed something to ease my nerves. I still winced at the burn. "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing."

Julian took his shot. Sunk a solid. "Shit."

I smiled. "Well, thanks man."

"Shut up," he said, standing back with a scowl on his face. But even knowing he'd just gotten me one step closer to winning the game didn't keep me happy for long. He sighed after another moment as I set up my next shot. "Ya know... sometimes, not knowing what the fuck you're doing can be a good thing."

"Fuck me," I'd muttered as the cue ball rolled right into a pocket.

"Sometimes," he'd gone on to say, ignoring my frustration, "you gotta deviate from the plan."

I'd been thinking about that all day. Thinking about how none of this was part of the plan. How meeting her in the first place hadn't been part of the plan. And it was the best fucking thing that had ever happened to me.

Maybe this would be the next best thing. The start of getting her back.

"I know, you're right, I'm sorry," Emily said into my ear, tugging me back into my house, my head, the present moment where I was standing in my room wondering what to wear. "I just can't help feeling excited about all of this."

I tugged a plain black button down from my closet, and stared at it wondering if it was too much. "And I appreciate that. But I'm also trying not to get too hopeful about everything."

"I get it," Emily said, and from the sound of her voice, she really was trying to reign in her excitement. But then she blurted, "But you did say that she was the one to ask you, right?"

I hung the shirt back up, chuckling despite everything. "She did, yes."

Emily legitimately squealed, and I had to hold the phone away from my ear as she screeched, "Oh my God, I told you! It's happening, I told you it would!"

So much for reigning in her excitement.

That's when I heard it, another mumbled voice.

"I'll be right there!" Emily called.

"Was that Mark?" I asked.

"No, I'm at the hospital," she said, "I barricaded myself in a supply closet when I saw that you were calling."

I felt my mouth pop open. "You're at the hospital?"

Emily was in the midst of her medical school experience, and spent much of her time at the hospital for clinical rotations, observing doctors as they practiced. She'd been working hard to become a doctor for as long as I knew her, and I knew she would do nothing to jeopardize that dream for herself. But surely, ducking into a closet in the middle of a rotation couldn't benefit her in her training, or make her look good to her superiors.

"Well, yeah, but I -"

"Why didn't you tell me? If you've gotta go, I can just call you back later."

"Oh, no you don't," she said. "They'll be fine without me literally just observing them for a couple minutes."

"But -"

"I'm on a break, Harry, okay? Calm down. Do you really think I'd skip out on a rotation just because you called?"

I felt better hearing that, but I also had to give her some shit.

"Thanks a lot," I muttered, sitting at the edge of my bed and staring at my closet hoping something acceptable to wear would just jump out at me and save me the trouble of finding it.