His Bad Luck Charm

Friends

"Nick is perfect. There is not a single point that anyone can nitpick. However, that perfection of his makes it hard for anyone to relate. The nurses often joke that he's from some sort of evil cult because despite seeming perfect he also seems so insincere," she said before turning to me with raised eyebrows, "did you just call him by his name?"

I assumed she was talking about Doctor Nicholas, "Considering there are so many Doctor Yates in this hospital, I just assumed it would make more sense to call them by their first name. It's confusing when they're all called the same thing."

She smiled at me," No, no, what I meant is that you called Doctor Nick by his name. You usually have strange nicknames for him so it's quite surprising."

I shrugged, ignoring her statement, "Well I'm off to my duty now," I pointed to my to-do list, "I'll see you."

As I completed my volunteering duties, I went over Barbara's words. I had always been so blinded by love for Nicholas Yates that I had never actually realised that he really was eerily perfect. There really was nothing to put down when it came to Nicholas Yates but that was also what made him so scary. Who really was Nicholas Yates?  Was he really as perfect as he made himself seem or was it all really an act. For me, my standards for him were unbelievably high so when I got a real glimpse of his true self the previous night, I felt disappointed. But from the normal person's point of view, was his ill-mannered personality what made him seem more relatable to them? Was I simply overreacting because of my high standards? The questions just continued to infiltrate my mind without giving me a break to gather all my feelings together. 

"If you continue to glare at the babies like that, your job here is going to end faster than you can even blink." 

I turned to the owner of the voice with an over exaggerated eye roll. 

"I would have been surprised if you hadn't popped up and said something super annoying to me today." 

He chuckled,  "And I would have been surprised if you hadn't said something snarky in return." 

I bit back my smile, "Don't you have people to save?" 

"Dinner break," was his reply.

I checked the time and realised it was time for me to go home. 

"I'll treat you." 

He halted in his step and turned to me, a very surprised look on him face. He took a step closer to me and placed his hand on my forehead. 

"Are you feeling unwell?" he asked, still looking surprised. "You don't seem to have a fever."

I scoffed, "If you don't want it then just say so," I rolled my eyes, as I walked away towards the cafeteria. 

He caught up and grinned, "Who wouldn't want free food?" 

Our short walk to the cafeteria was silent but I could feel his burning stare at the back of my head. 

We took our seats and River still continued to stare at me. 

"They say that a way to a man's heart is through his stomach," I sighed, "but I never understood the truth behind those words until now."

River laughed out loud. As much as I hated to admit it, it was a beautiful sight to see. His cheeks flushed slightly red and his laugh floated through the air like a soft melody. I desperately wanted it to never end but all good things must come to an end. 

"I'm pretty sure that only stands for when the woman cooks for the man with her own hands," he chuckled.

"Do you want me to cook for you?" I asked, my eyebrows raised. 

"Do you know how to cook?" he asked, his head tilted. 

I didn't in all honesty. Well I was good at following recipes but I had no creativity when it came to cooking from my own imagination. Depending on what colour the final product of the food was from my memory, I would just add ingredients of that colour until I got to a point where I thought I was close enough to what the food should have looked like. I took me a while to figure out that in most cases it was the spices that gave colour and flavour to food. 

I wasn't going to tell him that though. "Just order whatever you like," I said as I passed him three different menus from three of the different food stores in the cafeteria.

After the food we had ordered came, we sat in a comfortable silence as we both ate our food. 

"What exactly is this about?" he had asked as I nibbled at my pizza. 

I looked up from my food to see he was watching me with an expressionless but somehow warm look. 

"What do you mean?" 

"This all just seems odd to me," he said as he pointed from him to me before waving  at our surroundings. 

"I just wanted to treat you," I said with a shrug. To be quite honest, I also didn't know why I was acting this way. 

"Why? We don't really have any type of relationship with one another." 

True.

He continued to stare at me, waiting for an answer. I sighed and sat up straight.

"I want to change that." 

"Change what?"

"Our non-existent relationship." 

His eyes narrowed, "Meaning?"

"I know you said you want nothing to do with me but lately you have been the one to initiate contact with me..." I trailed off. 

He didn't say anything. He just continued to stare at me. 

"Let's be friends," I said with a sigh as I leaned forward on the table. "I think we can be great friends."