Doc

by S. A. Chakraborty

  I lean my forehead on the bar so I can ugly laugh.

  “Cameron, I love you.” Turning back to the drink I was making, I continue. “No, sadly, his only brother is in Hong Kong and married.”

  “Ripoff.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Romantic?”

  I stop curling a lemon peel to think about it. So many instances come to mind—among them the archery lessons, the flowers, the police escort. My body warms, and I picture his smile, feel his body at my back, his whispered words in my ear.

  “Yeah, I think he is,” I say. “He’s almost shockingly considerate and incredibly sweet, but, like, only when no one is looking but me. You know? He has a way of making me feel as if no one else exists but us.”

  It gets quiet, and I realize everyone is staring at me. Teresa, the new bar back who just brought out some ice. I catch Paulie wiping a tear from his eye.

  “That better be sarcastic, Paulie,” I say. When he flips me off, I grin, but I secretly want to hug him. “Cam? Where’d you go?”

  “I melted,” she calls, apparently from the floor.

  “Drama queen.”

  “No, comedy queen,” she says. “Big difference. Laughs rule.”

  She stands up, smiling huge, and leans forward so our noses are barely a foot apart. “So, how are you doing with that? Sounds like he’s angling for something serious.”

  The brisk focus and genuine concern of the question after her slapstick bit shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. The reason for my relationship turn-off blooms icily across my naked shoulders like a tattoo of fear, forcing a denial out of my mouth before I can think.

  “Pfft. He is not.”

  “Whether or not that’s true, you just panicked a little, didn’t you?” Cam’s eyes are sparkling when I meet them. She shrugs, but smiles warmly. “I’m sorry. I just want to make sure you’re okay. I’ve seen you wrestle with yourself whenever he was around before you reconnected.”

  “I, um.” I pull myself to full height and cleanse the shadows with a breath. “It’s a little complicated, but I’m enjoying us right now. I can handle where we are. I’m… comfortable where we are.”

  She nods. “Okay, I believe you. Because I like you together. You fit. Even though I’d steal him if I could.”

  I laugh, handing her overdue cosmo. “Drink up, bish.”

  Her surgery is only two days away, so before I put Cam in a cab an hour later, I promise to see her before they wheel her away. “It’ll be so great,” I tell her. “Sophie and I will both hate you because you’ll have such a great rack. Especially Sophie, given that breastfeeding is going to destroy hers.”

  “You’re evil,” she says.

  “So, are you going to take before and after titty pictures?” I ask her.

  “Of course. For my boob albums.”

  She laughs and closes the cab door. The window rolls down, and she throws a piece of her boob stuffing at me. I catch it and hold it up. It’s a tooth fairy pillow, a small puff with a pocket sewn on the front for a kid’s tooth.

  “Are you serious?” I yell after her, but the cab has already pulled away. I hear Cameron’s throaty laugh trail off and disappear, along with the cab.

  ***

  On the day of Cam’s surgery, I meet Sophie in the waiting room. Fox is off work today, so I’m guessing he stayed home with Henry. Doc asked if he should come with, but he was helping a friend move into a new house all of yesterday and late into the night, so I told him to stay home and sleep. I’ll wish Cam well for him.

  “Fox says he and H-man are having a ‘dudes day,’” Sophie tells me by way of greeting, following up with a hug. “The kid’s not even five months old. Henry’s probably going to sleep most of the time I’m gone, especially since I hit him with a boob just before I left.”

  “Fox or the kid?”

  “Nice,” she acknowledges with a nod. “Though the elder Monkhouse is certainly enjoying the boobs, too.”

  “I really don’t need those details.”

  “In fairness, boobs are why we’re here today,” she adds seriously.

  I shake my head. Time to pull a U-turn.

  “So what’s your man-child going to do? Wake the baby on purpose and try to teach him to play Mortal Kombat?” I ask. “Can a baby that young even focus on a TV screen? I didn’t think they could see that far yet.”

  Sophie shrugs and lets out a snort. “Not yet. But I wouldn’t put it past Fox to prop the baby up in his bouncy chair and explain the finer points of ‘fatalities’ to him. ‘I’m just trying to start him early!’” Her voice drops to imitate Fox’s. “I’m like, dude. Can we wait until he can walk to hook him on TV and screens? Idiot.”

  I chuckle, but I also feel a little out of sorts. Sophie’s a mom now. In a handful of months, she’ll be a wife. A wife. The word makes me a little woozy. Maybe nauseated. I’m happy for her, but I’m just not sure I’ll ever get there. Not after my previous… engagement of sorts. And that’s quite enough thinking about that. I’m happy with where Doc and I are now—though we’re not dating other people. I mean, I honestly don’t know how I’d find the time if I wanted to.

  Together, Sophie and I walk to Cameron’s room, where she’s crying and having a last-minute hail-Mary consultation with her doctor. Sophie rushes over and pushes the doctor out of the way.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” she asks, panicked and instantly near tears herself.

  I peer around her to see Cam wiping her eyes.

  Cam looks up at us and declares via cracking sob, “I’m going to have the best tits!”

  The doctor behind us laughs. “Only if you stop crying and let us take you to surgery, Cameron.”

  I glare at Cam and flip her off playfully. “That’s for freaking us out. Now go get your tits on and cork the tears, will you?”

  Cam chuckles and gives Sophie a kiss. “Thank you for coming. Is Mom here yet?”

  “I’m here! Don’t leave yet!” Mama Margaret comes flying through the door, already emotional and red-eyed. “I’m sorry, Cammy,” she says, panting. “Traffic was a killer. But I made it in time. Right? No boobies yet?”

  The room falls silent until Sophie breaks with a blend of nervous giggles and labored breathing. Cam and I join in, and the humor is solidified when the doctor ends up snorting along with us.

  “Christ on a donkey, y’all,” Cameron says with an epic, out-of-tune horn-sounding sigh. “I so needed that. I love you all so much.”

  ***

  When I get home, the apartment feels extraordinarily empty, and I feel extraordinarily stupid for not realizing the impact my dear friend has on her environment. I wonder how only a day’s absence could possibly create such a vacuum, but then I remember the doctor’s words.

  “She’s in a lot of pain,” he’d said. “Everything seemed to go very well until she showed signs of brachycardia—that is, a serious slowing of the heart rate,” he said. When a bunch of eyeballs popped out at him, he added, “Immediate action was taken to avert cardiac arrest.”

  That was where Margaret fainted. A circus of nurses swarmed her, and Sophie had to be restrained to prevent her from slapping the doctor for being so dry about her sister’s potential heart attack. The incident didn’t have anything to do with Cameron’s pain levels, but they did decide to keep her overnight to monitor her.

  The brush with almost losing a friend and family member had shaken me, but I didn’t realize how much until I’d arrived back at the apartment after dark. I find myself wandering around because I don’t want to be alone. When I feel like this, there’s only one place I gravitate toward. Thank God he gave me a key.

  18

  AFTER SHE DANCED

  DOC

  I HEAR THE LOCK click open and look up from the acoustic guitar on my belly to see Nora peek her head in.

  “Hi, baby,” she says, nearly at a whisper. “Should I have knocked?”

  I ignore the way my chest tightens at the endearment. She agreed to label us officially da
ting and green-lighted the use of such terms as boyfriend and girlfriend, though she told me that under no circumstances should the words boo or bae pass my lips. I laughed so hard I thought my eyes might pop clean out of my skull. Honest to God, I’d never heard the terms before, but now I have to manually stop myself from using them just to poke at her.

  Regardless, I’ve had to temper my excitement for our progress for two reasons: one, few people seem willing to accept a man being the more willing to commit, let alone the one who’s visibly amped about it. Two, I’m scared shitless of running her off again.

  “Beauty,” I murmur. My smile lifts crookedly at first, but it turns into an even, if lazy, grin.

  She returns it, seeming to realize I could give a shit if she knocks. Anyone else would have gotten chewed out.

  “What’re you doing here? I thought you would be at home with Cameron’s new boobs.”

  “Jesus Christ.” She tries to chastise but is still visibly amused. “She’s transitioning to becoming a physical woman, Doc. Have some respect for it.”

  “I do. Why does that mean I’m not allowed to call his—dammit, I mean her—boobs boobs?”

  She shakes her head and shucks her shoes. “I… I don’t know. It sounded dickish.”

  “Are you tired?”

  “Exhausted. Cam is staying overnight for observation. There was a scare with her heart while she was under, and it’s fine, but they want to keep an eye.”

  “Is it indicative of something else? Or just a fluke?” I’d be more concerned, but Nora’s not seeming too worried.

  “I guess it can happen. You know there are risks with anesthesia regardless of any underlying condition.” She drops her purse and locks the door behind her. “Tomorrow she’ll head to Margaret’s. Mama won’t let her baby go to her—and I quote—‘shithole apartment’ for recovery.” Nora shuffles over to the couch and curls up next to me. “I tried not to be offended, because it’s not a bad place. It’s clean, albeit a bit small.”

  “With too-thin walls,” I tease.

  “Cameron invested long ago in excellent earplugs,” she says with a small laugh. “Anyway, I think she just wanted to be in control of something. Margaret, that is.”

  “Well, it makes sense. Her son is physically becoming her daughter,” I say. “How do you wrap your head around that without a little bit of turbulence?”

  I feel her nod against my shoulder. “Yeah. I mean, Mama has been as supportive as Cam could hope for, but it’s still been difficult for them both. Anyway, once I got home, I didn’t want to be there alone for some reason. It felt empty. So, I’m here.”

  The statement is simple, but from the way it hit me, it might as well have been blasted from massive club speakers with the bass turned up to eleven. A crazy blast of warmth in my chest pushes through the rest of my body with each subsequent heartbeat.

  “I’m glad,” I tell her.

  She hums, and the vibration soothes my racing heart. “Were you playing The Beatles before I came in?”

  I turn and kiss the top of her head. “I was. Good ear.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t need good ears. They’re my boys.”

  “You weren’t even born when Lennon died.”

  She sits up to glare daggers at me. “Have you been talking to Sophie? She says the same thing. I’m happy to whip you both. I know facts baby boomers don’t know.”

  A loud laugh erupts. “I didn’t mean you can’t be a huge fan, you Trivial Pursuit monster.”

  She tries to hide an evil smile—she’s insanely competitive whenever the game comes out. Last week, we played the movie version at casa de Monkhouse, and she and Fox nearly wrestled it out. Literally. Meanwhile, Sophie laughed her ass off. I think it was aimed solely at Fox because he may or may not have been losing, so I joined in. I know better than to poke the bear.

  “But still—”

  “Don’t argue this point, Wellesley,” she warns. “You will get nowhere.”

  “As in, I’ll get nowhere, man?” I can’t help but to tease a little bit more.

  Her mouth drops open as a precursor to an eye roll. “Okay. I deserved that one. Good song, by the way.” She tips her head slightly, approving my choice like the queen. “Anyway, if you had talked with Soph about this, you would have already realized it’s a futile argument.”

  “You seem to feel that way about arguments with you in general,” I say, unable to restrain myself from goading her. It yields some really sexy benefits.

  “As if that would stop you,” she replies calmly, a playful smile tugging at her lips. “It’s our foreplay.”

  I feel a smile ripple throughout my body, and I groan.

  “I said foreplay, not sex,” she amends with an eyebrow raised.

  “So?”

  “Soooooooooo…” She stretches out the word like she’s playing with a piece of taffy, her tone pulling high and dipping low. “Are you going to play me the song? What song was it?”

  “I’m still trying to figure out what kind of conversation we’re having here,” I say. “I feel like you’re running circles around me.”

  “Ohh!” she exclaims like she’s unearthed a conspiracy. “Do you have secrets?”

  “Don’t we all?” My remark was off the cuff, but I notice that her body fleetingly stiffens. I force myself to ignore it. I know she has secrets, and I’m just going to have to wait for her to tell me.

  She quickly sits up and forces a deep breath. “Of course.”

  Nora stands and stalks off to the kitchen. I hear the cabinet open and the water running. When she returns, there’s a full glass in her hand. She sips briefly as she walks, her lips pursing but her eyes on me. I take the moment to watch her make her way back to the spot next to me—I hope. Her form is graceful, her posture almost military—something borne of serious discipline. Nora has poise that comes from years of physical training. Ohh. That reminds me…

  “Will you dance for me?”

  She gasps quietly and comes to a stop. “Now?”

  “Why not? I can give you a soundtrack.” I slowly pluck off three notes of a chord and plaster on an overenthusiastically astonished expression.

  Her faux irritation—the usual eye roll and noise—is belied by her smile. I watch the almost-dimple it creates just under the apple of her cheek and silently bask in my triumph.

  “Fine,” she concedes and sets down her glass. “But if you judge me, or tell me how horrible my form is—”

  I clap my hands to stop her excuses. “Woman! Dance!”

  Her hands prop up on her hips, forcing my gaze to follow her lines and curves. My Beauty snaps her fingers to draw my eyes to her face. “Boy! Heel.”

  At the sound of the command, I feel the blood drain from everywhere else in my body and funnel straight to my dick. It sounds like an impossibility to say she has all my attention, when some may argue there’s no blood to fuel my brain. I don’t even care that she essentially referred to me as a dog. Hell, if she uses that sexy-as-fuck tone of voice, I’m ready to obey.

  Sure, I like to be in control. I like filthy talk. I have even been known to dabble in the dark arts, as my sister jokingly refers to various types of kink. Basically, I’m up for it. I’ll try anything once—twice, if I like it.

  But I digress… She’s set down the glass and is watching me expectantly. “Ahem.”

  “What?” I nearly jump up from the couch, then I notice she’s standing there in a tank and boy shorts. Confused, I gesture to her lack of clothing. “Did I miss something?”

  She retorts with the knowing smirk of an amazing, intelligent woman. Nothing has ever been sexier than she is right now.

  “Music, maestro.” Her voice is a low, sensual hum, like I imagine a siren’s call would be.

  “Oh! Right.”

  I reposition the guitar and reset my fingers and mind toward the song I was previously playing, The Beatles’ “Yesterday.”

  As the notes tumble out, my voice eventually follows. It’s difficult to take
in watching her move to the rhythms I’m feeling as I play, because I get so easily lost in her performance. It’s like I’m not even here, though I do lift a corner of my mouth every time she slides her eyes toward me.

  Nora’s so-called “horrible form” is anything but. I suppose a professional in the field might see flaws, but I can’t find a one. My Beauty is softer and less sinewy than some dancers I’ve seen, and certainly taller, but the grace and purpose with which she moves from one position to the next has me in awe. I couldn’t tell you the name of any of the moves, but it’s nothing short of incredible to watch.

  When she stops, I’m still playing. She stands from a formal bow, curtsying in her imaginary tutu, to eye me strangely. Still, her cheeks are flaming, and she’s fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. My fingers fall off the strings, and I set the guitar on the cushion to my right. I find myself in front of her before I can blink, my hands in her hair, my lips on hers. There are a lot of things I want to say to her, but I have no words. I’m not sure she’d want them anyway.

  Before I can crawl out of my speechlessness—though who needs to say anything when kisses can do so for you—she has my shirt off and her hands on the waist of my jeans.

  “I thought you were exhausted?” The question panted between us ricochets off her cheeks to hit me back.

  She looks up to me and grins, almost shyly. Almost. “I am, but I need to feel you. Please?”

  She doesn’t need to say anything else, and she never needed to convince me anyway.

  ***

  An hour later, we’ve found our way to my bed. By that point, however, we’re completely spent and it is quiet in my room, save the sound of the fan above us.

  “You play beautifully.”

  “Wow. I’ve never been complimented for sex quite like that before.”

  Nora makes a pointed noise of disgust and tweaks a nipple. My yelp of pain goes ignored. “You know I meant the song.”

  I chuckle. “Thank you. Not as beautiful as you dancing, but I’ll take it.”

  I feel her perch her chin on my chest and open my eyes to find her peering at me. “Are you just saying that?”