by Ryan Gray
“All right, now I’m going to listen to your breathing,” he said, pulling the stethoscope from his neck.
He slid his instrument beneath my loose shirt, placing it against my bare chest. I shuddered involuntarily. They were always so damn cold. Cold and sterile, exactly what the seafoam green walls were trying to mask.
“Sorry about that,” he apologized like he could read my mind.
“Take a couple deep breaths for me,” he said as he moved the cold instrument. “You can calm down. I won’t bite.”
My heart was racing as he listened, and conjuring up images of the hot doctor biting the crook of my neck was doing nothing to slow it down. His fingertips brushed lightly against my bare chest as he moved the instrument, sending my heart racing even harder.
The doctor raised a brow but made no comment. This was probably a common occurrence for him. I was just one of many patients who got easily worked up when a handsome doctor was running his hands over them.
“That should be everything, unless you have anything to add. We weren’t able to get your records transferred over yet, so I haven’t been able to look at your medical history.”
“Nope, it should all be on that paper,” I lied.
Two years ago a doctor had somberly informed me that I had an irregularity in my heart. After a full battery of tests they determined I had arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. ARVC, the four worst letters I had heard in my life. I thought my life was over then and there, but here I was two years later still kicking, and fortunately not much worse for the wear. Eventually though, I would start to deteriorate. It was inevitable and it could happen quickly.
It was a harmless lie really. No doctor in the world could fix my heart. My family had wasted so many hours and so much money trying to deny it, but it was hopeless. Better not to trouble the handsome doctor with my morbid fate. This way he could keep treating me like a person, and not a walking corpse.
“Great. You can check in with Alexa on the way out and she’ll make sure your information gets back to the university,” Dr. Harper said with one last smile before ushering me out the door.
I followed the narrow hallway back to the front desk and was greeted once again by the receptionist, Alexa.
“He’s dreamy isn’t he?” she asked with a giggle, and I mentally cursed the blush still painted across my cheeks. Was I really so transparent?
“So, If you could just sign off here I will verify your insurance information and we should be all set,” she said returning to the business at hand and pushing a clipboard towards me.
I signed the paper and absentmindedly turned the pen over in my hand as I waited for her to confirm my insurance information. This would be it then, no reason to come back. No reason to run into the handsome doctor who sent electricity down my spine with a quick brush of his fingertips. That wouldn’t do.
I pulled out my wallet and hastily scrawled an invitation to dinner across my business card before I could talk myself out of it. The information was a little out of date, but I hadn’t changed my cell in years.
“Could you give this to the doctor?” I asked, sliding the card face down across the desk to Alexa. My skin was on fire. I was never this bold, but our brief encounter had me wanting more. Worst case, he never called and I had to find a new doctor if I came down with the flu. I could deal with that.
“Of course,” she said with a wide grin and a sparkle in her eye that said she was absolutely going to read what I wrote as soon as I walked out the door.
Walking out of the office I was immediately assaulted by the summer heat. I squinted against the bright sun and held up a hand to find where I had parked my car. For the first time in a while things were looking up. My dream job started next week, and with any luck I had a hot date planned.
It wasn’t until I finally walked into my mostly empty apartment that I realized I was a fool to be so hopeful. I opened my wallet to put away my insurance card and immediately my stomach dropped. There was my business card front and center. The one and only business card I had in my wallet. Meaning I had left someone else’s card for the handsome doctor. Shit.
He could just look up my number right? They had it on file and everything. Or would that be a violation of patient privacy? I really hoped he would violate my privacy, and maybe the rest of me while he was at it.
I ran my hand through my hair with a sigh. Typical. From the outside looking in my bad luck would almost be comical. I thought I had the worst of it when I found out my heart was conspiring to kill me, but now I couldn’t even get laid. What a joke.
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