Doctor Charmer (Doctors of Eastport General)

12. Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Reggie

M y shift ended hours ago, but I make up administrative reasons to stick around the hospital. The minute I look up at the knock at my door, I realize I should have hidden in the doctors’ lounge.

Louise Derby from HR is standing in my doorway with a scowl on her face.

“Plastics is on the fourteenth floor. They may be able to do something with that permanent scowl on your face.” I give her grief because she does the same to me. When she moved into this role a year ago, she never once came to me with an open mind. She let my reputation speak for me, and she’s assumed the worst from day one. I became public enemy number one. A guilty conviction without a trial.

“Security is on the first floor. They’re measuring to find the sized metal bracelet to put on you when they lead you out the building.” She steps into my office without an invitation. It’s right on brand. “Dr. Morgan, I just want to go home. Submit your paperwork, and I’ll no longer have an issue with you or your department.”

“Until the calendar rolls over in a few days and we begin this dance all over again.”

She huffs. “I really don’t want to get Dr. Riggs involved.” She mentions the head of the hospital, a threat she’s floated in front of me before. “But I will.”

“I won’t tell you how to do your job, and you should do the same.”

She’s unaffected by me. I learned that a long time ago when I tried to charm my way out of not complying with her request. That’s how I could get out of submitting the paperwork for the last two years.

“He’ll be at the holiday mixer tomorrow night.” She puts a deadline on my compliance. All it does is raise the stubborn streak I carry.

“I’ll make sure he’s drunk before you get there.”

“I’m just trying to do my job. Do you take anything seriously?” She scolds me like I’m in middle school, and I guess from her perspective, I am acting like a twelve-year-old.

I stand and walk to her, waving a dismissive hand in her direction. “Happy holidays, Mrs. Derby.”

She strides backward, a look of disbelief on her face. I slam the door in her face and walk back to my desk.

A soft tap on my door has me back on my feet. I whip open the door to find Dr. Carmichael standing in my doorway in the same spot Louise stood moments ago. She glances down the hall. “HR?”

I shake my head. “Don’t ask.”

She follows me into my office with a giggle. “I know better than to ask. But I guess it serves you right for hanging around. I thought you’d be long gone by now. Didn’t you just pull a double?”

“Says the doctor who is matching me hour for hour. Don’t you have a fiancé at home waiting for you?”

“I was on my way home when I got the page. Ice victim, hip fracture.” Doctors are a strange breed. One person’s tragedy feeds another’s fantasy. Angie’s eyes sparkle from completing a surgery. It’s like a performance high for a musical artist. We’re all addicted. It’s incredible that any of us ever find partners who tolerate this lifestyle.

“Your favorite season.”

“Got to love Rhode Island winters.” She snickers and stops two feet in front of me. “Let’s see. It’s seven thirty. Visiting hours end at eight. If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, I can have Chef Marian prepare a special dinner for two for you.” Angie doesn’t pull any punches. She knows me better than anyone in the building.

Angie has a special relationship with the head chef in the cafeteria. Before meeting her fiancé, Brayton, she’d work fourteen hours on a regular basis. She’d skip meals, survive on granola bars and nuts. Chef Marian is good friends with Angie’s dad and promised him she’d look after her. She began to prepare special plates for Angie to make sure she had at least one nutritious full meal a day.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She snickers. “I think you do. A certain, tall, gorgeous volleyball coach sitting around the fifth floor, bored.”

“Wait, how do you know she’s bored?”

“I just passed through there to check in on Griffin. He was practically sitting on Chelsea’s bed, the two of them giggling and whispering, playing some card game. Ivy was curled up in that unforgiving hospital chair, her face buried in her phone, playing Candy Crush. Go rescue her.”

“Won’t be too much, too soon?” I don’t hide my insecurities from Angie. I no longer have to hide anything when it comes to her.

She steps closer, placing her hand on my shoulder. A tender touch of familiarity and history. “If you could see the poor look on your face. You got it bad.” She laughs. “I never recall you looking so pathetic when you were hung up on me.”

My eyelashes flutter as I process her words. Angie has seen me in every state, from my highest to my lowest. Her words mean a lot. “I’m too old for games.” I lay out my concern. It’s the reason I stopped dating some time ago.

“Don’t tell me. Tell her.” She makes it sound so simple. And maybe it should be. She pushes a stray tendril of hair from her face. “You knew me for how many years before you came clean and told me you had feelings for me?”

I lower my head, a period of time I don’t like to revisit. To be honest with myself, I carried a torch for Angie for nearly a decade. From the days she started medical school and began dropping by the hospital to visit my mentor, who just so happened to be her father. I thought I’d grow out of it, but when she began her residency at Eastport, all it did was kick up to another level. I justified keeping my feelings hidden from her out of some sort of twisted show of respect for her father. But secretly, I feared she never shared the same feelings.

“So, are you advising me to fail fast?” I’m only half-joking. It wasn’t until Angie met Brayton, and I realized how quickly things were moving that I told her about my feelings. I still remember holding my heart in my hand, having never felt so exposed in my life.

She’s a kind soul. To this day, I’m appreciative of how she handled such a delicate situation. She could teach a master class on how to let a guy down gently. But at the end of the day, I failed. Hence my comment.

“Actually, yes,” she snaps back. “Don’t beat around the bush. You’re not getting any younger.” She snickers to soften the blow. I’ll be forty-three in April. Friends my age now have kids entering middle school. “Do you need me to walk with you?”

“Nah, I think I’m capable enough to walk up to a woman and talk to her.”

“Even if it’s a woman you have potent feelings for?”

I pause, not believing I’m having this conversation. I interact and meet with women every single day. I am comfortable, attentive, charming even. Why has this one felt different from the beginning?

“Be honest with yourself too,” Angie continues to probe. “And I say this from a place of love and respect.” Her gaze captures mine and doesn’t let go. She wants to have my complete attention, and she does.

“Make sure your interest in her is about her.” She pauses and must read the confusion on my face. “Okay, you’re going to make me state the obvious.” Angie takes a deep inhale. “Reggie, you have a type.”

“A type?” I rub my chin and try to decipher her words. “Is this a Black thing?”

Her lips curl up into a bright smile. “You tell me,” she says. And I realize Angie thinks my interest in Ivy might be because of the color of her skin. The fact that she and Angie are both African American hadn’t crossed my mind until just now. “I didn’t say that you did.” She places one hand in the other in front of her. “What I meant is she’s younger than you. She’s smart. She’s beautiful. She’s an extrovert. Do I need to continue to list all the Reggie Morgan triggers?”

I shake my head. “I still don’t see the concern. I like smart, outgoing, beautiful women. When did that become a crime?”

“It’s not.”

“What am I missing, Angie?”

“All I’m saying is choose the woman in front of you and not the vision of the woman in your head. We are more than a two-dimensional image. It’s not science or math. Love is chemistry.”

She connects the pieces that I had been unable to see. “Only one way to find out which it is.”

“Only one way,” Angie repeats like a good hype man. “Go. Spend time with her. Find out which it is.” She points behind her to the door.

I hook my arm around her shoulder and pull her toward the door. “I think I liked you better when you used to hold your tongue.”

“Just spreading the joy and giving you a nudge. Women that shake up your world don’t come along every day. Go see if there’s something there.”

We laugh, and I close the door behind us before striding toward the elevator. I bounce on my toes as I watch the elevator eight floors away begin a slow descent down to us. When it stops for the second time, Angie snickers next to me.

“Go take the steps. I won’t be offended,” she offers, and I don’t fight the feeling. I mouth the word thanks over my shoulder as I race to the stairwell with a smile on my face and a happy beat in my chest.