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“Ahem.”
I look up from where I sit alone, straddling a bench, hunched over an open text book with a half-eaten sandwich in one hand to see Taryn standing in front of me, smirking.
“What?” I ask, my mouth obnoxiously full.
“Are you the jealous type?”
“…Huh?”
“Eloquent. I said, are you the jealous type?”
“That depends,” I use the back of my hand, still holding onto my sandwich to wipe the mustard from the corner of my mouth. “Why, what’s going on?”
“There’s a horde of nurses currently drooling over your man. I thought you should know.”
I snort. “What else is new?”
She leans one hand on the table, the other on her hip, still smirking. “They’re drooling because he’s doing something obscenely charming.”
I blink a few times. “Ok, you have my attention.” Maybe this has something to do with why he’s late meeting me for lunch.
She examines her nails. “Not sure I want to tell you now.”
“Taryn.”
“And it really is excessively cute. I mean I’m 100% all about the ladies and even I’m fanning myself a little.”
I glare at her. “Tell me or else.”
“Pfft. Or else what, you’ll get mustard on me?”
I roll my eyes. “You have nothing; I’m going back to my lunch now.” I look up when she straddles the bench, facing me.
“Doctor Kim, AKA, your boyfriend, is currently sitting with an itty bitty little girl in his lap who has two broken arms, and is looking at him with the biggest heart-eyes.”
I drop the sandwich onto my plate. “Oh my god.”
She holds her hand out palm first. “It gets better. She’s Korean, doesn’t speak a lick of English, so he is reading Cinderella to her in Korean.” She pinches her thumb and finger together and makes a circular motion. “Let me reiterate. Tiny little three year old girl, scared, broken arms, sitting in his lap, head against his chest while he translates bedtime stories into freakin’ Korean.”
My hand curls up into a fist and presses against my mouth. “That’s…that’s adorable.”
“That’s your boyfriend, Levi.”
My eyes widen. “Oh my god, I’m dating that guy.”
She holds her palm up for a high five. “That’s one hell of a glow-up, dude. I’m proud of you.”
I high five her and shove the text book aside. “Wait,” I pause. “I can’t just go down there for no good reason; I’ll look all desperate and swoony.”
“And this is why I’m officially your best friend…”she pulls from her pocket an iPhone. “He left his cell on fourth. I happened to find it, perhaps you should return it?”
I snatch the phone from her. “I could kiss you.”
“Please don’t.”
“Wait, how do you know it’s his? IPhone’s are kind of common…” I turn it in my hands with a frown, having never looked at Nico’s cell particularly closely.
“Press the home button.”
I press the button and feel myself instantly soften. It’s a picture of me from dinner one night at his apartment, weeks ago. I don’t even recall what he’d said to make me laugh but there I am, braying like a donkey. I ordered him to delete the photo; he’d promised me that he had the sneak.
“Levi? Anytime someone tries to take her away from him she cries and holds her arms out for him. These…these tiny little arms in pink casts.”
“I have to go.”
I hear her laugh as I rush out of the canteen. When I make it to Paediatrics I see the nurses before I do Nico. Some, to their credit, are subtle as they watch him; others blatantly stare with elbows leaning on the desk and chins in hand, soft sighs audible. I feel myself begin to cringe at the predictability of it all but then I see Nico and dammit if I don’t just go right ahead and join them.
Through the glass and slatted blinds is Nico, seated not on the bed but in the armchair reserved for guests with the sweetest little thing I’ve ever seen in his lap. Her head rests against his chest as she looks down at the pages of a story book, enraptured by whatever it is she sees there.
I see her point to one of the pictures on the page, her finger barely visible as it pokes out of the end of her cast. She looks up at him through a curtain of silky black hair to ask a question. I see him answer, and though I can’t hear what he says I can hear her giggle in response. His lips pull into a small, affectionate smile and the sigh that leaves my lips matches those around me.
“That’s your boyfriend, right?”
I look to the nurse standing beside me, blatantly obvious in her admiration of Nico as she leans both elbows back against the desk.
I feel my chest puff up ever so slightly. “Yeah, it is.”
“What’s your secret?”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “Perhaps my raw animal magnetism?”
She stares at me without blinking. “No, seriously.”
I feel my chest return to normal size. I adjust my glasses –having been in too much of a rush to battle with contacts this morning– and lift my chin. “I’m cute and a good cook, now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to say hello to my boyfriend.”
I knock on the glass before opening the door, my head peeking through first. “Hey there.”
“Hey, sorry for missing lunch.” He nods down at the little girl in his lap, currently eyeing me warily as if I’m about to take her favourite teddy bear away from her. “Seems I’m on paediatrics today.”
“I heard.” I take the seat beside him and offer a little wave to the small girl. “She’s a cutie-pie, what’s her name?”
“This,” he says, tilting his head to look at her, she looks up at him. “Is Choon-Hee.” He says something to her in Korean, the language sounding beautiful and exotic spoken in his smooth, deep voice.
She looks back at me and in a shy, barely audible voice she greets me. “Ann-yeong.”
“She says he–”
“Hello,” I finish for him. “I know that one.”
He gives me an affectionate smile. It was only a few weeks back that he’d found me with a translation book hidden amongst my other text books, the cheap kind you’d find in an airport bookstore. He’d chastised me for attempting to learn a new language when I should be focussing on upcoming exams, but it was clear that he was secretly pleased, maybe even flattered.
“I have something for you.” I pull the cellophane-wrapped blueberry muffin I bought from the canteen out my pocket and place it on the small table next to him which is currently covered in half-open story books. “When I heard where you were I figured you wouldn’t be able to get away.”
“‘When you heard?’”
“Taryn.” I explain.
He frowns. “I haven’t seen her today.”
“No, but…” I reach into my other pocket and pull out his cell. “She found this on fourth and thought I might be the best person to return it.”
“Ah,” he smiles in understanding, taking the phone. “I was worried I’d lost it, thanks.”
“Hmm. Nice wallpaper by the way.” I say, my lips pressed together as I narrow my eyes at him.
He laughs softly, not even a little remorseful. He presses the home button and shows Choon-Hee, saying something too complicated for me to understand. She touches the screen, and when she next glances at me it’s still a shy look, but a little less wary.
Nico laughs softly. “She says you look like a bunny rabbit.”
I feel my face crumple into something adoring. “I do?”
He nods. “She thinks you look like the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.” He nods to one of the books laid open beside them. “Because you have ‘bunny teeth’ and because of your glasses.”
I can’t help the smile that splits across my face. “I guess all I need is a pocket watch.” I place the tips of my fingers behind my glasses, making them jump on the bridge of my nose. The peal of giggles that erupts from her is both surprising and one of the sweetest sounds I’ve ever heard. Appreciative laughter even drifts through from the nurses’ station.
“I think you have a fan.”
“Well, we clearly have a lot in common. I mean look at our taste in men.”
He snorts, his hand stroking gently over her hair, I don’t think he’s even aware he’s doing it. “She was scared, alone and in pain. Couldn’t understand a word anyone was saying…” he shrugs. “She looked up and saw someone who looked like her.” He gives me a sad smile. “Hasn’t let go of me since.”
“I can certainly understand that impulse.”
He gives me a look filled with warmth. “How’s your day been?”
“Uneventful, actually.”
He nods. “It’s been a quiet day, luckily. Linc was more than happy to let me go for the afternoon.” He frowns. “Not sure how to feel about that.”
“She cries whenever someone tries to take her from you?”
He nods, his throat bobbing as he swallows.
“Given that it’s a quiet day and that you seem to be the only source of comfort right now for a scared toddler, I wouldn’t read too much into it.”
He tilts his head in acknowledgment. “Wise as always.”
“So what’s her story?”
He lets out a deep sigh, turning a page for her when she struggles to do so. “We think she might be illegal – god I hate that term – and that she got separated from whoever she was travelling with. We’re waiting on Child Protective Services.”
I glance at my watch. “They’re taking their time.”
He lifts a shoulder in a small shrug. “They need someone from CPS who can either speak Korean, or an interpreter to accompany them.” He frowns slightly. “It feels kind of weird to realise I’m the only one in this hospital who speaks Korean.”
“I’m working on changing that.” I say with a wink, and he gives me a soft smile in response. “Everything will be ok,” I say in an attempt to reassure him.
He lets out an impossibly sad sigh. “She’s going to wind up in care, I just know it.”
“There’s nothing we can really do about that.” I offer gently, touched by how much affected he is.
“She’d be safer here.” He says quietly, gently resting his chin on top of her head. She doesn’t even look up.
“As in here at the hospital, or…here with you?”
He doesn’t say anything, just looks at me. “Nico…” I say softly. “You’re getting attached.”
He closes his eyes for a second. “I know.”
“What’s the one thing we’re constantly told not to do when we’re trained?”
“I know,” he repeats. “It’s just difficult to not get attached when the patient literally attaches herself to you.”
I let out a small, breathy laugh and lean forward to squeeze his knee. “You and that big heart of yours.”
“She reminds me so much of my little sister, Levi.”
“For all we know, she could have a little sister she’s missing right now. Let CPS do their job when they get here, they’re her best chance at locating any family she might have.”
He nods. “You’re right. I know you’re right.” He lets out a heaving breath. “God I have to pee.”
I grin. “You think she might be ok sitting with me for a few minutes while you go pee and eat a muffin?”
“I don’t know, we could try?” He tilts his head down to catch her eye, speaking softly to her. He begins to lift her but she instantly starts to whimper, even letting the book slide from her lap as she tries to cling to him.
I give him a sad smile, but he tries again, continuing to speak softly to her in that gorgeous, gentle tone of his. He gives me a quick look. “Do the glasses thing again.”
I tip the back of the glasses so that they bounce on the bridge of my nose. I even give my best bunny teeth smile and twitch my nose. They both laugh at me. To my delight, she eventually allows him to gently slide her from his lap and with his hand against her back she walks towards me. Big, gorgeous brown eyes half-hidden by a sheath of black hair stare up at me, and she turns, holding her arms up so that Nico can lift her and settle her on my lap.
“What a good girl.” I say pointlessly. “You explained that I can’t understand her, right?”
Nico stirs from the slightly dreamy look on his face with a minute shake to his head and nods. “I told her that you only speak bunny, and that I’d be back in just a minute anyway.”
I laugh softly, bouncing her gently on my knee. Nico purposefully hands me the Alice in Wonderland book and she’s already turning the pages. His finger brushes her cheek and his hand squeezes my shoulder. “I’ll be just a minute.”
“We’ll be fine.” I reassure him.
He heads to the door but then pauses before coming back and snagging up his muffin to take with him.
I know she can’t understand me, but we end up chatting nonsensically to each other anyway, no idea what the other is saying as we point to the pictures in her book. That’s what Nico comes back to, though to begin with we’re so engrossed we don’t even notice him.
I glance up and do a quick double-take. “Hey, that was quick.”
As soon as Choon-Hee sees Nico she’s sliding from my lap, holding her arms out to him and I think we both weaken a little when we hear her barely audible “Nico.”
He smiles sadly and crouches, lifting her gently into his arms. He murmurs softly to her in words I can’t yet follow, swaying her carefully in his arms. She rests her head under his chin, the fingers poking out of her cast reaching to toy with the pens peeking out of his pocket.
He reclines in the chair and looks over at me. I’m sitting here, just smitten as all hell, left foot resting against my right knee, elbow on the arm rest and chin sitting comfortably on my fist, taking in this beautiful man.
He snorts. “You look like those guys out there.”
“If I had ovaries they’d have burst by now.”
“Stop.” He says, and it still surprises me how this usually cocky guy can become so bashful at the slightest compliment. “I’m going to have to go soon. Lunch’s nearly over.”
He gives me a sad smile. “Shame,” he glances down at Choon-Hee. “Listen, our plans for tonight…?”
I wave him off. “Don’t even.” I lift my chin at the little girl who’s looking drowsier by the second in his arms. “Way more important.”
“Thanks, I mean child services may be here before then, so…”
“Are you really going to feel like going out after this?”
He gives me an almost guilty look. “Probably not.”
I lean forwards, my elbows resting on my knees. “How’s this? If child services are here in time then we go back to yours, I’ll cook, and we’ll get an early night. If they’re not here in time, then I’ll go grab takeout when my shift is over and bring it back here.” I say, pointing to the floor.
“That sounds kind of perfect.”
I stand, pushing up off my knees with a sigh. Without turning towards the glass I gesture towards the nurses’ station. “I’m not going to kiss you because the jealous mob will probably boo and hiss at me.”
He snorts. “Are they still staring?”
“You’re a seriously gorgeous man cuddling an adorable little girl, so yes, Nico, they’re starting.” I say with a soft laugh. “Like I said, ovaries exploding.”
He rolls his eyes.
“I’m assuming they were all swooning over me when I was holding her too, right?” I say ask, pointing a thumb over my shoulder towards the nurses’ station and already knowing the answer.
He presses his lips together to hide his grin. “Totally. I had to barricade the door.”
I nod my head, straightening my pants by the waistband. “Cool, cool, I thought so.”
He laughs and I grin at him. “Alright, I’ll see you later. Text me if you need anything.”
“I will, bunny.”
I pause at the door. “I’m vetoing that nickname right now, mister.” I say with an assertive point of the finger. “Later.”
“Later,” he smirks.
Later became much, much later. At the end of my shift I checked in on paediatrics, knocking quietly on the glass to see Nico turn tired looking eyes towards me. His apologetic smile was all the confirmation I needed, that and one look at the sleeping child in his arms.
I open the door just a crack. “Give me thirty minutes and I’ll be back here with food, anything you fancy in particular?”
“Literally anything.” I nod and I’m closing the door when he calls me back. “Levi…”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll make it up to you – missing our date tonight, I mean.”
I shake my head at him. “There’s nothing to make up for, it’s still a date, just with exceptionally cute company.”
“You are kind of cute.”
“I meant the kid you shameless flirt.” I lay my palm against the wall. “I’ll be back soon.”
I’m as quick as possible; literally ducking into the very first takeout place I find which happens to be a Thai restaurant around the corner from the hospital. Still, I’m gone a good half an hour after queuing and by the time I’m heading back into the hospital, most of the doctors and nurses on similar shifts to me are on their way out.
I grumble when I step into an exceptionally busy elevator, but I’m too tired to take the stairs so what the hell, I’m stinking out the cramped space with Thai food.
“Who has food? Someone has food and it smells amazing.”
I hold up a hand, not even bothering to turn around. “Sorry, that’s me.”
“You moonlighting as a delivery guy now, Schmitt?”
“Something like that.” I answer, ignoring the sarcastic tone.
“That’s good, a backup plan for if the exams don’t go your way, or if you drop anything else inside a patient.” Someone laughs. “You on Postmates yet?”
I feel heat touch my cheeks but resolutely stare forwards, watching the floors tick by at an agonisingly slow pace. “Yes, ha ha. Hilarious.” Thankfully the doors open and half the elevator seems to empty out.
“Leave the poor guy alone, gotta fill the lonely nights somehow, hey Schmitt?”
It’s amazing that no matter how far I come or how much I achieve, I can still feel like I’m back in high school. “Actually I’m taking food to my date, to my boyfriend, thank you very much.” I wanted to sound suave but I just come out sounding snippy. Crap.
“When you say boyfriend, is this someone the rest of us can see, or…?”
More laughter.
“Hey, no,” someone else behind me pipes up. “He’s dating that hot Asian surgeon on Ortho.”
“Wholly crap, talk about aiming high, Schmitt.”
“You know what?” I snap back, only deigning to turn my head slightly to the side to address my apparent high school bullies who have followed me into this elevator. “Nico – that’s Doctor Kim to you – is my boyfriend. And you may think he’s hot but you’ve actually got no idea because you’ll never get to see him naked...” I point my thumb at myself. “Like I do, on the regular!”
“Oh my god, you short-circuited him.”
“That demigod of a man is my man. That’s right, glasses, blood bank. And trust me when I say I keep him good and satisfied.”
Someone wolf whistles but I’m on a roll and ignore them.
“And not only is the sex phenomenal but we’ve got the romantic crap down to a fine. Art. I mean cuddling and cooking and inside jokes and when we sleep? He makes like this little –this little cubby, nook thing in his arm…” I bow my arm and make a circular motion with my other, the takeout bag swinging around. “…for me to cuddle up in.”
“Dude. I’m sorry, ok? Didn’t mean to make you snap.”
“And you can stow your sarcasm because we’re the real deal, and for that matter you can shove your hate too because he’s the love of me freakin’ life and we’re gonna get married and buy a house and get a cat and a dog and have ten or twelve babies and we’ll have a mailbox that says ‘Schmitt-Kim’ on it and then you can mail me your dumb commentary, how’s that?!”
….I may, or may not have a little pent up aggression from all the teasing.
Someone from the back of the elevator clears their throat and I feel everyone around me suddenly freeze.
“Oh my god.” Someone whispers, and I feel a spike of dread drive through me.
Someone comes to stand next to me, a nurse I recognise from haematology; he rests his hand on my shoulder. “Dude.” Is all he says as he faces forwards beside me. Going by his voice, he was the one teasing me.
I slowly close my eyes. “Please…” I quickly wet my lower lip. “Please tell me that’s not who I think it is?”
“I just want to take this opportunity to apologise for being a dick to you. You actually seem like an ok guy and I totally didn’t mean to prompt that little physiological breakdown just now.” He squeezes my shoulder. “Pretty sure you’re going to be single by the time you step out of this elevator. My bad.”
“Oh god,” I whisper. “It’s so bad; it’s so, so bad…”
His hand slides off my shoulder and he nods. “Yeah, yeah it’s pretty bad.”
The elevator doors ding and open and suddenly there’s an exodus of the remaining people eager to get off and escape the second-hand embarrassment. I stand there for a second, unable to move or breathe for what feels like the longest time.
“I–I think I’ll take the stairs...”
“Not so fast.” I feel someone – Nico grab the back of my shirt and pull me back. The elevator doors close and it feels oddly final, like an impending doom.
He pulls me back a few steps until he’s leaning against the wall and I’m leaning against him, his arm hooking around my middle, holding me there.
“Uh,” I swallow hard. “Any chance you blacked out and missed the last thirty seconds of that conversation?”
“Nope, sorry. Completely conscious for the entire thing.”
“I’d very much like to disappear please.”
“That’s not happening either. And by the way I was about to step in and tell that nurse to shut his pie hole but then you…you kind of…”
“Had an episode?”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
I nod.
“So…” he says, and I brace myself.
He rests his chin on my shoulder and reaches for the takeout bag, opening it up and peering over my shoulder into it. “What’re we eating?”
“…Huh?” I say eloquently after a few moments.
“I said what are we – oh awesome, you got Thai.”
“Are we…I’m sorry did I just blackout there? I feel like I just missed a whole chunk of conversation.”
“Can you get the button? Ground floor, let’s go home.”
I step forwards and hit the button then snap my head back around, actually looking him in the eye. “Wait, does that mean CPS arrived?”
He gives me a sad smile and nods. “They collected Choon-Hee, and they found her mom.”
I step towards him and my hands grip his waist. “That’s great.”
He continues to lean against the wall and presses his lips into a tight smile, nodding as looks at the ground.
“Hey,” I say gently, cupping his neck so my thumbs brush over his cheeks. “That is a good thing.”
He nods again. “I know, I just hate that I don’t get to know what happens to them.”
“She’s with her mother, that’s all that matters.”
“Yeah. I just…” He trails off with a heavy sigh.
“You got attached.”
“So attached.” He laughs humourlessly.
“Baby,” I murmur. My shoulders hunching slightly as I touch my fingertips beneath his chin and press my lips to his. “It’ll be ok, I’ve got you.”
“Because I’m ‘the love of your life?’”
“God,” I break the kiss with a jolt and a shudder, my eyes squeezing shut. “I almost forgot. Please just…just forget I said any of that. If you care about me at all just wipe it from your memory.”
He moves past me and hits the button that brings the elevator to a stop, just before we reach the ground floor. He turns back to me with purpose and crowds me up against the wall. “Look at me.”
His thumb tilts my chin up, giving me no choice.
“One? I’m allergic to cat hair, so it’s a no go with the cats but I’m down with getting a dog.”
“O-ok?”
“Two? The house, the mailbox, rings…that’s nothing I haven’t already though about, so relax, before you have an aneurysm.”
I take a shaky breath, blinking rapidly and adjusting my glasses slightly as a hesitant smile pulls at my lips. “Ok,” I repeat in a whisper.
“And three – this is the big one, Levi…”
“Go on…”
“I will shave my head, gain three hundred pounds and call myself Susan before we have ten goddamn kids. One, maybe two, max.”
I let out a breathless laugh and he tilts his head to the side and grins at me. He shakes his head. “We can’t let them outnumber us, Levi. That’s how they win.”
I shake my head, blown away by this man. “I love you, you know that? I just…I really love you.”
“I know,” he says softly. “I love you too.” He says it like t’s the simplest thing in the world, and maybe it is. He leans down and presses a lingering kiss to my lips. “All these things, the house, kids, all of it…it’s all there, waiting for us in the future, but for now how about we go home and eat Thai food? It’s been a long day.”
I tilt my head up, returning the simple kiss, my hand brushing his cheek before I step around him and press the button which gets the elevator moving again.
“That sounds good to me.” The doors open, and seeing as we’re laying everything on the line today I figure why not go for broke? “But I should probably move in with you all the same, maybe this weekend.”
He does a quick double-take, his lips pulling up at one corner. “That seems like the perfect middle ground.”
He takes my hand in his and leads me to the hospital entrance. “Let’s go home.”