Archive of Our Own

Trinity has uttered her sixth apology to Mel by the time they reach the mall.

And six is accurate because Mel started counting from the first one, when she’d almost drove the car onto the sidewalk when they’d left their shift together. Somehow Trinity didn’t immediately regret her choice of chauffeur and instead snorted, made a confusing comment about how she wished Langdon had been standing there (which would mean Mel would have run him over?), and then apologized again.

Only two apologies in, and she’s already said more of them than Mel’s ever heard from her in their two years working together. Perhaps she was making up for all—some of the times she should have, or maybe her fearless friend was actually that embarrassed about the situation at hand.

“You don’t have to be so defensive,” Mel tells her as they enter through the automatic doors. “I’ve gone to the optometrist at least once a year since I’ve been nine.”

“Yes, well, I’m not going to the optometrist for an eye appointment, am I?” Trinity growls.

Mel hums—she’s still trying to figure out Trinity’s humor, and thought that had been a good one. “I was joking.”

“I know that,” she scoffs and walks past her fast enough that Mel struggles to keep up.

She didn’t know the whole story, but she’d been putting the pieces together in her mind on the car ride over. Trinity needed a ride to the mall to get her phone back from someone because she’d left her car somewhere overnight. Whitaker was supposed to drive her, judging by Trinity’s complaint of what a useless Fuckleberry he was—“Lovingly useless!” she’d clarified at Mel’s horrified expression—but then he’d been pulled into a trauma right as their shift was supposed to end. And, with the mall closing in an hour, Trinity could not afford to wait.

The someone who had her phone was an optometrist at the eye glass store on the top level of the mall. Why this mysterious eye doctor had it, Mel could not figure out, as Trinity did not seem interested in explaining, but she knew it involved a night out at a bar.

As they stepped onto the escalator, Mel tries for another piece the puzzle: “Visionworks closed at seven.”

“My person’s probably still there,” Trinity grumbles. “Have to try at least.”

Her person. Mel is wondering if that’s another one of Trinity’s terms of endearment, like Fuckleberry, when they reach the top of the escalator, and a clothing store pops into view.

Pop is a great verb for it, Mel thinks, as it’s actually impossible to ignore. The mannequins posed in the display window are dressed in vibrant colors, surrounded by an array of summer clothing, including shorts, tank tops, and other warm-weather styles.But it’s the dress that catches Mel’s eye.

She thinks Trinity might finally be clueing her into the name of her mystery phone-holder—something about someone moving back from Maine?—but she no longer hears her.

Mel has never been big into fashion, always choosing comfort over style, but the red sundress in the window is beautiful. Its short sleeves and skirt are edged in scallops, and a pink bow cinches across the waist. By all accounts, it’s nothing fancy, or even that unique, but Mel... Mel wants it. She’s never had this kind of reaction to clothing before.

“Melanoma!” Trinity snaps her fingers in front of Mel’s face. “You with me?”

Mel tears her eyes away. Because she’s not here to shop. She’s here to help a friend. With… something.

“Yeah,” she says. “Sorry. Do you think that dress is pretty?”

“Totally,” Trinity says dryly, not even looking at it as she walks away. “Maybe your boyfriend will buy it for you.”

Mel laughs—this is a joke she recognizes. “I don’t have a boyfriend!”

Trinity peers back at her over her shoulder with a brow raised high. “Okay, your sneaky link then, whatever he’s called.”

“Sneaky… link? Like a hyperlink?” Mel lowers her voice. “Are you talking about the dark web?”

Trinity stops and gives her a wild look of disbelief. “No—no, I’m not talking about the fucking dark web. I’m talking about whatever you got going on with Langdon.”

Mel feels like someone’s punched her in the gut. Her voice comes out in a panicked squeak, “What?”

“Listen, I do not approve, but it’s your business. As your friend, though, I feel like I should warn you. People are starting to catch on. Crash saw you two in his car last week—”

“He was giving me a ride home!” Mel squeals. Every inch of her skin must be blooming crimson. She knew that car ride home had been a bigger deal than he’d let on! She knew it from the moment he offered that there was something off about it, that she wasn’t supposed to be in his car, or anywhere near him outside of the PTMC, but she could never explain why. Apparently it’s because people will think they’re—they’re—what? Together? Dating? Oh my God—

“Sure,” Trinity says, already turning away. “Like I said, your business. Just you guys are getting sloppy, so be careful.”

“I’m not…” Mel stammers as she scurries after her. “Dr. Langdon and I are not… involved.” She hates how gross the word sounds, how it sounds like she’s reciting a daytime soap opera.

“Your business,” Trinity repeats, still not sounding convinced while Mel is fairly sure she’s about to have a panic attack. “Just like this little trip is my business. Right?”

Mel doesn’t know what to say because a person about to spontaneously combust would not be focused on words. People are making up rumors about her and Dr. Langdon? Behind her back? Why couldn’t people refuse to listen to rumors like her? Why is everyone so desperate to find the flaw in everyone else? She would never, ever, ever do anything like that with Dr. Langdon! He—he’s not even been divorced seventy-three days! And yes, seventy-three is an accurate number because she’s been counting since that ring first disappeared—

No.

Mel gives her nose a sharp flick with her finger, and her mind clears instantly.

“Well, as your friend,” she counters, “I would hope you’d believe me if I said it was just a ride home.”

“Then you better believe me when I say I’m only here to pick up my phone from a friend.”

Mel grits her teeth. It’s not a fair deal, not when she is very much telling the truth, and she can tell Trinity isn’t, but whatever. She has the strange impulse to open up the latest PTMC group chat and tell everyone that she and Dr. Langdon are just friends, and how disappointed she is in all of them them for so easily believing something so insane. He doesn’t even act like a boyfriend, or a… what did Trinity call it? A sneaky lynx? What a weird expression. She guesses he does prowl around sometimes when he’s frustrated with Robby, and then he starts stretching the cords in his muscles like a cat while he’s charting, and—

She flicks her nose again.

Trinity has basically deserted her at this point, and she rushes to catch up.

Visionworks is not far from the top of the escalator, and just as Mel predicted, most of the lights are all turned off inside the store. But Trinity approaches the door and knocks anyways, like this is normal, and Mel is pleasantly surprised by the bespectacled woman with dark, blunt bangs who answers.

She looks older than either of them, judging by the lines next to her frown. Younger, though, by the roll of her eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“My phone,” Trinity demands, holding out her palm like it’s obvious. The mystery woman scoffs at it.

“I don’t have your phone on me. It’s at—” she pauses as she meets Mel’s eyes. “Who’s this?”

“Don’t worry about her,” Trinity says quickly. A flash of anger crosses the woman’s face. Mel immediately wants to shrink backwards or even disappear, but before she can concoct a plan to achieve either of those things, Trinity spins to her. “Hey. Um. Can you—can you do me a favor, and just… give me a second?”

Mel blinks. “What?”

Trinity runs a hand over her face, and who she assumes is the optometrist crosses her arms behind her, still visibly angry.

“Maybe go back to that store you saw? I just—I need to talk to… um…”

“Sam,” the woman supplies acidly, and Trinity’s whole face reddens.

Mel is still missing so many pieces of the puzzle, but she can recognize when her company is not appreciated. “Oh! Um, yes, I’ll go—back to that store.”

And then she does something even she deems to be very weird because she’s nervous and bows before taking her leave.

The humiliation flooding through her has her scurrying back towards the escalator until she’s in front of the dress again. She peers up at it, taking a deep breath, pretending the last ten minutes have been fine and lovely and not overwhelming and horrifying when she hears her name.

“Mel?”

She spins, and there, like something out of a horror movie, like just speaking his name has summoned him into existence like an eldritch entity, is Dr. Langdon.

In the flesh, her mind adds.

Her mouth stops working as she tries to greet him because it really feels like he shouldn’t be here, the same way it felt like she shouldn’t have been in his car last week. It’s the mall, she reasons. Nobody goes to the mall anymore! Of course, never mind that she’s here, too, because that's different.

“What are you doing here?” is what she says when her brain comes back online, and she takes a moment to drink in the sight of what he wears on his day off. The silly “Hi Hungry, I’m Dad” printed across his blue t-shirt would normally give her a giggle fit, along with his unkempt dark hair sprawled in every direction, but nothing feels funny right now. Except maybe her stomach.

She’s gaping, she knows it, and she reconsiders her question when she sees him lightly gesture towards the Scrubs & Beyond shopping bag in his left hand.

“Oh, yes, right,” she babbles, and he smiles a little goofily. Less restricted and wider, she thinks, than any of the ones he gives her at the hospital. “Um, hello! Sorry, that was rude.”

“Hey,” he says, stopping right in front of her and glances around. “You here… by yourself?”

He sounds concerned, and that is mortifying. Which is stupid because, well, he also appears to be alone.

“No,” she replies quickly. “I mean, kind of. Trin—Dr. Santos is… running an errand, and I’m…” she flicks her eyes back to the display window. “Window shopping.”

“Window shopping,” he repeats, following her gaze to the dress.

“I don’t need to buy anything,” she explains. "I'm just browsing."

He tilts his head, and his eyes are bluer than she cares to describe, so she fixes her stare back at the dress.

“Not even gonna try it on?” he asks.

Mel honestly doesn’t even know what they’re talking about because she still can’t believe he’s even standing in front of her. “What?”

“The dress you keep looking at.” He flicks his chin towards it. Of course he noticed. Well, she isn’t exactly being subtle, and he does seem to pick up on all of the non-subtle things she does, like the time she tried to hide the fact she was reading his chart over his shoulder at work. And then he’d asked, “Something got your attention?” in an almost… alluring kind of voice, and she’d just shaken her head and scampered away.

She does not need to be thinking about that right now. She flicks her nose absentmindedly.

“Oh! Um, no, I don’t need it. I have nowhere to wear something like that.” She frowns, realizing how sad and pathetic it sounds. “I just mean, I’m so busy and tired on my days off from work, so, you know, I don’t have the time. I’d rather just wear pajamas.”

She does not need to be telling Langdon about her pajamas. He did not ask. He would never ask!

“You have time now,” he offers.

It might be the strangest conversation they’ve ever had. She already feels awkward enough talking to him about Becca sometimes; he doesn’t need to hear about her shopping choices. That’s more in line for a boyfriend type of job, and she definitely doesn’t want that. So, perhaps just to escape him, she gives him a firm nod.

“You’re right, Dr. Langdon. I will go try on the dress.”

He winces. “You don’t—Mel, you don’t have to call me that right now.”

She decides to ignore that, because she doesn’t have time to unpack and choose what else she should call him that won’t make her start dry heaving on the spot.

“Well, it was nice running into you—seeing you. Talking and such. I’ll see you. Again. Next time! At work!”

Not her best. Not even close to her best.

His mouth opens, but she darts into the store before he says anything else. Her heart is pounding—just aches and aches for whatever reason, and it’s made even worse when she glances back out of the store to see him still standing there watching her. She wants to tell him to go away, even if it doesn’t make any sense because she doesn’t own the mall. He can be here, even if it feels wrong that he is.

Instead she snaps her head around the racks of clothing, searching for any sign of the red dress in the window. Because… well, she may as well. She can’t go back out there and talk to him. She might end up asking him about those rumors at work, and she will not survive whatever disgusted look he’ll get at the idea of being tied to someone like her.

Unfortunately the dress is nowhere to be found. The maze of clothes is overwhelming, and while she comes across a lot of other pretty dresses, none of them give her even close to the same mesmerized feeling as the dress in the window. She takes another lap through the store, hoping to run into an employee, but there appears to be only one sales associate working at the moment. A woman with a lanyard draped over her neck is folding a pair of jeans near the register.

Mel clears her throat as she approaches. “Excuse me.”

“How can I help you?” The woman doesn’t even look up, but it’s pretty standard social interaction for Mel, so it doesn’t bother her too much.

“The red dress in the window,” she says, “Where—”

She cuts her off with a frustrated sigh. “All out.” And then, she adds in a mutter under her breath, “I knew I forgot to change out that mannequin…”

Mel tries not to show her disappointment. “Oh, okay. Um, thank you.”

She’s not sure what she’s thanking her for actually, when she's received nothing, but it feels like the polite thing to do. She had stupidly been kind of excited about trying on the dress, so she leaves the store with her shoulders drooping, and—

Langdon is still standing there. Heat floods her cheeks.

“That was quick,” he says.

She keeps blinking at him, now even more lost regarding his presence in the mall, because he literally has no other reason to still be here except to wait for her. Waiting for her! On his day off! The absolute absurdity!

“They don’t have any in stock,” she says.

His big brows furrow, casting a shadow over his eyes. She knows this annoyed expression of his, but she’s not sure why he would be irritated. She’s not lying to him or anything.

“But there’s one in the window," he replies.

Okay, he’s not wrong, but…

“Well, yes, but they probably need it to stay there and—”

“Can’t they let you try on that one?”

“I didn’t… ask.”

He waits, and she realizes he’s probably wanting her to go in and do just that, but she shakes her head.

“Oh no, it’s not that big of a deal. I don’t want to inconvenience—“

“—someone at their job,” he finishes for her with a huff, and then he strides past her. “C’mon.”

When she realizes he’s walking inside the store, she’s extra mortified and grabs his arm before she can stop herself. It does nothing to deter him, though, and he’s just so strong that he barrels forward into the store with the Scrubs & Beyond bag still swinging from his arm.

She’s still attached to him, mystified by how he doesn’t seem to care as he heads towards the register.

“Excuse me,” he says, “Any way she can try on that red dress in the window up front?”

The woman blinks at him, and then back at Mel, who is maybe redder than the dress itself by now. She doesn’t need Dr. Langdon to be doing this for her—she looks like a child who ran and told an adult to do something for her, which is not the case at all, and she wants to explain it, but then the woman sighs the same way she did earlier.

“Sure, whatever,” she says, abandoning the pile of jeans at the register and ambling towards the front.

Mel catches Langdon’s proud smile, and she realizes she still hasn’t let go of his arm, so she finally drops it.

“You—you didn’t need to…” she sputters, avoiding his face. “I mean, I probably won’t even get it if it fits. So this is a waste of her time and yours—”

“Mel.”

She swallows, meets his eyes, feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room by how close he ducks his face to hers.

“It’s not a waste of time,” he says. “She’s doing her job. And I’m…”

He trails off, and her heart races as she tries to predict what he might say.

“I’m happy to help,” he says simply, grinning again, and she just knows she hasn’t blushed this hard in years. And as the observant doctor he is, he has to notice, and if he notices, he’s going to start thinking she’s got a crush on him or something, and that’s—that’s not allowed, so—

She flicks her nose, and he frowns at her.

“Here you go,” the sales associate grumbles with the dress folded over her arm. “It’s an extra small.”

Mel makes a face. It’s too small. It’s absolutely been a waste of time, no matter what Langdon says.

But she doesn’t want that to be the case, because then she’ll feel twice as awful, so she takes it in her hands anyway. She’ll just pretend to try it on.

“Dressing room’s in the back,” the sales associate says monotonously, already leaving them, and Mel holds the dress out in front of her.

The more she looks at it and holds it against her body... she thinks it actually might fit after all. A small smile plays across her face, and then she shyly looks up at Langdon, who’s been watching her with a similar expression.

Like she’s the dress in the display window. It tugs something low in her stomach.

“Thank you,” she says. Somehow.

“You’re welcome,” he replies, voice raspy, and she withholds a gulp at how it seems to vibrate between her ears.

She steps quickly back towards the dressing rooms, swinging open the first available door and shutting it behind her. Her back hits the door as she allows herself to breathe and shut her eyes. What is happening?

“Mel?”

Oh God, he followed her back here. Why won’t we just go away?

Wait, she hasn’t said goodbye. Maybe that’s what he needs.

“In here,” she says, voice scratchy with nerves. “Um, but you don’t need to stay. I’m sure Santos will be here soon, so.”

There’s a pause.

“I know,” he says. “But I’m actually kinda invested at this point.”

“About the… dress?”

“Yeah,” he says, but there’s something off about his voice she can’t figure out. Less confident perhaps.

“O… kay,” she says, feeling like her skin is jumping off her bones by how hard her pulse throbs. It seems to be… traveling south, and she’s mortified all over again. Splotches of red are covering her face in the reflection of the dressing room mirror and beginning to crawl down her neck. How much of it had he seen? What implications were going on in his mind?

And now—oh my God, now he was waiting outside her door for her to change into a dress?

She grinds her teeth together hard.

Not a boyfriend. Never a boyfriend.

Nose. Flick.

Her hands are shaking as she removes her scrub pants and then her top. Unfortunately her sports bra is not going to work well with the dress, especially if it might be too small, so she takes a hefty inhale of dry air before removing that, too. She refuses to look at the mirror now, to see just how far her blush has traveled, and then shimmies the dress past her shoulders.

It… fits.

She is stunned into a brief paralysis. How is this possible? She gives her body an awkward twist, to really test it, but it still doesn’t feel too tight. She chances a look in the mirror, and even she can’t help but gawk at herself.

She looks so pretty, actually.

She can’t stop herself from twirling, almost cackling like a mad woman as she does, and then her hands breathe a life of their own as they comb through her braid, letting her hair fall down over her shoulders. She’s not sure she’s ever felt so… so good. She can’t stop smiling, so enraptured by the Mel in the mirror, that she startles at the male voice she’d somehow forgotten about on the other side.

“You know,” Langdon says, “I’m actually glad I ran into you. I didn’t get a chance to ask you about that appendectomy yesterday. Did that—”

She cracks open the door, and he stops talking. His jaw slackens, and she pries the door open a little more, concerned.

“Do you mean the man with the eye patch?” She asks. “Because yes, it wasn't just for show, he was missing an eye after all—”

“You look—” he interrupts then pauses just as abruptly with his eyes wide, like he’s surprised himself. “I—uh—nice dress.”

She spins a little with a soft giggle. “I thought so, too!” She gasps. “Oh my gosh, it has pockets!” As she says it, she shoves her hands into them with another twirl.

He just stares for a moment before clearing his throat. “That’s… great!”

“So it looks okay?”

He nods, but stays silent, and she eyes him a little suspiciously.

“Okay, what’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing!” He blurts back. “Really, nothing. You should—you should buy it. Please buy it.” Is he red now? “If you like it, I mean.”

A strange pulse flows through the air now as she looks him over. Does he always look at her like this? No, she would remember, because… because it’s very different than how he usually does. He is just outright gawking at her, and he looks like he’s struggling to swallow a lump in his throat that keeps bobbing back up. If he looked at her like this at work, she would maybe understand why Trinity said what she said. Because it does look an awful lot like he... like he wants to step closer.

She glances at the floor and counts the maybe two steps between them.

It wouldn’t take much.

She could meet him halfway, easily.

“I do like it,” she says softly, grabbing for the price tag to give her hands something to do. She reads the numbers, but they all blur together, because she can still see his shoes standing so close to her feet.

She watches as his foot adjusts, probably just to shift his weight, but the movement startles her so much that she jolts back into the dressing room and slams the door in his face.

“Sorry,” she squeaks, “The… wind.”

There's no wnd indoors. What is she even saying?

“I mean, the air conditioning probably… caught it.”

He mumbles something she can’t hear. She needs to—she needs to take the dress off, it’s too dangerous. Feeling pretty is dangerous. Without putting too much thought into it, and completely forgetting to unzip it, she lifts the dress up, just past her elbows when…

When it stops.

She tugs on it, a bit more firmly, but it doesn’t budge. Oh no. This can’t be happening.

She tries twisting the dress around, but all of her squirming has compressed it against her arms. Her hands uselessly try to pry the sleeves from her skin, but they’re also too tight. And if she pulls any harder, it’s going to rip.

“Oh no,” she says, this time aloud.

“You okay?” Langdon asks from the other side of the door, and this officially cannot be happening.

“Yes,” she lies, shimmying like she has ants in her pants to see if the dress will loosen that way, but it doesn’t, of course. “Um, actually, I think I’m stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“The dress is stuck,” she admits. "On me."

“Oh,” he says after a moment. “Want me to go get the associate to help?”

“No!” She shouts. “Please no, we’ve bothered her enough—”

“We’ve really not, Mel, I’m sure she can—”

“I’ll wait for Santos.” God, but she can’t even reach her phone like this to contact her, can she? “Actually, do you have her number?”

“Uh, yeah, I think so. I know I can get it from the PTMC app—”

“WAIT NO!” She yells, and she can imagine that she sounds insane, but she does not want Trinity to show up here and see Dr. Langdon hanging out with her in the dressing room area. If the rumors already existed, this would only add more fuel to the fire, and maybe one so big she couldn’t put out. “Don’t call her, please. I can—I can just wait!”

“I’m gonna go get the associate.”

“No! Please don’t, just... can… can maybe you help me?”

The question sounds like it’s been strangled out of her throat. Her pulse pounds in his silence, and she peeks under the door to watch his feet shift weight again.

“Sure,” he says, sounding not sure at all actually. “What—do you want me to come in or—?”

“Hold on!” she screeches and spins towards the mirror. While the top half of her body would be covered, he would still see her in her underwear, but they’re not boyfriend appropriate underwear. Well—he’s also not her boyfriend so no pair of her underwear would be! If only she could flick her nose, but it’s not possible with the crooked angle of her arms.

“Um—yes, you can, but… you’re gonna have to close your eyes.”

“How am I gonna help when—”

“You have to close your eyes!” she cuts him off sharply.

A beat.

“Wait, is it not just a bad zipper?”

“No,” she says, “It got stuck on my arms when I tried to pull it off.”

“Oh,” he says in a strange voice, and she hopes he isn’t picturing it. A half-naked image of herself does not belong in his brain. Does it?

No no no no no—

“Okay, yeah, I’ll… keep my eyes closed.”

“Promise!”

“Mel, I’m not gonna—Jesus, just trust me?”

She nibbles her bottom lip for a moment. She’s starting to sweat and kinda feels like she’s gonna pass out if she waits this out any longer. Would that be worse than chancing him seeing her underwear? Yes… right?

“Yes, just—come in. It’s… unlocked.”

Her stomach churns as the door handle turns, and, true to his word, he steps cautiously into the room with his eyes crammed shut. He fumbles to close the door behind him, and suddenly Mel is very, very aware of how small the room is with the two of them in it. Especially with how large he is, and how small she is. He takes up so much space, he has no choice but to be in her personal bubble. Their size difference is a lot for her brain to process.

“Uh, where are you?”

He reaches out with his hands, and she shuffles herself forward, trying to ignore the sparks leaping over her body as he clutches onto her shoulders.

“Okay, uh, do I just like, yank up or do you want me to try pulling it down?”

“Do whatever you want with me,” she says, and wishes she could slap a hand over her mouth at how inappropriate it sounds. She watches him breathe out a puff of air, how he somehow seems to cram his eyes shut harder. Mouths something to himself, too, that looks like Jesus, but she didn't think Langdon was a religious person.

She holds her breath as his hands grip the dress around her arms and begin to tug upwards. It’s a light tug, and Mel almost rolls her eyes, almost forgetting how close he is to her when she says, “Harder.”

He freezes. She freezes. It’s just a dressing room of two frozen people.

But then he adjusts his stance, and Mel feels his knee coming up between her thighs, way too close to her underwear, and she stumbles backwards to avoid it.

He curses. “If you don’t stay still, I can’t—”

“Sorry,” she squeaks, blood roaring between her ears as he pulls at the dress indeed harder, which drags her body into his. His fingers leave the top of her dress and shoot towards her spine and start pulling at the top of the dress there instead, and it—oh my god, it looks like, and slightly feels like she’s grinding against him. She peeks at the mirror at the image, and oh my God, she is going to have several dreams about this exact scenario in the near future, of him scrunching her body into his repeatedly--

“Almost got it,” he breathes in such a low voice against her ear that she gasps as he unzips her, and the fabric pools at her feet.

And now… now she’s just standing there in her underwear in front of her colleague. Yikes. Even though his eyes are still closed, she shields herself with her arms.

“Um, thank you. You can—you can leave now.”

“Right,” he says, sounding awkward, when Mel spies another pair of shoes under the door.

“What the fuck?”

The woman from the register.

Langdon’s eyes pop open at the same time as Mel shrinks back into the mirror. He looks at her—she wonders if she’s ever seen a pair of blue eyes as wide and busy as they look at her. She strangely doesn’t feel as embarrassed or shy as she thought she would, but she can’t think about the why of that right now when the woman is pounding on the door, and Mel…

Well, Mel shrieks.

Langdon spins around, just as the employee continues with, “I knew you two were fucking weird!” and the door rattles and swings open, colliding with his face.

“FUCK!” He yells, and Mel reaches for her scrubs to cover herself.

“We weren’t doing anything!” she tries to explain. “He was helping me, the dress got stuck!"

‘I don’t care, you have three seconds to get out of my store!”

Mel has never experienced so much embarrassment in one day in her life. She’s never been kicked out of anywhere before. She hurries to dress herself and then flies past Langdon on her way out of the store without saying bye.

He’s on her tail instantly, and when she looks back at him, she notices his lip is bleeding from where the door hit him. Oops.

“Mel! Wait up!”

She stops and tangles her fingers together before turning to face him.

“Hey, are you okay? Sorry about that. I know I promised, it was an accident.”

He’s seen you kind of naked, her brain tells her. And he’s still talking to you.

“You didn’t do anything,” she says, dying. “It’s fine. We’re doctors. You see boobs all the time, and so do I.”

He blanches. “Um. Okay. Yeah.”

“I just—I just need to find Santos and leave.”

He makes a face. “What about the dress?”

“Uh, not sure if you noticed, Dr. Langdon, but it didn’t fit.”

“Because you didn’t unzip the zipper when you took it off,” he points out. “I still think you should get it.”

Why is this the topic of discussion and not the fact that they were both kicked out of a clothing store? Or the naked thing?!

“I’m never going back there again,” she says.

He looks at her for a long moment, and then, almost in a rush, says, “But you looked so… pretty in it.”

Mel physically might actually pass out now, with how quickly her heart is racing. She doesn’t remember the last time someone other than Becca has complimented her physical appearance. She looked pretty? To someone actually pretty like Dr. Langdon? She… she almost runs right past him to go grab the dress again.

She’s about to thank him for it, but then his eyes widen at something behind her.

Mel hears Trinity’s cackle before she sees her.

“Now what do we have here?”

“Dr. Santos,” Langdon says dryly.

“Dr. Dipshit,” she says back, and then she’s smirking back at Mel.

The panic inside her flares. “We ran into each other!”

“Right, right, because what are the odds?” Trinity tsks at her, folding her arms with her foot tapping.

“It’s true,” Langdon says. “I was picking up some scrubs on my way to pick up my sister.”

“Your sister?” Mel asks, and Trinity simply tilts her head.

“Yeah, she just moved back from Maine. Still waiting for her car to be delivered here.” He gestures over their shoulder. “Working at Visionworks until she can open up her own—”

Maine? Where did Mel recently hear about Maine again?

Trinity is pale for some reason. “No. No. You… Sam,” she stutters out.

“How do you know my sister’s name?”

There’s a very long pause and Mel gasps as the puzzle pieces finally click together. “Oh my God, Trinity slept with your sister!”

“What?”

“We’re leaving. Now.” And then she yanks Mel away by the arm.

Mel winces, waving awkwardly at Langdon, whose jaw is still hanging somewhere around his knees.

Like most other days, Trinity and Langdon are avoiding each other at work, so it’s only Mel who picks up on it and understands the real reason.

Langdon sits in the break room with his face buried in his hands as she pulls his Red Bull from the fridge and sets it down in front of him.

“I didn’t even know she liked women,” he murmurs. “No one in my family does. Did? I don’t fucking know.”

“Is that… bad that she does?”

“No, it’s… it’s fine. Of course it’s fine.” He pries his hands away, staring at the Red Bull can. “But she just got divorced. From a man. Like, a month ago.”

She stares at him, and he waves at her.

“Go ahead and say it,” he grumbles.

“Say what?”

“I don’t know, some kind of joke about how my sister got a divorce the same year I did?”

Mel shrugs. “It seems like she needed to, if she likes women, and she was married to a man. Divorce can be a good thing.”

Langdon looks at her curiously. “Do you think mine was?”

She keeps her face flat as she answers: “I don’t know. Do you like men?”

He barks out a surprised burst of laughter, and she feels like her blood is singing at the sound. He got her joke! Actually, not only did he get her joke, he laughed at it! Does he think she’s funny? How can she check? Tell him another joke? Or would that be too annoying and he wouldn’t want to be around her anymore? He probably wouldn’t want to date her either.

She flicks her nose.

Langdon’s eyes snap to her. “What is that?”

“Huh?”

“You…” he gestures with his own nose. “I noticed you did it at the mall, too.”

Of course he did.

“Oh! I’m trying to teach myself to not think certain thoughts.”

“By hurting yourself?”

“It doesn’t hurt,” she says, “More like I’m annoying myself.”

“And what are these certain thoughts you don’t want to think?”

She places her hands on the table and interlocks them. “Um. Nothing serious.”

“You sure? Anything I can help with? I’ve been called annoying, you know, so maybe instead of flicking your nose, you talk to me instead?”

He’s smiling so endearingly, she almost takes him up on it, but she shakes her head.

Another quiet moment falls between them when he groans and asks, “What do you think the chances are that Santos becomes my sister-in-law?”

“She just got divorced,” Mel says, giggling, because the image of Langdon standing up at a wedding ceremony, trying to be supportive of his sister marrying Trinity Santos is objectively hilarious. “She probably doesn’t want to start something so serious so soon.”

“I just got divorced,” he says, “And I kind of already want…” he trails off, and she catches his eye.

He clears his throat and pops open the Red Bull to take a sip.

“Anyway.” He sets it back down. “You going back for the dress?”

Why is he more obsessive over that dress than she is?

“Probably not,” she says. “I’m scared they’ll call the cops.”

He chuckles. “Might be worth it.”

“Maybe,” she says softly, watching him. “Was it… did it really look that good?”

She didn’t mean to use that word, and her face flames as she does. His eyes meet hers, and he gins shyly as he drags his finger around the table in front of him.

“Yeah,” he says. “It did.”

Her whole body tingles. Maybe—maybe there is something here. Or maybe it’s just cause he saw her half naked and is just being a horny stupid man about it.

She’s been a horny stupid woman about it the past two nights. That, and she keeps thinking about the reflection of him grabbing onto her in the mirror while he thrusts upwards.

She almost flicks her nose again, but decides against it with him watching her, so she gets to her feet instead. “Well, thank you,” she tells him, tone oddly formal. “I’ll… think about it.”

“Me too,” he mutters.

She stares at him with large eyes. “What?”

“What?” he repeats.

The next day, Trinity arrives at work with a shopping bag and shoves it into Mel’s hands.

“Here,” she says. “I’m supposed to give this to you.”

Mel peeks inside, and her heart skips a beat.

Trinity juts a thumb over her shoulder at Langdon, who’s pretending to listen to whatever Dana is saying behind them, though his eyes keep drifting back to her. He’d texted her a screenshot late last night of the dress he’d bought for pickup, and Mel… well, she isn’t stupid. The pieces of that puzzle aren’t exactly difficult to put together.

“Sam picked it up for you,” Trinity says, “She said you did something with Langdon in a dressing room that got you kicked out?”

Mel flushes and stuffs the bag into her locker. “We didn’t do anything!”

“Like I said, Melancholy. Your business. Just, if we both end up at the Langdon family reunion, I don’t want to see it.”

“What family reunion? Did we get invited? Why would—”

“There’s—there’s no family reunion. Relax.” Trinity sighs. “It was a joke.”

“Oh, right.” Mel nods. “Because you’re sleeping with his sister, and I’m…”

Trinity smiles coyly. “And you’re what?”

Mel meets Langdon’s stare across the hub. “I believe you said that’s my business.”