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Meddling – Patrick 4
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I really had no idea what I was in for when I pursued Doctor Robin Scorpio so doggedly. I really had no idea I was so full of shit and getting in completely over my head. I look down at my shaking hands and can't help but laugh at myself. Probably I should be horrified, but for some reason I'm not.
What I am is still sitting in my car outside Robin's house trying to make myself leave before I make a total and utter fool of myself. I think if I had a boom box I'd go stand outside her window and play "In Your Eyes" or something incredibly sappy like in that movie that got me laid when I rented it with a chick in high school. I'm really, really tempted to throw rocks at her window and climb up into her room and crawl into bed with her. I'm sure her uncle the police commissioner would love that.
With that frightful image in mind I start the car and drive off home. As I try to coordinate my feet to manage the three car pedals I realize that it's not just my hands that are shaking, it's my entire body and in a blinding flash of clarity I know exactly why. It's not repressed desire, although I feel that. It's not the cold, either, although I feel that too. This is pure adrenaline.
My body feels like I've just been on a backwards, looping roller coaster and done a free fall sky dive all in the space of a minute. I'm concentrating less on the road than I am on my breathing as I think I might pass out. Thankfully there is virtually little traffic and no ice on the roads as I head back to my apartment building.
I pull into my spot in the parking garage, shut off the car and just sit there. I cover my face and do some breathing exercises this yoga instructor I once dated taught me. I think her name was Brandy? It's not helping. Of course it wouldn't. I knew that. Frankly, I've read enough literature and seen enough sappy movies, a good strategy when trying to soften up a date to score later, to realize what this is. I've just never actually felt it myself.
It's quite a kick in the pants, actually, and exactly what my mother always predicted. Of course, when she said it I would always laugh because I knew there would never be a woman I'd love and respect as much as I did her, no woman as beautiful and certainly no woman who put me on a pedestal high enough for me to waste my time settling for. And that was before I saw how love decimated a great surgeon like my father and I gave up on the concept entirely.
But just like she said, one day there was Doctor Robin Scorpio storming in on my extra-curricular OR activities and demanding I perform a miracle. Of course, my mother didn't set the scene exactly like that. Although she probably would not have been surprised.
Suddenly realizing how cold it is sitting here in my car I take the keys out of the ignition and head up to my twentieth floor apartment. I lean back in the elevator, unable for once to shut off my thoughts and think about sports or surgery. All I can think about is Robin and trying to figure out just when it was that I fell in love with her. Because I am, in love with her.
Totally. Completely. Madly.
And I think at this point, irrevocably.
Was it during our first date when she finally smiled that unguarded smile at me? Was it when I was completely flooded with concern for her health and tried to throw her out of the hospital? Was it when she told me that she had chosen me to be the arbiter of lives during the quarantine because she respected me and my abilities? Was it when she squealed when I gave her the ice cream bar? Was it watching her eat said ice cream bar – I gotta tell you I dreamed about watching that little tongue stroke that chocolate ice cream quite a few times since?
Ah hell, was it when she smacked me across the face?
Or was it back in the OR the moment she stormed in and ordered me to get dressed? Because frankly, I can't even remember who I was on top of, I couldn't take my eyes off this little person dressed like a doctor with fire brimming out of her gorgeous brown eyes.
I snort as I feel myself breaking into a goofy smile as I take this pathetic trip down memory lane.
I unlock the door to my apartment and walk in and am right away struck with the feeling that something is very different. I turn on the light and confirm that nothing is out of place. Which means that what's different is me.
I really had no idea what I was in for.
Maybe I should call and make sure she's feeling all right? She did look quite flushed when she stumbled into her house.
Yeah, there's that goofy smile again.