ELEVEN

Shelagh winced when wind whipping through the parking lot of her office nipped at her face. The weather was steadily moving towards winter, and she definitely wasn't ready for it. They simply had not had enough of those lovely, tepid autumn days! Now, solidly into November, they probably would not be getting any more.

Though she was disappointed about feeling the sting of cold against any exposed skin, she could not say the same about leaving autumn behind, as it had not been her best season. At least now that she had her new car, she could put most of those problems behind her. She still needed to figure out what she was going to do for her midwife training, but that was going to be a problem for the following year.

The same night her vehicle was destroyed by the careening car operated by a drunk driver, Shelagh had begun her search for a new one, knowing that taking Uber everywhere would be not only frustrating and inconvenient, but expensive. The now-destroyed Camry had been the only car she ever owned, so she felt rather at a loss for how to begin the searching process. She had no brand loyalty to Toyota, so she began a general search for used cars and quickly found herself overwhelmed at the prices. She initially filtered the search results to see the cheapest available first, but then began to second guess her decision to get a car with over one hundred and thirty-five thousand miles on it, which was more than her old car had.

After giving herself a few days to think it over, Shelagh decided it was not in her best interest to spend the absolute bare minimum she could on a new vehicle. First, she wanted the car to last her for many years. Second, she needed the car to be reliable enough for her to use to commute back and forth to school, which, while delayed, was still something she very much wanted to do. The last thing she wanted was for a car to leave her stranded in an unfamiliar area late at night, when she was returning home from evening classes.

Another few days of diligent searching led her to choosing another Toyota Camry, this one a decade newer than the last and in a lighter color. Though she would have continued to drive her old car until the repairs became too costly to keep up with, she was grateful to have a comfier seat to sit in and for the car not to groan horribly each time it was put into reverse. Better yet: it meant she did not have to take Uber again for the foreseeable future.

After an uneventful morning, Shelagh returned to the breakroom for her lunch break. Gone were the days of eating out on the picnic table by the parking lot, so she grabbed her satchel with a peanut butter sandwich and an apple and sat beside Trixie and Jenny, who were already deep in conversation. Two minutes later, the receptionist, Cynthia, came in to join them. As her lunch was warming in the microwave, she leaned on the empty chair beside Shelagh saying, "It was nice to see you at the fall festival this weekend. I didn't know you and that doctor from across the hall were a couple."

"Oh, um, we're not."

Cynthia's brow rose. "You're not?"

Shelagh shook her head. "We're just friends."

The prior week, Patrick had invited her to join him and Timothy at the fall festival being run by a local farm. Apparently, once Halloween was over, the farm brought in some sort of cannon to launch their leftover pumpkins into an empty field where they would explode. Timothy had heard about it in school and asked his father if they could go—and if she could join them. She initially declined, citing not wanting to spend any extra money due to her large car purchase, to which Patrick laughed and insisted that the event was free to attend, and he would happily buy her one of the five dollar pumpkins to catapult through the air. She hesitated, but ultimately agreed to go with them and ended up having quite a bit of fun, particularly since Timothy acted as though watching a pumpkin crash into the ground and explode into bits was the greatest thing that could ever possibly happen. During the outing, Patrick was kind enough to not only buy her one of the pumpkins but lunch as well. She had seen Cynthia while in line for food, but the interaction had been so quick they hadn't had much opportunity to say anything other than hello.

Jenny laughed and chimed in with, "Friends. Right," in a tone that indicated she did not believe that to be the case.

"We are friends," Shelagh insisted.

To Cynthia, Jenny stage-whispered, "He likes her, but she's in denial about it."

"I am not!" Shelagh bleated in protest. "He doesn't like me or he—he would have said something about it already."

"Hmm that is a good point, but I still think all the signs are there."

"Ooh like what?" Cynthia asked excitedly as she sat down to join them with her lunch container, which appeared to contain leftover mashed potatoes and something that might have been steak.

"He took her out on some pretend dates back at the end of summer including as his date to wedding of a friend. She's at his house all the time."

"Babysitting his son—he pays me!"

Cynthia looked at her with one brow raised. "Did he pay you to go with him Saturday?"

"Well no. Tim asked me to go."

Cynthia's curiosity heightened. "He asked you to go with his kid?"

Shelagh shook her head as she clarified, "No, no, Tim is the boy. The doctor's name is Patrick."

"AND," Trixie threw in dramatically, "they're always texting."

"Oooh," Cynthia cooed. "How many times a week do you text him?"

Shelagh felt some blush creep into her cheeks as she muttered, "Um, nearly every day," before taking another bite of her sandwich.

Cynthia laughed loudly. "He definitely likes you!

Shelagh took a gulp of water to help move the peanut butter out of her mouth, which had suddenly become quite dry. "But he's never said anything!"

Cynthia looked contemplative as she twirled her fork through her mashed potatoes. "He has a kid, so I assume he's divorced. Recently?"

"No, it's been four years."

"Hmm…maybe he just is commitment phobic after the divorce?"

"Maybe he likes you too much to ruin your life by being a terrible boyfriend!" Jenny suggested.

Shelagh's brow rose. "Is that possible?"

"With men anything is possible," Trixie said matter-of-factly, then Jenny and Cynthia laughed.

"Is he going to the holiday party next week?" Cynthia asked her, referring to the joint office holiday party being hosted by all the medical practices in the building. It was, somewhat confusingly, being held on the weekend before Thanksgiving despite being generally winter-holiday themed (at least, according to the announcements posted in the breakroom and at the nurses' station). Shelagh had heard a rumor that people had complained about the prior year's party being hosted the weekend before Christmas because they had too many other holiday events to attend, and that was why the party had been moved earlier in the year.

"I'm not sure I haven't asked."

"Maybe you should ask him to go with you."

"Oooh yes that's a good idea!" Trixie chimed in. "Ask him to go with you and then maybe he'll kiss you while you're dancing."

"That would be so romantic!" Jenny added.

"Mm maybe. I'll think about it," Shelagh said in a neutral tone, when in reality she knew the only thing she would continue to think about would be how embarrassing it would be to have all of that happen in front of all of all their coworkers.

Despite the fact that she had no intention of asking Patrick to go with her to the holiday party (What a nightmare! He could say no, and then she'd be too embarrassed to ever babysit Timothy again!), Shelagh did find herself thinking about the breakroom conversation for the rest of the day. She wondered how much the three women might have been teasing her over Patrick's possible feelings for her, and how much they were being serious. They did echo some sentiments that she'd had for many weeks as she wondered why Patrick seemed to continue wanting to chat with her and spend time with her even after he knew she was seeking out a boyfriend by using dating apps.

With each interaction, Shelagh tried to come up with an excuse to explain away his behavior. For instance, she thought perhaps the only reason he invited her to the fall festival was because he still felt bad about her car being destroyed in front of his house. Though she never found him to be remotely at fault—after all, such a freak accident could have occurred anywhere including the parking lot of her apartment complex—he had mentioned several times how bad he felt about the whole ordeal.

One of the things she had not come up with a reasonable explanation for was their frequent communication by text message in the evenings. She honestly could not really remember how it started but for the last few weeks they'd chatted back and forth for an hour or more almost every night. The topics of conversations varied wildly from their days to a funny thing they'd saw online, or once when he'd asked her opinion on a recipe, he though sounded a bit off (it was—all the spice measurements were listed in tablespoons when she felt they should have been by the teaspoon instead).

She enjoyed their chats very much, but she still wondered why he was messaging her at all. She didn't mind that he was messaging her, especially since her evenings were mostly spent working on her crochet projects since she was taking a break from the dating apps and no longer needed to prep for taking classes again early in the new year. But why was he, clearly the busier of the two of them, taking the time to message her?

Shelagh supposed that one possible explanation could have been that Patrick did like her in a romantic sense, and what would she do then? She certainly would never have the courage to ask him about it. Would he ever broach the subject? And if he did ask her out, would she want to say yes? Their practice dates had always been enjoyable as well as educational, so she did not fear having a bad time, but worried what would happen if they had a wonderful time. She'd spent so much time preparing to go on first and second dates that she failed to think about what it might look like to be in a relationship with someone—especially if that someone was Patrick. The concept was potentially daunting and the last thing she wanted to do was spend a lot of time imagining Patrick as her boyfriend, as she felt it would be rather upsetting in the long run if he only thought of them as friends, but perhaps she did need to think about it a little bit, especially if the possibility, however small, existed that he really did like her as more than a friend.

"Dad, I got this today. Can we go?"

Patrick looked up from his phone to see that Tim stood before him holding out a sheet of red paper. Taking it, Patrick saw it was a holiday movie night being put on by the PTO at Tim's elementary school. According to the advertisement, they were going to watch the movie Elf while drinking hot chocolate and making holiday crafts.

"Er…yes, I don't see why not. Let me put it in my calendar so I don't forget." He picked up his phone from his lap and opened the calendar app, scrolling over to the month of December so he could input the movie night on the right date. Then he hummed to himself realizing that Christmas was coming up quite quickly. He knew that he wanted to make Tim's first Christmas without his mother extra special, but he wasn't quite sure how to do that, which meant he needed to start thinking about it right away.

"Will Shelagh come with us?" Timothy asked.

"No, this is only for the kids that go to your school and their parents," Patrick explained.

"But she comes with us to some stuff."

"Well, yes. Shelagh is our friend. Sometimes you do things with your friends and sometimes you do them with your family; it all depends on what kind of activities you're doing."

Timothy looked contemplative for a moment before saying, "OK. Does that mean Shelagh is your friend like Brad was Mommy's friend?"

"Er…no, I don't think so," Patrick said, hoping Timothy didn't ask any more questions about Brad, who had been Marianne's boyfriend at the time of her death, though Patrick hadn't known that until the sniveling man had approached him at the funeral, and they had a rather awkward exchange.

"Why not?"

"Because there are many ways in which adults can be friends with each other. Now please go and clean up all your toys; its nearly time for your bath."

As Timothy cleaned up his Legos, Patrick skimmed his hands over his chin and thought about his relationship with Shelagh, and what it meant that Timothy had confused her for his girlfriend. This made sense, Patrick supposed. Given his age, Timothy did not fully understand what it meant to be in a relationship with someone and through the eyes of a child, a friendship and a relationship probably looked quite similar. The main difference would have been displays of affection, though even if he was in a relationship Patrick did not believe he would feel too comfortable being too intimate in front of his young child.

When it came to Shelagh, Patrick felt conflicted. He liked her, of course. It was impossible not to like her with her being so kind and friendly. He appreciated all the ways she'd helped him, not just by being a reliable babysitter but from how she'd helped bring Tim out of his shell again after the terrible loss of his mother and how she'd helped him with cooking tips during those summer months when he felt like a failure as a father more often than not.

Then, there was their practice dating adventures. He'd voluntarily taken her out four times and given her tips on what dating was like, something he could not imagine himself ever doing again with anyone. He hadn't minded, of course, especially since it had helped Shelagh move into the dating world successfully, but he couldn't imagine himself helping anyone else that way unless he—

Oh.

Unless he cared for them a lot. Like, how he missed seeing her now that his schedule had changed and for the time being he did not really need an evening or Saturday babysitter. He missed seeing her so much that he'd texted her a few times just to check in, using the accident as an excuse to keep the communication lines open so he could ask about her car search, but really he just wanted to know how she was doing. Within just a week, those check-ins had turned into almost daily conversations about a lot of things. And, well, she was the only reason that he'd signed up to attend the company holiday party; just so he'd have a chance to see her wearing a pretty dress and perhaps a bit of makeup…

Damn…he did like her, didn't he? Well, that certainly was complicated. It wasn't as though she was just a casual friend he might sleep with a few times to see if anything would come of the attraction he felt for her. No, if he was going to be with Shelagh he had to be with Shelagh. They would have to be in a committed relationship—one that moved at a pace she was comfortable with. Based on a question she had raised to him at the beginning of her dating journey he knew it was possible she would not want to have any physical relations until marriage, and he needed to accept that as the case before anything official began between them. When she posed the question to him several months earlier, he had thought that for the right woman he would be willing to wait and, thinking about the warm feeling that spread through his chest every time he received a new message from her, he decided she was that exact woman. Now, he only had to hope she was interested in him too.