Clementine (4 page)

She
stared at his unwavering gaze with her lips slightly parted, at a complete loss of words.
What the hell do I say to that?
He was leaning in close enough for his scent to invade her senses and she could just make out what she thought to be amber and cardamom, with a hint of body wash. The overall effect was intoxicating and she sat still, trying to assimilate everything going on around her. Before she had a chance to speak again, however, she heard Stacy speak up from across the table.

“It was so good running into you at the coffee shop the other day
, Dr. Taylor.”

They both looked up to find Stacy smiling seducti
vely in Dr. Taylor’s direction. Addison almost welcomed the reprieve away from his full attention. He had a way of making her feel completely out of her depth.

“I did
n’t realize you knew Addison?” she asked, her smile not quite reaching her eyes.

Addison acknowledged the somewhat degrading tone Stacy had used when asking her question, but chose to ignore it.
It was clear Stacy had a crush on Dr. Taylor, but she certainly had nothing to worry about concerning Addison.
She should’ve seen the girls flocking around him earlier.

“Dr. Fischer introduced us earlier,” Dr. Taylor answered, offering a
kind smile in Addison’s direction.

Does
he smile to other women like that? Maybe he’s just a charming person and doesn’t realize the effect he has on the female gender.

“
Ohhh, I see,” Stacy responded flatly. “Will you be on-call this week, Dr. Taylor?” She was half way across the table she was leaning so far over and Addison tried to look in every direction other than Stacy’s obvious cleavage staring Dr. Taylor in the face.
Don’t worry he seems ‘em, Stacy.
Addison looked down at her hands, suddenly worried she might have already been a few months too late.
I wonder if they already have something going on? Oh right, I’m 100 miles from his league
so I shouldn’t care anyway
.

“I haven’t looked at the hours posted, I think I’ll be in and out of the hospital every day.”

Just as he had finished answering her question and begun to turn back to Addison, Stacy spoke up again.
Oh, c’mon.

“Oh how great, we’ll have to meet up for lunch one of those days,” Stacy offered
with another seductive smile.

Feeling
like she wanted to crawl through the floors as the conversation between Stacy and Dr. Taylor continued, Addison seized the opportunity when she saw Jack begin to stand.
Hallelujah.

“Oh Jack, hold on,” She
pleaded in his direction. He paused and offered an inquisitive look.

“
I was just going to head out…” he answered, his eyes darting between her and Dr. Taylor.
Don’t worry; he’s too busy with Stacy to care if I leave with you.

“Oh, perfect. So am I.” She gave him an appreciative smile before s
he reached below her chair to grab her clutch she’d placed there. She almost jumped when Dr. Taylor leaned down closer to her.

“You’re leaving
already? Let me walk you out,” he offered solemnly, starting to stand.

Say yes, say yes,
say yes.

Not
wanting to aim any more of Stacy’s jealousy in her direction, Addison decided to decline his offer. She looked up and met his dark brown eyes, sad to be leaving them so soon.

“No worries, I’ll just have Jack walk me
...” she muttered, letting her gaze dip down to his tantalizing lips only for a moment.
Why am I not kissing him right now? Oh right, this isn’t real life and he is just a gorgeous dream

He nodded
slowly looking toward Jack with a glare as if he wasn’t quite resigned to the idea. Addison noted what could have been a bit of annoyance flashing across his face.

“You’ve got her Jack?”

What? Does he have me? I managed to get to this event just fine before I met either of you.
She bit her tongue, though, choosing to let the men treat her as a damsel.

Jack nodded
quickly, obviously a bit intimated by Dr. Taylor’s sudden glower, before taking a few steps toward her. “Ready, Addison?”

“Yeah, I think so. Bye every
one, it was nice meeting you,” she said, expecting Stacy to stand up to hug her goodbye. Instead she was only met with a cold smile from her classmate.
Alrighty… class should be fun on Monday…

“It was a pleasure, Addison,” Dr. Taylor said, drawing her stare toward him one last time. She tried to memorize the way his dark grey dress shirt clung to his perfect shoulders
, the way his tanned forearms offered a glimpse of everything else she was missing. She couldn’t help but imagine how his chest would look underneath his shirt; she had a feeling it’d be peppered with the same dark hair that fell so perfectly on his head.

The way he was watching her walk away sent tingles down her spine.
His attention placed solely on her was one of the best feelings in the world and she found herself hoping they’d meet again soon.

Chapter 3

The weekend ended too quickly for Addison
; she enjoyed her lazy Sundays when she was allowed to catch up on reading and pretended she knew what she was doing with her life. Monday morning forced her back to reality where she was currently working to restock all of the exam rooms at work. She’d almost finished putting new gowns into each room and day-dreaming away when she suddenly remembered Dr. Fischer mentioning a new resident was starting today. Her mind immediately jumped to Dr. Taylor.
Could it be him?
He didn’t say anything about coming to her office, but Dr. Fischer
had
been talking to him on Saturday. She let her hopes start to build, forgetting that a resident with a spine specialty wouldn’t really find a need to rotate through a women’s health clinic.
He’s going to have to come to the office every day for a couple of weeks at least. That means I’ll get to see him on most of those days…

She was finishing preparing the exam room
for their first patient when she heard the front door open. Her heart immediately dropped. Their first patient wasn’t due for another hour, so she knew the resident had arrived. She fidgeted in the exam rooms a few more seconds before walking out into the hallway expecting to be greeted by Dr. Taylor in all his glory. She slowly turned the corner out of the room, not wanting to look overly keen.
I would have to go out into the hallway even if he hadn’t just arrived.
Suddenly, she heard Dr. Fischer’s low chuckle, and another male’s voice coming from his office.
Damn, how did they get back there so fast?
She knew she wouldn’t be able to wait to find out if the resident was Dr. Taylor or not. She grabbed a file off the shelf for a patient that was due to come in that morning and headed back to Dr. Fischer’s office, trying to come up with a question to ask about the appointment.

She took a deep
breath and lightly tapped on the door before pushing it open a few inches.

“Ah, Addison, can I help you?” Dr. Fischer spoke
when he saw her begin to open the door.

She took two steps inside the office and
quickly glanced toward the figure sitting across from Dr. Fischer.
You’ve gotta be kidding me.

“Um, yes
... I...” Addison began awkwardly, trying to pull a sentence out of thin air before Dr. Fischer cut her off.

“Oh, let me
introduce you to Dr. Rivera,” he motioned to the man who began to stand to greet her.

He was at least three inches shorter than
her, with so much gel in his hair she figured he’d been collecting it slowly for years.
Definitely not Dr. Taylor.

“Hi,
I’m Addison, it’s a pleasure,” she smiled politely, pulling herself together. She shook his hand before exiting Dr. Ward’s office without even bothering to ask her made up question.
Oops.

Slightly defeated, she made her way up to Alicia’s desk, shaking her head at how ridiculous she had just been.

“I just barged into Dr. Fischer’s office hoping Dr. Taylor was the new resident,” she huffed.

Alicia stopped filing charts into the cabinet and let out a laugh.

“You mean Dr. Rivera wasn’t quite what you were expecting?” Alicia asked sarcastically.

“Eh, we’ll see. Considering I’ll never actually see Dr. Taylor again, he may be my best option,” she joked
pitifully.

“Hey, what about Jack?
I left you guys alone so you could talk. Have I taught you nothing?”

“Well
a girl from my class showed up a few minutes after you left and made us go over to the table where Dr. Taylor was sitting with his friends... I basically ignored Jack until it was time to leave. He was nice enough to walk me to my car, but nothing came from it,” she paused as she picked up some papers to file. “I’m sure everyone, including Jack, was aware of my hopeless pining over Dr. Taylor.”

Alicia shook her head, looking down at the file in her hand,
“I agree with your taste, but he seems like he’d already have a girlfriend or something...” Alicia casually warned.

“Let’s hope so
. That way I can stop daydreaming about how good he looked on Saturday night,” she smiled to her friend, only half kidding herself. “Alicia...” she began as she folded herself down onto one of the office chairs, “he was lick-ably cute. Seriously. I sat by him for a while and we had a conversation; a real conversation even though I could barely form complete thoughts in his presence.”

“
Lick-ably cute? I don’t even know what that means, crazy.”

“It means exactly what you think it means,” Addison winked playfully.

Addison worked tirelessly Monday and Tuesday.
She tried to push away the resentment she felt toward Dr. Rivera being in the office rather than Dr. Taylor, but every time she ran into him in the hallway or the office kitchen, the same wave of bitterness rose over her. Luckily, her organic chemistry final was Friday, so after work she went straight home to study and was able to forget about everything else for a couple of hours… or so she had to keep reminding herself. It wasn’t until lunch on Wednesday that she remembered her first day of volunteering at the hospital was that night.

She rushed home from work, leaving herself enough time to change out of her scrubs and into
the mandatory volunteer uniform: jeans and a dark blue polo shirt inscribed with ‘Hyde Park Hospital Volunteer’ over a small breast pocket. She glimpsed herself in the mirror smiling at how young she felt in her uniform. At least the jeans were from her own collection so they flattered her slim figure, but the polo was definitely not her usual style.
Whatever, no one’s going to care what I look like.

Addison arrived at the hospital
with five minutes to spare to find the hospital gift shop. Four minutes and two wrong turns later she stepped through the double set of white doors and into the lively shop. Since she was one of the first to arrive she was given the choice between a few tasks. She decided on delivering flowers to various patients whose family and friends had ordered them. Addison was excited at the prospect of making people’s days with the deliveries but silently kicked herself at not becoming more familiar with the hospital layout before starting her first day of volunteering. She hoped the simple hospital map she picked up from the main desk would be helpful enough.

“Your first delivery is two dozen long-stemmed roses for room 223 in L and D... and then it looks like you’ll be going
to room 201 in General Care,” the volunteer coordinator directed, pushing a small cart toward Addison with a few bouquets placed on top. Some were romantic and simple, like the long stem roses, while others were animated with small balloons exclaiming ‘It’s a boy!’

“The rest of your
orders are written on this form, and don’t forget to stop in the cafeteria before you leave for your free volunteer’s dinner!” the small, robust woman commanded before she turned to another new volunteer. Addison realized that was all the instruction she’d receive as she took the paper from her coordinator. Feeling slightly overwhelmed, she skimmed over the list of deliveries she had to make. “Sounds great, see you in a bit,” she said to a distracted audience.
Maybe some of the bouquets are for the same person? Yeah, right.

Most of patients were awake,
eagerly waiting
for their dinner to be delivered when Addison entered the rooms. She loved the way the patients’ faces lit up when they saw the flower bouquet in her hand and she found herself stopping and chatting with a couple of them. One elderly woman politely touched Addison’s hair as she placed the women’s bouquet of roses on her night stand.

“I had hair just like this at your age. It used to drive the boys crazy
... do me a favor and keep it long like that.” The woman smiled kindly at Addison before taking the card placed among the flowers. Addison smiled, instantly warming to the beautiful old woman. She had her white hair cut short and curly and it framed her heart-shaped face perfectly.

“Thanks, my mom has the same color hair. I think she’d di
sown me if I cut it,” she beamed.

“Those are beautiful flowers by the way,” Addison continued.

The elderly woman looked up, her dark blue eyes full of appreciation.

“I couldn’t agree more,” she
blinked, casting her eyes back to the bright red blooms placed before her. Addison nodded her head, wondering who the flowers were from. For some reason she guessed they weren’t from a family member; the woman seemed too astounded by their presence and red roses seemed too romantic. When the woman didn’t attempt to continue their conversation Addison quietly left the small room, allowing the woman some privacy to read the note that accompanied the bouquet.

Walking back in
to the bustling hallway, she pushed her cart out of the way up against the wall, and checked to see where her next delivery was. The list read Room 304 – General Surgery.
Great, how do I get there?
She pulled out her folded map and began to search aimlessly for the ward. It took her a few minutes before she finally figured out an easy path to get there, or so she hoped. Sighing to herself, she folded the map into the back pocket of her jeans and looked up.

Her
heart raced at the image before her. Halfway down the brightly lit hallway, amongst a handful of other doctors, stood Dr. Taylor. She couldn’t believe it. Out of every section of the massive hospital, he happened to be standing only feet away from her. She found herself momentarily stunned, taking in his strong demeanor and the ease in which he made his doctor’s coat look damn good. His day’s worth of stubble paired with his strong jaw made her subconscious beg to move closer.

Seriously, his patients probably don’t even care when he tells them bad news, his face more than makes up for it.
Addison smiled to herself before collecting her thoughts enough to remember she was meant to be delivering flowers, not secretly ogling one of the doctors. Just as she was turning to begin pushing her cart toward the elevators, Dr. Taylor turned from his discussion and locked his dangerous gaze onto her. She was like a deer caught in headlights.
He saw me, and is still looking at me. I’m still standing here.

Unsure of how to approach the awkwardness of the situation, Addison offered a shy smile before
swiftly turning on her heel and bee lining for the elevators.
Oh awesome, how attractive. Stand motionless for a full minute, smile like a fool and then sprint away, how can he resist my charm?

“Addison?”
she heard him call behind her.

She reac
hed forward and pushed the down button near the elevators before turning to acknowledge him. “Oh! Hi, Dr. Taylor,” she spoke in mock surprise, as if she hadn’t just been staring at him.
Faster elevator, faster.

“Seriously, you can call me Holden. What a
re you doing?” he said, eyeing the last few bouquets left on the cart.

“Volunteering.” s
he said curtly, but as Dr. Holden remained with his exploring gaze pinned to her she realized she was meant to elaborate. “You see, I’m getting some much needed hospital training. You have to work from the bottom up you know, day one is flower delivery, but I’m pretty sure by the end of the week I’ll be doing brain transplants,” Addison smirked, unable to look at his intense gaze for any longer. She scanned the top of the elevator where the lights were flashing much too slowly.
Seriously is someone just holding the door open up there? C’mon elevator.

Holden laughed. “
Ahh, so you got roped into our volunteering program.”

“Every Wednesday, starting today.”

The elevator dinged behind her letting her know the doors would soon open. She fidgeted with the cart, unsure of how to mend the uneasy feeling surrounding their encounter. Dr. Taylor was intimidating and he sent every good sense she had out the window. She couldn’t act like a normal person around him and as a result she wanted to flee and save herself the inevitable embarrassment.

“Oh, well...” He paused for a moment,
running his hand through his tousled hair, “Have you had dinner yet?” Addison blinked twice, trying to determine if she’d made up his last sentence.
Surely he’s not speaking to me. Maybe the elevator doors opened and there’s a gorgeous doctor standing behind me.

She turned around to make sure her suspicions weren’t correct
. Shockingly, there was only a dad with two small children stepping out of the elevator. She pushed her cart out of the way so they could walk by while she absorbed the shock that Holden had, in fact, been talking to her. 

“Umm, volunteers get a free meal at the cafeteria...I just have a few more flower deliveries.”

“I have a few minutes left on my shift but I could meet you there around seven?” Holden asked, his eyes displaying a sense of urgency as he saw her beginning to push the cart into the elevator.

“I think I could do that
...
Holden
,” she answered, trying out his name for the first time and registering his smile in response. His adorable dimples dotted his cheeks as Addison watched the doors to elevator close. It was a full minute before she realized she was just standing in the elevator not having pushed any button for a new floor.