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Dinner turns out to be picnic in the park, complete with all my favorite foods.
“How did you know I like this?” I say picking up a little tub of olive and mint dip that I’ve only ever found in one grocers all the way over on the other side of the city.
“How do you reckon he knew?” Matt calls out from his perch across the way.
He has stationed himself on the other side of the park, leaning up against his pedicab. I giggle and shake my head, nearly losing it all over again. I glance at Luke, who looks pretty impressed with himself.
“This is great,” I say. “Thank you.” I lean back against him, but not before grabbing another handful of strawberries to dip in the chocolate sauce.
“Are you sure it’s fancy enough?” he teases.
“I didn’t want fancy, I just wanted something more than sex. As amazing as that is.”
“Gross.”
“Matt, stop listening,” I yell back at him. “Shouldn’t you be going home to look after your heavily pregnant wife, or something? What if she goes into labor and you’re not there to help her?”
That sends him into panic mode. I feel bad as I watch him jump up. He grabs his phone and tries to call her, but there’s no answer.
“Just go and check on her,” Luke urges him.
“Okay, if you’re sure you guys are all right?” He frowns at the pedicab. “What about this thing?”
“We’ll handle it,” Luke assures him.
He nods and walks off.
I rest my head in Luke’s lap again. He smiles down at me, gently tickling along my collarbone.
“So, tell me about some of the things you got up to while you were traveling?” I say
He makes a face. “Honestly, some of it’s probably better left unsaid. There was one time I drank too much and passed out on the train. I was headed to Germany, but I ended up in the middle of some village in Bosnia at two in the morning.”
“No way,” I say, laughing.
He nods. “Yeah. I wasn’t in the greatest mindset when I went over there, so I did plenty of things that my mother wouldn’t be proud of.”
“Do you regret not fixing things with your dad before he died?”
He thinks about that for a second.
“I let go of the guilt I felt over that a long time ago. I think what I regret most is that he didn’t understand me. I did everything I could for him. I bent over backward to try and get them to understand that this was my life, but they never got it. They never wanted to get it.” He looks at me. “How about you?”
I shake my head, a wistful smile on my face.
“Not guilt, just sadness, I guess. I see or I do things that remind me of Dad and I wonder how he would react. Even situations, like graduating or becoming a doctor, or meeting boyfriends…”
“Boyfriends?” he says, smirking at me.
“Well, one in particular.”
He leans down, gently grazing his lips over mine.
“You’re pretty special, you know that?”
“Yeah, I hear that from all my boyfriends,” I joke. I glance at my watch my eyes widening. It’s after midnight. “And I’ve got to get up for work in six hours,” I complain.
“Then we’d better get sleeping beauty home and into bed.”
He gets to his feet and quickly packs up the picnic, placing it in the back of the cart. Then he gets on the bike and motions for me to get in the cart.
“I’d help you up there, but that would probably end with both of us in the ER with bike crush injuries.”
“I think I can manage,” I say, giggling.
I can’t stop laughing the entire ride home. It’s got to be hard work, pushing that thing around, but Luke doesn’t seem to even break out in a sweat.
“So, where are we parking this thing?” I giggle.
He shakes his head and laughs. “I have no idea.”
Somehow, we get it inside and convince the doorman to let us leave it in the foyer so Luke can call the company to collect it in the morning. We head upstairs. I can barely keep my eyes open as we walk inside. I yawn and glance at my phone to see that it’s just ticked over to one in the morning.
“Let’s get you into bed,” Luke says, lifting me into his arms.
#
I spend every spare minute the next day at work, filling in my application. I’m in the ER again, and while I was run off my feet yesterday, today there is nothing to do. I guess people don’t get hurt on Sundays. I figure this counts as paperwork though, so I don’t feel bad about using time on the clock to get it done.
By the time my shift is over, I’ve filled in everything, but the million-dollar question, because I’m still not sure how to approach it. I think I’m worried that once it’s out there, I can’t take it back. I know it’s not hot gossip, but what if Luke stumbled across my application and discovered what I was keeping from him before I told him myself?
