Page 85 of Spiced!

“Seven-thirty and no, not yet, but soon.”

“I’ll tell him eight. You’ll be late.”

“I’m never late.”

“You’re always late when you’re nervous,” she said, hanging up before I could repeat my protest because, of course, my protest came too late.

The next day, a package arrived at the clinic. Marcus signed for it, brought it to my office, and set it on my desk.

“This is from a music shop in Ybor,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “Thank you, Marcus.”

He squinted, then cocked one brow, then vanished, closing my office door behind him.

I waited a full minute before opening the box.

Mofongo’s appointment was at four-thirty.

I had scheduled it myself, which in retrospect was the kind of thing a person did when they were planning something and wanted to control as many variables as possible.

Four-thirty meant it was my last appointment of the day. The last appointment meant no patients waiting. No patients waiting meant the clinic would be quiet when Adrian walked out, so I could do what I had decided on Sunday night I was going to do, assuming my courage held.

I finished the clinic’s weekly admin, updated three patient charts, and reorganized the medical supply cabinet (which didn’t need reorganizing and which I did anyway because standing still was not currently an available option and the cabinet had been bothering me since February and this seemed like the right Tuesday to address it).

Diane looked in at two-thirty.

“You reorganized the cabinet?” she asked while crossing her arms and leaning against my doorframe.

“It needed it.”

She scoffed. “It didn’t need it.”

“The gauze was in the wrong section.”

“The gauze has been in the same section for two years. Besides, since when do doctors tinker with the supplies? You tell us to fetch them. The cabinet belongs to the staff, not you ducks in your fancy white coats.” She glanced back over her shoulder at the cabinet in the hallway, then returned her owlish gaze to me. “You also alphabetized the supply labels.”

“That’s standard practice.”

“That is not standard practice for anyone who actually has to find things. That, my good doctor, is the practice of a man who needed something to do with his hands at two in the afternoon.”

She crossed her arms.

I shrugged, unable to argue her airtight and frustratingly correct point.

“You have three patients before your four-thirty.”

“Yes.”

“Mofongo is your last appointment.”

“I know.”

The corner of her mouth twitched.

“And his owner will be here. He’s the one with the tight—”

“It’s a routine vaccination appointment, Diane,” I said, desperate to stop whatever imagery she hoped to invoke.