Page 3 of A Really Bad Idea

“Are you saying I’m a workaholic?” he teases, knowing full well he’s addicted to his field of medicine.

With an outstretched arm, I point him toward his office. “Get dressed and grab a drink with your dad before the game.”

He looks at me for a beat before letting out a breath and dropping his shoulders. “All right. You sure? I’d much prefer to have a beautiful blonde by my side.”

“I’m positive. I have a good book and a long bath planned.”

He lets out a groan before walking back toward his office when Angela hits me in the arm. I’m rubbing the sore spot on my bicep as she says, “That man was totally asking you out.”

I curve my brow at her and go back to reviewing an echocardiogram from earlier today. “He did not ask me out on a date. He asked me to a game. As friends. We passed the era of possibility a long time ago. Besides, he’s a thirty-three-year-old bachelor who can have any woman in the city. He’s at the onset of a three-year fellowship, hoping to become the greatest heart valve replacement surgeon in the world. What the hell would he want my baggage for?”

“You don’t have baggage.”

I stop what I’m doing to swivel toward her, lower my forehead, and give her a deadpan look. “I can load an airplane with the amount of bags I have packed.”

She raises a shoulder in mock agreement. “Okay, fine, you have a carry-on worth of shit, but you’re a sexy, single woman who happens to be crazy smart and has a killer body that spikes half the patients’ blood pressure when they see that fine ass. You should work those curves underneath the scrubs. Don’t hide because of one failed relationship.”

I balk at her insinuation. While I want to argue with these points, I choose to simply remark on the main one. “Christian and I are just friends.”

“He flirts with you all the time.”

“He flirts with everyone.”

She sways her finger. “He doesn’t flirt with me.”

I open my mouth to correct her before realizing she’s right. “We’re just friends.”

“Friends make the best lovers.”

“Stop it, Angela,” I singsong my annoyance.

“I’m stopping, Meadow,” she sings back just as Christian walks out of the hallway that leads to the back offices.

He changed into jeans, his Yankees T-shirt, and a baseball cap. He slides on his brown bomber jacket, which accentuates his broad shoulders, as he heads out the door with a wave, leaving the lingering woodsy scent of his cologne in the waiting room.

“Can you at least admit he’s fucking hot?” she says with a hand on her hip.

I dramatically place my stack of folders on the desk in front of her and rise, heading toward the exam rooms for my evening lineup of patients.

Park Avenue Cardiology is a boutique practice that looks more like a hotel than a doctor’s office. With light walls, soft brown leather couches, and a coffee station in the waiting room, our patients wait for their next appointment in comfort.

As Thomas likes to say, “The key to living a healthy life is to reduce stress. And no one has ever calmed down in an uncomfortable chair.”

Even our exam rooms look more like suites with crisp white beds, walnut furniture, and textured wallpaper. We have a top-notch computer system and state-of-the-art equipment to ensure every patient gets the best care.

As soon as I graduated with my master’s in nursing, I came to work with Thomas at his practice. While he’s dwindled down his office hours to just three days a week as a cardiologist, Christian has been working round the clock as a surgeon.

Christian came on board a year and a half ago after finishing his five-year general surgery residency in San Francisco and earned a fellowship at the St. Xavier Heart Institute here, in Manhattan. He performs surgery out of the hospital and sees his patients for follow-up visits here, at his dad’s office, once a week.

Those days, like today, are my favorite.

I busy myself for the next few hours, seeing patients on behalf of Thomas and assisting the other cardiologists on staff.

By seven o’clock, I’ve seen twenty patients, taken or ordered a variety of EKGs, TEEs, MRIs—pretty much every test with a three-letter acronym—and spoken at length about the importance of a good diet and exercise. And, now, I am ready to head home.

“Let’s do drinks tonight,” Angela calls out as I walk to the front door, wrapping my lightweight scarf around my neck.

“Date with my bathtub, remember?” I respond as I zip up my jacket.