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I could order food from Grubhub or make a microwave dinner if I needed one. I could make a sandwich or a salad. But it was like Neil wanted me to have the illusion that I needed him, that I couldn’t be alone. I had to be taken care of. I couldn’t manage a house. I’d never eat that quiche again unless he made it for me.

I peered up at Daniel waiting for him to shame me for my lack of kitchen skills, like Neil always did. But he just shrugged. “Okay, let me show you.”

I felt my face soften.

“How did you learn to cook?” I asked.

He smiled. “You have to know how to cook here. We can’t always afford to go out to eat. Okay,” he said, standing shoulder to shoulder with me after I washed my hands. “You’re going to peel the potatoes, like this. When you’re done peeling, you cube them. Like this.” He took the knife and showed me. “We’re cubing them so they cook faster. Since we’re making soup we’re taking the skins off, but I like to leave them on for mashed potatoes…”

As we went, he explained everything this way. Not just how to do it, but why. I liked this. It was the same way I trained my residents.

He was so patient—and standing as close to me as possible. It was really obvious and very, very distracting.

His fresh scent teased my nose, and I found myself leaning into it while I was supposed to be working.

He must have noticed, because he turned to look down at me and our faces were suddenly very close together—and then something happened inside of me that hadn’t happened in a very long time.

I got butterflies.

“What?” he asked, smiling.

I swallowed hard and just blinked at him.

He nudged me. “What?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just find you distracting is all.” I looked back at my cutting board, feeling a little shaken. Like something big had just happened that was completely out of my control.

I didn’t get butterflies. I was too old for butterflies. Shouldn’t I be completely beyond the age of crushes and puppy-dog love at this point?

I felt him smile, even though I wasn’t looking at him. “Are you going to be able to focus on this task at hand, Doctor?” he teased, nuzzling his nose into my hair. “Because I’m going to need your undivided attention, and it seems like you’re a little preoccupied,” he whispered.

Butterflies again.

Oh, my God, no. I wasn’t going to be able to focus.

I angled my head up and let him give me a kiss, feeling a little insecure about this new development.

He was so charming. And handsome. Devastatingly handsome. He was the kind of man who took my breath away—and it was because he was good. Kind and thoughtful and patient. Generous. And so easy. Nothing complex about him at all.

Neil was like a Russian nesting doll whose good qualities got smaller the more you uncovered him. But Daniel was the opposite. The more I knew, the better he became.

I liked that he took care of Popeye. And I understood why the town had declared him their mayor—not because he was a Grant, but because I had a feeling the Grants were a certain type of people. Diplomatic and well liked. And I knew this not because he told me, but because of the way other people treated him.

Liz spoke highly of him the day I met him. Brian spent two hours of his night sitting in a projection room at a closed drive-in just so Daniel could take me to a movie. Doreen called him because she knew he would go check on Pops. Then he drove Pops to the doctor all the way in Rochester after his fall, and installed that bar in his shower.

If you looked at the way the people around Neil treated him, you might come to the same conclusions, that he was well liked. Neil had a prominent seat at everyone’s table. But the difference was, nobody relied on Neil like they did with Daniel. Any relationship that Neil had was based on a shallow connection of status signaling. Nobody ever needed anything from him other than the grace of his presence and his fake bravado.

If Neil was at your party, it meant you were important. You were someone he wanted to be seen rubbing shoulders with. But if you ever had to rely on him, he’d let you down.

If Daniel was at your party, it meant you were a good person. It meant you were someone who had earned his affection. And I was starting to realize that his affection equaled a level of devotion that I don’t think I’d ever known outside of maybe Bri and Derek. And it seemed to encompass a whole town. Like this cloak of loyalty was big enough for everyone.

And then I realized, almost with awe, that I must have somehow earned his affection too. He must like me, and not just in a sex way, or why else would he spend so much time on the phone talking to me and want me to be his girlfriend?

Huh.

I started chewing on the side of my lip as I peeled my potatoes.

I remember feeling so important when the chief of surgery took a liking to me. I think I was so dazzled by that and Neil’s false charm that I didn’t see the red flags waving in my face. I brushed it off when he was rude to our servers or his nurses didn’t like him.