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“I love you, too, sweetie!”
Lauren put the movie back on play. Had she really just agreed to let her mother set her up again? In the short span of less than three hours her day had deteriorated from a three into a six, into a solid seven point nine. The movie credits began to roll, but Lauren had a hard time concentrating. As disastrous as her evening had turned out, she supposed it could be worse. Look at Nate Miller’s evening, for example. She wondered what number Nate would have rated today.
*~*~
“I wish this wasn’t goodbye.” Jessica let out a long sigh and glanced out the car window, leaving Nate to wonder if he was supposed to respond. He never knew what to say in these kinds of situations. Usually, whenever he and Jessica argued, he listened, making sure to nod his head occasionally, and then the whole thing would eventually blow over. They weren’t actually arguing, though. Last night, he’d proposed. She said no. And then when they got back to his place, she told him she wanted to break up. Saying goodbye permanently was her idea, not his.
She glanced back at him, her brown eyes moist.
He cleared his throat. “Is the heat on too high?” He adjusted the car’s heater from medium to low. The temperature had dropped into the forties overnight. Jessica always complained how much colder it could get in north Florida compared to Miami, so he’d tried to be considerate by warming up the car for the ride to the airport. “It looks like your contacts might be dry. I have some saline drops in the glove compartment. Help yourself.”
“Saline drops? Nate, is there a heart inside your chest?”
Ah, sarcasm. No point in answering that. This was still fallout from last night’s botched proposal. “I don’t understand, Jessica. You said you wanted a big gesture. So I made a big gesture.”
He’d asked Bianca, one of the nurses in the office, how to go about a proposal. She’d suggested he get ideas from one of those websites where people posted their proposal stories. Some of them had been pretty elaborate. One guy had even proposed while he and his girlfriend parachuted out a plane. Even if Jessica hadn’t been afraid of heights that was way too iffy in Nate’s mind. What if he dropped the ring? It was the equivalent of two months’ salary, which, according to another website, was the universally agreed upon amount to spend. He’d been frugal with the money he’d earned in his residency and had even saved most of the money Doc had given him to relocate back to Whispering Bay, so he’d paid for the ring in cash. Good thing he kept the receipt (not that he would have ever considered tossing it).
After spending a good month researching various ways to propose, he’d decided to go the traditional route. He thought she’d appreciate the expensive restaurant. The violinist. The roses. The champagne. But she hadn’t appreciated any of it. He just wished he could get her to stop talking about it.
“You knew what I meant by a big gesture. How many doctors get an opportunity to do a surgical fellowship at Miami General? I don’t understand you, baby. You could be helping so many people, but instead you want to waste away your talent.”
He gripped the steering wheel and counted to ten. Jessica’s IQ was an impressive one hundred and thirty-eight, yet he had to constantly repeat the same facts over and over. “I told you when we first started dating that I was obligated to return home to practice. Dr. Morrison paid for all my medical school expenses. We made a contract.”
“Oh, Nate, only you would be so gullible. But, trust me, Dr. Morrison doesn’t expect you to actually honor that contract. Not if it means turning down an opportunity at Miami General. Does he even know you were offered the fellowship?”
“Since I don’t plan on taking it, then it wasn’t necessary to tell him.”
She rolled her eyes. “Then why did you apply in the first place?”
“I’ve already apologized for that, Jessica. I thought they’d reject me. I should have never given you the impression that I would have taken it. Frankly, I only applied to stop your constant nagging.”
Her jaw quivered. “You’re punishing me, aren’t you? Because I refuse to give up my career for yours. Even your friend agreed with me last night.”
“What friend?”
“You know, Blondie from the restaurant? The one you went to high school with?”
“You mean Lauren Handy?” No, she wasn’t Lauren Handy anymore. She’d been Lauren Donalan for a long time. Except now she was divorced. He supposed it made sense that she’d keep her married name. She had a son…what was his name? Henry. That was it. Nate had seen his file at the office. He’d come in recently for a sports physical. But he’d seen Ellen, the nurse practitioner for that. Nate had signed off on his chart, though.
“Whoever she is, I told her the whole story in the bathroom and she agreed you were being unreasonable.”
“Then I won’t ask her to marry me, either.” He smiled at his own joke. Which meant he couldn’t be too broken up about Jessica’s refusal.
Initially, though, he’d been stunned. But he was beginning to wonder if that had been the result of expecting one outcome, only to encounter the exact opposite one. He’d woken up this morning feeling pretty much the same way he did every other morning. He’d gotten up at six, do
ne a ten mile run on the beach, then made a pot of coffee. He’d even done the Sunday crossword puzzle. No deviation from his regular routine. Interesting. He’d have to organize his thoughts on that and see what he came up with.
Jessica readjusted her seat belt. “Did you say her last name was Handy? I thought she said it was Donalan. Yes, I’m positive. She introduced herself as Lauren Donalan.”
“If you knew her name then why did you pretend you didn’t remember it?” Nate asked.
“It’s just a…oh, never mind. So which is it, Handy or Donalan?”
“Her maiden name was Handy. She’s now Lauren Donalan,” he explained, although why they were discussing Lauren Donalan, he had no idea.
“Well, I hope she’s not married to that creepy old guy she had dinner with. He had to be at least forty. And that bumper sticker! Oh my God. I don’t blame her for not getting in the car.”
Nate didn’t either. “Lauren is divorced.”
