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Either way, I win.
“You okay for a couple of minutes while I grab a few things?” he asks.
I nod, but then I shake my head. “Will you just stay with me for a second?” I ask.
He gets down on the floor beside me. Right beside me.
“How comeyou’renot in shock?” I ask him. Now that I’m lying on my back with my legs up on a chair, I feel how fast my pulse is pounding. I put my hands on my chest to keep my heart from leaping out.
He leans his back against the chair next to the one my feet are on, so we’re facing each other. His legs stretch out beside my body and past my head.
“People respond differently to stressful situations.”
Yeah, I’ve heard that before. Often. “And I’m baseline nuts, and you’re normal.”
He shakes his head. “You’re baseline perfectly normal plus a little extra lucky,” he tells me. “And I’m not generally afraid of storms, so we started in a different emotional place.”
“That’s very nice of you to say, but I have no delusions of being normal.”
He smiles, and I wonder how much of that smile is because I’m making sense when I respond properly to a conversation. Maybe he’s not so worried about me anymore. I must have looked like a lunatic for the past few minutes. Poor Grayson. This is not going to be remembered as the best date ever.
“If I ask you how you’re feeling, will it make you feel worse?” he asks, a little grin (more of a guy-on-a-date grin than a doctor grin) growing on his face. He understands how my brain works.
I shake my head. “I’m okay. Calming down. My heartbeat is slowing a little.”
He holds out his hand, like he wants me to pass him something. “Can I take your pulse?” he asks.
He’s watching me, and I can see that some of the official doctor remains, but it’s being overtaken by more of the guy I’m out on a date with. I don’t know how to explain it exactly, except to say that I see him loosen. I remove one of my hands from my chest and hold it out to him. I can still feel my heart pounding under my other hand.
He takes my wrist gently in his hand, placing two fingers against my . . . veins? Arteries? Whatever it is that lets him feel my pulse. His fingers are warm, and I don’t want him to let go.
I feel myself exhale. Have I not been doing that? That can’t be good.
“Am I—? ” I start to say, and he gently shushes me.
“I’m counting,” he whispers.
“But should we—?” I ask, and this time, he reaches his other hand over and places a finger lightly over my lips.
“You’re distracting me,” he says, and the way he looks at me, with those eyes and that smile (is that what a smolder looks like?) well, the doctor has left the building.
Except the building is the doctor’s office, and we’re literally sitting in it. Well, he’s sitting. I’m lying on my back with my feet elevated as he treats me for shock. But he’s totally the date now. The guy.
Yeah. Best date ever. I know I should be more embarrassed than I am, but he’s doing a very good job of making me comfortable, and I no longer fear I’ve been electrocuted to the extent of possibly becoming a transmitter.
I start talking mid-thought. “I’m not going to lie, though, it would have been pretty cool if tonight was my superhero origin story and I became magically able to light up rooms just by walking inside,” I say.
I wiggle my free fingers to display my lack of circuit powers, and he doesn’t laugh.
Instead, he wraps his fingers all the way around my wrist and tugs my hand to his lips. He kisses my fingers. “You definitely light up every room just by walking inside,” he says. Another kiss to my fingertips. “And there is magic in these hands.”
Is it a reflex? My fingers tighten in his. Am I clutching him? I try to loosen my grip, but I can’t. Or I don’t want to. I slip my fingers between his, and he holds our hands to his heart.
I stare into his dark brown eyes until I actually start to feel dizzy, which is yet another minor miracle of science, since I’m lying on my back. Who gets dizzy in a position like this?
Someone in shock, maybe? Yeah, okay.
“Would you automatically become my super sidekick?” I ask him, running my thumb up the side of his thumb, feeling the ridges of his knuckles. “Because you were in the storm with me?”
