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She’s simply pretending I don’t exist.
If this is what I can expect when I ask a woman to dinner, it’s a good thing I didn’t date much in my med school and residency years. Life was hard enough without a total freeze-out. And I certainly don’t need it now.
Am I more surprised or more offended? Kind of hard to say.
I could turn around and walk out of here, give her back what she’s giving me. But I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to be rude. I don’t want to walk away.
I have to give her a chance to reject me with her words. Kimberly will demand to know what she says.
There has to be no doubt, or Kimberly will never let me off the hook. She’ll have me back here with flowers, begging Sage to go to dinner with me.
I don’t think I can beg.
I clear my throat softly.
“If this is a no, I guess I’m going to need to hear the word.”
She makes no reply.
A tickle of annoyance creeps over me. This is not an emotion I’m comfortable seeing in myself. It reminds me too much of my dad, who dealt out eye-rolls of contempt and dismissive sighs like they were cards in a game that none of us asked to play. I lived my whole childhood certain I was an inconvenience, that my presence was a bother. I never want to make anyone else feel that. So I’m not a person who gets annoyed. I let things roll. I give the benefit of the doubt.
It’s easy. Usually.
Of course, usually, people respond well to respectful interactions.
What’s happening now is—at the very least—unexpected. Unresponsive. Not awesome.
“Sage?” I say her name again.
That feeling of scorn I’ve worked my whole life to squash down peeks up from its cellar, and I can feel it sneering, there at the back of my mind.
No. I won’t let my dad’s worst tendency make itself at home in me. I don’t want it. And I don’t need to give it a place.
“Say no and I’ll leave right now,” I say, my voice quiet.
I’m pathetic. I’m that desperate guy in a movie, saying, “So you’re telling me there’s still a chance.”
Oh, forget it.
I let my head fall onto my arms.
Then, finally and very loudly, Sage’s voice rings out around us. “Dr. Mercer!”
There’s definitely an exclamation point in there.
I jerk back up to standing. A quick look around proves that I didn’t imagine her shout. Everyone is looking at us. At me.
“What can I do for you?” Her voice is still way too loud.
What does that mean? She’s not broadcasting any obvious get-away-from-me signal. She’s looking from my forearms to my face. Maybe I’m in her space. Pulling my arms off the desk, I try to process the possibility that she actually didn’t hear me. I’ve never tested her hearing. Of all the reasons she’s come to my clinic worried, deafness has never been an issue.
But maybe it’s true. Lots of kids have hearing damage from prolonged use of headphones. Not that she’s a kid.
Not anymore. Not at all.
Be smooth, Grayson. Be cool.“I, uh, well, I was trying to, um, ask you,” I stammer. Yeah. Smooth. Also cool.
She shakes her head, those crazy ginger curls making a halo around her face, and reaches up to pull a pair of noise-cancelling earbuds from her ears. “Sorry. What?”
