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Down on the street, he looked at the contents of his trunk and back seat with dismay. He had to haul all his belongings up to the apartment. Then she appeared at the door.
“You didn’t think I’d let you lug all this crap up three flights of stairs, did you? There’s a dumbwaiter you can use,” Caroline said. “It doesn’t work half the time, so we save it for just this sort of thing.”
“What a relief,” he replied.
Both with arms full of items, she led him to where the elevator entrance was. He was able to load it up twice and get everything up to the apartment. Within the hour, the space was his.
“Do you want to have dinner with me?” she asked when he finally sat down to take a break.
“Dinner sounds great. Do you mind if we order in? I’m beat.”
“Take out it is. Here are the menus for the best places. What do you like?”
“Everything,” he said, trying not to lick his lips as he stared at her.
“I’m in the mood for Mexican if you’re okay with that.”
“Mexican’s good. I live thirty minutes from the border.”
“I hope our Mexican measures up.”
“I’m sure it will be fine. I really would kill for a beer. Can you get that delivered, too?”
“Ha, unfortunately, no. But we do have beer here, and tomorrow if you want to grocery shop, you can replace it.”
Settling into his new life in San Francisco was relatively painless thanks to Caroline, and by the end of the weekend, she’d captured Ryan’s heart.
Standing on the street, he got out his cell phone and called Eddie Page on Monday after orientation.
“How can you be in love, dude? You just met the chick.”
“Ha! I knew I could count on you to keep it real. Anyway, I just wanted you to know, get ready. I might ask her to marry me before the year is up.”
“Based on two days. Not even that,” Eddie replied. “Forget about it. How’d today go?”
“It was okay. I’m doing a night rotation already, starting tonight. How’s it going for you?”
“I haven’t killed anyone yet,” Eddie said.
“Ha! Okay, well, keep up the good work. And get your tux dry-cleaned.”
“You’re out of control,” Eddie replied, laughing. “Talk later.”
Leaning against the brick building, Ryan faced the afternoon sun with his eyes closed. He’d almost reached his goal. It wasn’t so much to be a doctor, but to be successful and independent. Living with three other people wasn’t exactly independence, but he was on the right path. And now with someone like Caroline to focus on, and she seemed to share the same feelings, he was well on his way.
“Can you sleep standing up?”
Opening his eyes, he stared directly into Caroline’s, her longing for him leaving little to the imagination.
“Why aren’t you at work?” he asked.
“I start a night rotation tonight. I saw that you were on nights and switched with another resident who has a baby at home. He was more than happy.”
“Does that mean we’ll be in the OR together?” he asked, blood pressure climbing in anticipation. Not just working with her, but the possibility of making mistakes in front of her contributed to the adrenaline rush.
“It does if we have a case. You’ll probably do rounds with me. I’ll talk to your superior. It’ll be nice, you’ll see.”
He didn’t know about that. It sounded a little intimidating after he thought about it.
