Page 28 of As Long As You'll Have Me
When they call her name, she takes a step forward to grab her drink. Following her with my eyes, I catch a group of men walking in and feel my heart nearly fall out of my ass. Almost the same way I watched him walk into the bar last night as I belted out the lyrics to “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,”Miles steps inside the coffee shop, holding the door open for the people behind him. Becauseof coursehe would come to the same coffee shop I’m in while I’m still reeling from my drunken embarrassment.
“Alrighty, you ready to go?” Rae asks, coming back withher drink in hand. Snapping out of the shock of seeing him here, I let out a startled ‘eep!’ and duck in front of her before he sees me.
“Girl, what are you doing?” She frowns as she looks at me. Holding onto her arms, I move quickly and turn her around so my back is to the door. With the way the coffee shop is oriented, we’ll have to walk right by them to leave.
“He’s here,” I say with an overflow of panic in my voice. My preliminary plan was to ignore his texts and professionally apologize for my behavior once I saw him at his next appointment. I have zero idea how I’m going to deal with this now that he’s in the same tiny coffee shop that I am.
“Who?” she asks, craning her neck around my face to look for whoever it is that I’m hiding from.
“Miles, from last night. Thefireman,” I explain under my breath. “Would you stop looking? He’s going to see you.”
“So let him,” she exclaims. “We aren’t doing anything wrong and this isn’t the first time you’ve seen a patient outside of the office.”
“Yes, but it’s the first time I’ve seen one outside of the office afterunintentionally flirting with themwhile I was drunk the night before. I can’t see him now, I’m not ready.”
“Well our only option is to leave and kindly say helloorhide in the bathroom until we think he and his hot friends have left like we’re two fourteen year old girls.”
“I like the second option, let’s do that.” I look hopefully at my friend and realize she’s not having it. Forcing out a breath I drop her arm and brush my hair out of my face before swallowing hard. “Okay, let’s just try and get out of here without him seeing us. I’ll keep my head down and walk behind you. Stop for nothing until we hit the street. Got it?”
She nods her head in agreement but I can tell she thinksI’m being ridiculous. I huff out a breath and hold her hand, keeping my eyes glued on the floor as she guides us towards the exit. The space we have to walk through to get to the door narrows with the shape of the building and because of the way the tables are arranged. Passing the register, I tip my head away towards the opposite wall but right as we’re about to hit the door I hear his voice call out the nickname he’s given me.
“Doc, is that you?”
Rae freezes and turns around to face me, eyes wide but with a growing smirk across her lips.
“I told you to stop for nothing,” I hiss as a growing panic builds behind my chest.
“Well I wasn’t going to let you ignore him,” she hisses back.
We argue incoherently under our breath until I feel the presence of him at my back. Her eyes lift and a friendly smile blooms on her face. Reluctantly, I turn around to face him. Sporting damp hair and a fresh navy tee with the Charleston Fire Department insignia on it, I can’t help but notice how the cotton fabric stretches over his arms. I lick my lips and try to collect myself.
“H–hey, Miles,” I greet him, trying to keep my voice even. “Good morning, how’s it going?”
Good. Simple questions. Keeping things professional.
“How am I doing? I should be asking howyou’redoing. You had quite the night last night. Both of you did, seems like you had fun though.” He looks at Rae and gives her a friendly smile before taking a step forward. “I didn’t get to introduce myself last night, I’m Miles.”
“Rae,” she responds cordially, shaking his hand. The two other men he was with step up behind him and look at Rae and I.
“Miles, who’s your friend?” one of them asks. While he isn’t wearing a T-shirt, he is wearing a jacket with the same firehouse insignia on it.
“This is Hanna,” he explains, pausing for a beat. “My therapist.”
“Ohhh, you’re the one who’s shrinking my brother here,” the same man says. “Lord knows he needs it.”
Miles elbows him in the ribs before looking back at me.
“I don’t like to see my job as ‘shrinking’ someone so much as teaching them ways to live a bigger life regardless of what they’ve been through,” I explain politely. One of my biggest pet peeves is being called a ‘shrink.’
“I think that’s an excellent way of looking at it,” the third man finally speaks, leaning in and offering me his hand. “I’m Cooper, nice to meet you. And thank you for what you do, we need more people like you out there. I see that every day on the job.”
My head tips to the side. “And what is it that you do, exactly?”
“I work as a police officer with Charleston PD. I can’t tell you the number of calls we get each week that I wish we had an on staff mental health professional. Or a social worker,” Cooper adds. This gets Rae’s ears to perk up.
“Call me, beep me, honey, and I’m there,” she says flirtatiously which is her default setting with any attractive man. While the relationship I have with Miles is nothing but professional, I wouldn’t disagree that he and his friends are an incredibly good looking bunch.
“You’re a social worker? No kidding.”
