Page 17 of The Love Operation

Any chance you’d be willing to have coffee with me in the morning? Not at the hospital, of course.

Please say yes. Just one coffee.

My chest vibrates with my heartbeat, quick and reckless, like it’s trying to outrun a decision I haven’t even made yet.

“Cord?” Delenn says again.

“Sorry. I just got a text. I gotta go. See you tomorrow.”

I hang up and stare at the text.

I can’t say yes.

I shouldn’t say yes.

But then—

My fingers move before they get the message from my brain, like they’ve been primed to break the rules.

They type. They press send.

Yes.

Chapter 4

Betcha Can’t Have Just One

“It’s just a coffee,” I tell Tad Cooper the next morning, as if he’s my skeptical lizard dad with a firm stance on my love life.

I sling my lab coat over my shoulder sexy trench style, as if I’m not wearing hospital-issued, antiseptic-scented scrubs.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I mutter. “It’s not a date. I’m going to shut this down.”

And then I march out before he can rotate those judgmental, satellite dish eyeballs at me.

Except, the universe wants to be humorous (or an evil bitch) because I’m yanked back when my coat fuses with the door. I attempt to free myself, but it’s like this coat and that door have conspired to teach me a life lesson, and both hold firm.

That’s when I feel it—Tad Cooper on the other side of the door laughing his ass off, his impossibly cute little mitten hands death-gripping his faux tree branch so he doesn’t fall in hilarity.

“This means nothing, Tad Cooper!” I yell through the wood, and I hear him roll his eyes.

I should calmly open the door, remove the coat, and proceed to my not-date. But no. I yank. The house and I engage in a spirited game of tug-of-war. House wins, the smug piece of architecture retaining a small corner of my coat, its consolation prize.

Chin up. I will not be derailed by this. I get in my car.

This means nothing. It’s not a date. It’s coffee. Two professionals ironing out life.

I picture life being laid out and ironed, every crease erased by heat and friction. And then I wish I hadn’t just thought of heat and friction.

When I arrive at 1 Hotel Nashville, I think, I shouldn’t have agreed to meeting at a hotel.

It’s not like I’m going to sweep our coffees off the table, climb onto it, and breathily whisper that we should get a room.

I’m not.

But the fluttering in my stomach makes me feel like I could, which is alarming.

I text Isaac: I’m in the lobby.