Page 402 of The Doctors Will See You Now

He smiled. “Deal.”

I sat up in his bed and held out my hand. “Now, let’s shake on it.”

He laughed and took my hand for a quick shake, and then, apparently, that wasn’t enough, and he moved both hands toward my body and assaulted my skin with tickling brushes of his fingertips.

“Shit!” I shouted as I shivered and tried my damnedest to squirm out of his reach. “I have another addition to the naked rule!”

A smirk kissed his lips. “Nuh-uh,” he refuted and tickled me some more. “We already shook on it. The deal is done, sweetheart.”

“Oh my God! Stop!” I said through a fit of obnoxious laughter. “I hate being tickled!”

His smile grew wider by the second. “You hate this?” he questioned, and his fingers continued their assault. “But you’re smiling and laughing? I’m so confused by this reaction.”

“Nick!” I squealed. “Stop it!”

“Okay… okay…” he finally agreed and removed his maddening fingers from my body while I stayed on my back, breathing heavily and staring up at him with a scowl.

But my scowl didn’t faze him; Nick chuckled softly as he leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. “I’ll make the coffee. Naked. While you stay in the bed. Naked. Sound good?”

I couldn’t not grin at that proposition. “Sounds perfect.”

He winked and walked out of his bedroom, his bare feet pattering across the hardwood floor as he made his way into the kitchen. I heard the faucet a few moments later, and with a contented sigh, stretched out on his bed and closed my eyes.

But before I could drift off into a little catnap, the sound of a phone ringing in the distance startled my eyes open.

“Shit,” Nick muttered from the kitchen, and the phone rang three more times before a little click and beep echoed into the hallway. When the words, “This is Nick Raines. Leave a message,” loudly filled my ears, I looked toward his nightstand again and saw a relic of a device. One that I honestly thought hadn’t existed since Barack Obama had won his first Presidential nomination.

It was damn near 2020, and this man still had an answering machine.

I smiled big at the thought as Nick jogged in and grabbed the phone from the cradle, winked, and jogged back out of the room to continue making coffee.

“Lex?” Nick’s voice reverberated from the speakers of the small, black device and echoed against the walls of his bedroom. “Are you there, honey?”

“Hi, Dad,” she answered, the soft and sweet lilt of her little voice melting my heart.

“Statistically speaking, it is more logical to keep your phone in your living room,” she stated firmly. “The waking hours are two-thirds of the average person’s day, but ninety percent of phone calls occur during those hours.” The girl had sass. I loved it.

“I know, Lex,” Nick said through a chuckle, “but the main reason I have a landline is in case the hospital can’t reach me on my cell phone. And generally speaking, that happens when I’m in bed. Hence the need for it to be in my bedroom.”

She sighed. “It’s loud, Dad. Actually seven times louder than a standard cell phone ring. You would be able to hear it from the living room.”

“Fine,” he muttered, but I could hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll take moving it into the living room under strong consideration. Sound like a plan?”

“Yep,” she agreed. “Anyway, I’m calling about the Mathletes,” she said, and I couldn’t not giggle at the way Nick’s daughter managed to get straight to the point and how flawlessly at ease their familiarity with each other seemed to be. “My competition is at six. Are you coming?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Cool.” The sound of a female voice yelling, “Lexi! Breakfast!” filled the background, and immediately, she announced into the receiver, “Gotta go, Dad. Bye!”

“Okay. See ya tonight, Lex,” Nick said, and the call ended, a final beep sounding on the machine next to me.

Immediately, I felt guilty for listening to their whole conversation. Sure, it wasn’t something I’d sought out or done on purpose, but despite the accidental circumstances, I’d still listened to the whole thing without restraint.

A few minutes later, he strode back into his bedroom with two steaming coffee mugs in his hands. He set them on the nightstand and sat on the bed beside me.

“I feel a little bad,” I blurted out, and he looked at me curiously. I pointed my index finger toward his answering machine and cradled one of the pillows from his bed to my chest. “I accidentally overheard your conversation with your daughter.”

Nick smiled softly. “Why do you feel bad about that?”