Page 78 of The Doctors Will See You Now

Mel stood in the corner, making notes on the chart, and I had to tear my eyes away from her to focus on my job. She was always distracting, her creamy skin and bold features enough to pull me in on any given day, but today was something else.

I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Last night at my sister’s house had gone surprisingly well under the circumstances—those circumstances being Thatch, Cassie, and my parents all in one room.

But on the drive home, Melody had been pensive—never something you want your new girlfriend to be without you. She’d actually wanted to go back to Bill and Janet’s to sleep on her air mattress instead of sleeping at my place.

Red flag.

Sure, she didn’t sleep over every night, but usually, when I put on a pretense of begging, she pretended to be put out and then accepted. Not last night.

Last night had been, “I think I’ll just go home. I’m tired, I need clothes, and I’d like to actually be on time for once.”

I’d argued that I could guarantee her timely arrival if she stayed with me, but she declined.

She hated that air mattress and her mom’s version of Workout Barbie, as she put it, yet her excuses seemed potentially valid.

Thanks to the insecurity monster, I’d also asked her if everything was okay so many times I was bordering on doctoring her, and every single time, she’d smiled her smile and promised she was just tired.

I was running out of ideas to get her to be honest with me. I didn’t have the practical relationship hours to know what I was doing—all I knew was that the relationship plane had controls I didn’t know how to use without flight school.

I’d finally settled on the possibility that what she said was actually what she felt. It wasn’t what we’re trained to believe about women in Man School, but it was also the only theory I had left to come up with.

Yeah, there’s no Man School per se, but when you grew up with a father like Dick Cummings, your adolescent youth included long talks about what makes women happy.

Ironically, it’s only now that I’m wishing those discussions would have hit more topics than just “how to find the G-spot.”

Unfortunately for me, Melody still seemed off today, and I had to let it go. My patients needed concentration.

“We’ll start with the breast exam, so just lie back and relax for me,” I told our current patient with a genuine smile.

She complied immediately, pulling the top of her gown off completely and massaging her own breasts jovially. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Melody’s eyes widen.

“I haven’t felt anything, but there’s just so much tissue,” Samantha Wilson teased. “You’re better at covering all of it.”

I smiled and shook my head at her seemingly forward advances. But it wasn’t like that—not really anyway.

Samantha wasn’t a new patient, as the majority had been lately, and I knew her and her case on a deeper level. She’d already been through the wringer, breast cancer at the age of thirty-six four years ago, and she’d followed that up by having reconstructive surgery to, in her words, get the boobs she’d always wanted anyway.

We joked regularly after she’d taken the lead that first appointment, opening up about how alive it made her to freely engage in humor and harmless flirting whether it was entirely appropriate or not. She’d never made any actual advances, and I’d never stepped out of line. Hell, I even knew her husband Justin pretty well. We saw each other on the golf course a few times a year.

But the most important part about our patient-doctor interactions was that we both left each appointment feeling good. And that’s all I wanted out of my job.

“Well, I am the doctor.”

She laughed.

“Let me see how you’re doing.”

She moved her hands from her breasts, sliding them under gracefully like one of the models on The Price is Right. “Have at it, Doc.”

I smiled at her as I started the exam, but the nature of my touch wasn’t playful. It wasn’t the same as when I used breasts for pleasure, and it wasn’t hot in any way. It was the same old exam I’d done thousands upon thousands of times.

Concentrating on searching all of the tissue, conscious of a relapse in a case like Samantha’s, I glanced up to find Melody’s pinched, almost pained face watching my hands intently.

I stopped automatically, calling Samantha’s attention. “Everything okay?” she asked, anxious.

My face, I knew without seeing it, was one of genuine concern, but it wasn’t because of the patient. It was because of my girlfriend. Still, I forced my concentration back to the patient where it was supposed to be.