Sincerely, Dr. Cruz

Twenty Seven: Fire and Ice

Chapter Twenty Seven: Fire and Ice

“This is sad.” I said while continuing to scribble into the file I was viewing.

“I know.” Neal said across from me, his eyebrows furrowed in deep thought. “I honestly don’t see where the time went.”

“Neither do I. It seems like last week I was running up the hall surprised to see you again, and here I am, wrapping the last of my reports before I leave.”

“Reina, you make it seem as though I’ll never see you again.” Neal said while putting down his file. “I mean, we both know for a fact that that isn’t true, am I right?” He said with a knowing smirk and gleam in his eye.

I realized that I was blushing and merely responded by shaking my head at his confidence.

“I don’t know Neal, what if I just go about ignoring you forever?”

“You wouldn’t do that to me now would you?” Neal said, feigning hurt.

“I might.” I said subconsciously leaning in. “You don’t really know my intentions now, do you?”

Neal leaned across his desk, stationing himself a few inches from my face. “I do know that you enjoy my company.” He said, staring directly into my eyes. I could feel the heat on my face intensify.

It sucks, having a complexion that allows people to easily tell if I’m blushing. Neal seemed to be enjoying this very much, and I mean, I was too.

Who wouldn’t like staring at his gorgeous face from a distance as short as ours?

“W—what are you doing?” I asked, not breaking our little staring contest.

“I don’t know, what do you want me to do?” He said slowly, his voice a bit husky.

Ignoring the butterflies that were parading in my stomach, I muttered something about working and Neal broke out in a grin, leaning away and chuckling at my obvious discomfort.

He obviously didn’t understand the effect he had on me.

Long story short, today was the last day I would be working with Neal. It had already been six months, and after lunch today, I would find myself stuck in the radiology department going back to learning things that would help me become a doctor a few years down the road. While that was ultimately the goal here, it was almost heartbreaking to realize that I wouldn’t be walking into work every day with Neal being the first person I talked to.

I sound like such an emotional wreck right now. This isn’t even funny.

“Listen, Reina, do you want to maybe come over later? Just to… hang out I guess?”

I smiled at Neal.

“I would love to.”

“Oh, that’s great! Um, yeah. It’s just Ben really wanted to see you, and I guess I did too. Outside of work I mean.” He paused for a bit to look at me. I was smiling like an idiot, waiting for him to say what he really wanted to say.

“I just really like spending time with you, you know?”

I bit my lip as I smiled, shaking my head once again. “I like spending time with you too. You don’t have to use your four year old son as an excuse to see me, you know.”

“Oh. Well that’s good to know.”

We both burst out laughing, falling into easy conversation once again as we secretly prayed that the clock would never strike 1:00, because then it would be lunch time, which inevitably meant that I had to leave.