“I don’t know if I can make you laugh, but I guarantee I can make you uncomfortable.”

I glanced at Nico again. A whisper of a smirk hovered over his lips. I was both surprised and impressed by the continuing nonchalance of Nico’s tone paired with the not-at-all veiled threat of his words. It was oddly attractive.

Dr. Ken Miles’s eyes narrowed for a beat then he flashed a sharp, white grin and chuckled. “Yeah, okay.”

I briefly thought that he was going to challenge Nico’s assertion, but, after a protracted moment, Dr. Ken Miles shrugged, worked to clear his throat, and looked away.

I felt Nico shift behind me, felt the heat of him at my back, then his hand tugged my elbow, turned me to face him. “I’m going to get out of here.”

I searched his eyes and found them shuttered. “Okay.” I experienced a swallow misfire; they were becoming quite frequent. “I’ll arrange for the screening tests, for the study, for Angelica. Is tomorrow too early?”

“No. It’s fine. I’ll. . .” Nico’s frown deepened as he studied my face; the soberness in his eyes made him look older. “I’ll see you later.”

I nodded once, but before I could speak he leaned down and placed a soft, lingering kiss full on my mouth; then he turned away and walked to the clinic room where Rose and Angelica were waiting. My fingers automatically lifted to my lips, touched them, my brain not quite able to process what had just occurred.

Dr. Ken Miles’s voice brought me back to the present. “Can I speak with you for a moment? Privately?”

Déjà vu.

I stared at Dr. Ken Miles for a beat. My mouth was sensitive and hot.

I knew I was expected to answer, even though I would rather stand in place and touch my lips all day. I eventually said, “Yeah, okay, fine.”

He motioned with his chin toward the infusion room I’d just exited. I ignored Meg’s glare as well as the nurses’ curious stares. It felt a little ridiculous marching back into a room I’d just vacated, but I walked through the door anyway, tucked myself into the farthest corner of the small space and faced him.

Dr. Ken Miles shut the door and issued me a stern, scolding expression, as though he expected an apology; not even my father looked at me that way. “Well?” he asked.

“Well what?”

“I thought we were on the same page, Elizabeth.”

“What page would that be? Because you’re on a weirdo page and I’m not comfortable with weirdo pages.”

He sighed. “We’ve known each other for, what? Eighteen months? We’re both ending our last year of residency. We’ve sown our oats—”

“Did you just say sown our oats?”

“—we’ve been building toward something. The two of us together make a lot of sense.”

I opened my mouth, released a confused puff of air, and frowned. “Yesterday you said I needed to grow up and now you’re, what? Wanting to pee on my leg to mark me as your property?”

“Is that what this thing today is all about? You flirt with me nonstop over the past year, you play practical jokes on me—”

“I play practical jokes on everyone.”

“Are you mad at me about something?”

“No.” I rubbed my forehead with my fingers. “No, Dr. Ken Miles.”

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Why do you always call me Dr. Ken Miles? Why don’t you just say my name?”

“I don’t do that.”

“Yes you do. You’ve done it since we met.”

I stared at him unseeingly. “I don’t. . .” My eyelashes fluttered as I thought about his complaint. I realized he was right. I did almost always think of him as Dr. Ken Miles.

I suddenly realized that I hadn’t really ever thought of him as having a name like a person has a name. I’d thought of him as a project, a target. He was entitled Dr. Ken Miles, and I would eventually cross him off my I’d do that list.

I huffed. “Fine, Ken, I’m not upset with you, okay? I’m just trying to enroll a patient on the Cystic Fibrosis Study. I don’t know why Meg called you.” That last part wasn’t true. I did know why Meg called him: because she was a raging eyebrow-tweezing horndog rhinoceros who was trying to embarrass me in front of Nico.

Yep, that summed it up.

Dr. Ken Miles lifted his chin; “I want to be exclusive.”

“Um. . . What?”

“You and me. You’ve been flirting with me for months, I know you’re interested in me.” To his credit, the words were plainly spoken with no hint of cockiness or arrogance.

“Oh for the love of—” I glared at the ceiling.

He crossed the room to my corner in three short steps, rested his hands on my shoulders. “Let’s stop pretending. I know it’s what you want too.”

“Ken, listen,” I huffed, again, and recognized that I would likely end up hyperventilating if I didn’t reign in my huffs and puffs.

I was trapped; I was cornered, and the only way to break free from relationship doom with Dr. Ken Miles was to tell him the truth. He would either be disgusted—which would send him running—or intrigued—which would give me the option of getting laid by a very nice looking, disease free, Dr. Ken Miles.

I gritted my teeth and braced myself for his reaction. “The thing is, I did want you. I wanted your body.”

He smiled. I’m sure he thought it was a dazzling smile. “I want you too.”

“No. Listen. I wanted to use you—your body—and have sex a few times, maybe weeks, maybe for a few months, hopefully there would be oral involved. But, hey, I was willing to accept just the basics—and no butt sex. I don’t do that. I’ve seen enough rectal tears in the ER to last a lifetime. However, just so we’re clear, I was never interested in dating you.”

He frowned. “You wanted to use me for sex?”

“Yes.”

“Like friends with benefits?”

“No. Like benefits with no friends. No friendship.”

“Are you. . . are you still interested in that kind of arrangement? With me?” Dr. Ken Miles’s expression was inscrutable.

The irony of this conversation was not lost on me. A small shiver raced down my spine as my thoughts automatically recalled a vision of Nico, of the words we’d exchanged just moments ago, of the mutual respect; then I thought of his soft yielding lips on mine when he kissed me goodbye. My stomach dropped, and I experienced a brief moment of vertigo.

I wasn’t an idiot. My tangled feelings for Nico were more than purely physical, more than a need to exorcise pent up sexual frustration. Furthermore, I knew engaging in benefit sessions with Dr. Ken Miles wouldn’t erase my desire for Nico. I just hoped they would dull the building ache a little by scratching the most pressing itch.

I reflected with some optimism that maybe after a few sexual encounters with Dr. Ken Miles, I might be able to interact with Nico without massive crush-induced fumbling female failure. Then maybe I could get some sleep.

“Yes.” I nodded. “Yes, I’m still interested.”

And, really, why not? Dr. Ken Miles was still disease free and had a really nice body. Hopefully he knew how to use it.

Dr. Ken Miles studied me, his hands on his hips; “Do you really think that once we start dating—”

“It wouldn’t be dating.”

“Once we start whatever, do you really think that you won’t want to get serious? Do you think you can resist getting serious with me?” To his discredit, he appeared to be completely perplexed by the notion that someone would want him only for his fine body and not his insipid little mind or potential bank account.

I recalled his propensity for Frappuccinos, his secretive nose picking, his hall monitor-like behavior, his complete lack of humor, and his most recent prissy jealousy attack.

I schooled my expression so it was as serious as a heart attack. “I’m pretty sure I can contain myself.”

~*~

Syncing schedules with Dr. Ken Miles was like trying to pee upside down: nearly impossible, horribly uncomfortable, and entirely frustrating. When we emerged from the infusion room we had three not-dates scheduled. The first one was scheduled for two weeks from Thursday; it was the first evening we both had off where neither of us already had plans.

For our first not-date Dr. Ken Miles insisted—and I reluctantly agreed—on taking me out to dinner before commencing with the benefits portion of the evening. I wasn’t happy with the concession, but he’d, in turn, agreed that we would only have to share the one meal together for the duration of our interactions. If I didn’t want to watch him eat in the future I wouldn’t have to. It seemed like a fair trade off.

The rest of my Monday while at work was mostly benign. I avoided Meg, ate in the doctors’ lounge, and knit a baby hat. Between large projects I frequently knit hats for the hospital’s newborns. They were fast, and I had the pattern memorized. It also gave me a little thrill to see the hats on the infants as they left the maternity ward.

I encountered only a few broken bones, cuts, and cases of the flu in the emergency room and was able to leave the hospital on time after my double shift was over.