Mister Romance by Amelia Simone (the reading list .txt) 📕

me to make it through the wedding with an only partially faked smile and average alcohol intake. Okay, average-to-high. It was still a family wedding.

If Uncle Ted caught me alone and decided to lecture me (again) on how I had wasted myself in the medical field by not becoming a doctor, he just might find out firsthand how good I am in a medical emergency. For example, I could resuscitate him after choking him into unconsciousness. Harsh? Maybe. But not too high a price for mansplaining the medical field to a registered nurse.

I was proud of my nursing career. Good at it. For once, I’d found something I excelled at. Nursing felt right. I didn’t envy the doctors one bit. They had too much pressure and focus on their every move, whereas I could move efficiently in the background, managing deliveries and quietly helping my patients with meds and breast feeding. I mattered to my patients, even if I became a hazy memory, lost to the fog of delivery later. A different set of letters after my name wouldn’t tell me I was more important or worthy.

Still, it didn’t stop me from wanting some sweet man candy to help the medicine go down smoother and deflect some of my relatives’ comments. Hiring an escort was out. I wouldn’t know where or how to find one. Those types of services weren’t exactly advertised in the hospital break room.

Sadly, I was too old to hire myself a male babysitter. Also, it would be creepy. I tried to envision myself on the arm of an acne-studded teen at the wedding. Then I pictured myself abandoned at the cake table while he swanned off with one of my cute teenage nieces. The babysitting idea was a no-go for so many reasons.

I sighed with all the angst of my teenage nieces and leaned back on my couch to compose my response to Chase.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Re: Labor & Delivery Questions

Hi,

I’m still game to meet on Wednesday, 2:00 pm?

Tamra

I marked our coffee date on my calendar once Chase replied to confirm he was available that afternoon and gave the address of a coffee shop not far from the hospital. It was nice to make plans with someone whose schedule was flexible to match mine. Working evenings usually made coordinating times to meet up a challenge.

It was going to be hard to wait. I tried to imagine what Chase looked like in person. Hipster Santa was leading in my mental images. I could picture a well-trimmed goatee and a head of white hair over twinkling eyes, giving happily-ever-afters to all the good boys and girls. Until we met, I was holding on to my delusions—a girl’s gotta believe in something. With luck, he wouldn’t be a total jerk. Based on the available facts, I knew he was a human who ate food and wrote books. I too, was a human who ate food and read his books, so we were already starting from some common ground. I crossed my fingers that he’d be trustworthy enough to ask my favor. If I could believe in Santa until I was eight years old, could I believe in myself for long enough to ask him to set me up?

THE DAY OF OUR MEETUP dawned cloudy and threatened rain. I could smell the metallic hint of the incoming storm on the wind as I walked to my car. The damp and jittery weather matched my mood perfectly. I had paired my best jeans with a floral top and ankle boots. My curls were mostly in order thanks to a liberal application of hair oil. I didn’t often have the opportunity to meet someone for the first time in something other than scrubs, and I wasn’t going to waste it.

Traffic into Tacoma was light for mid-day, and I took finding street parking without too much trouble as a positive omen. Both allowed me to arrive a few minutes early for our meeting. The coffee shop fit the vibe of the neighborhood, with fun and funky local art on the walls and chairs in comfortable groupings. The scent of roasted coffee hung in the air and was imbued with the subtle scent of cinnamon from the pastries for sale in a display up front.

There were only a handful of other people there. I assumed Chase wasn’t one of the mothers having coffee together with their tots in tow. An older woman wearing readers sipped at a cup and flipped through a stack of papers with a red pen in one hand. She’d have been a shoo-in for Virginia if Chase hadn’t revealed his ruse. The heavy sheaf of papers in front of her could easily have been a manuscript.

With a sigh, I kept scanning the coffeehouse, lingering on a man focused on his laptop in the corner. He’d obviously been working hard at something for a while, judging by the sheer number of empty coffee cups surrounding him. Dirty blond hair stuck up in tufts around his head, like he’d been tugging on it in frustration. He didn’t look up from his work, so I figured he probably wasn’t Chase. He’d make a good wedding date though; he was dressed casually in jeans and a fitted T-shirt. The gray fabric hugged his torso. A stubbly beard contrasted strongly against a full mouth. Heavy brows drawn down on his forehead over a sharp nose telegraphed his focus on the laptop in front of him. A braver woman would chat him up. Luckily, I didn’t have to pretend to be that woman if Chase came through with an alternative.

I loitered around the entrance for a few minutes, peering outside into the gloom. I should probably be playing it cool, grabbing a coffee and a table to wait. Instead, I looked like I was waiting for my prom date, pacing and alert to any movement near the door. I was so focused on what was outside, which was a big, fat nothing, that I didn’t realize