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Chapter 87: Outed
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Diagnosis: Love Chapter 88: Sick
EMMAWe ate in silence. Or rather, Noah ate, and I poked at the food in front of me, which included breaded eggplant, despite my request. At least there wasn't any cheese on top, so I was able to try some of the pasta and sauce. My stomach was rebelling, though; between the audience around us, the tension of our conversation and the food issues, I wasn't feeling well at all. I'd just managed to choke down a few bites when Noah tossed down his fork onto his plate with a clatter."Fuck!" he muttered, staring out the window. "I was afraid of that." "What is it?" I was afraid to look outside. "What's wrong?" "That woman from the bar-she said she saw us on social media. So did some reporters, I guess, because there's a group of them at the door to the restaurant." Any appetite I'd had disappeared. "What are we going to do?" Noah shook his head. "I guess we'll have to just get through them and say no comment. Once we get home, we'll be all right. I think so, anyway." He was quiet f
Diagnosis: Love Chapter 89: Updates
DEACON"Deacon! Just the man I was hoping to see." I turned in mid-stride, my professional smile already in place as I extended my hand. "Raul! Great to see you. What brings you to my neck of the woods?" Raul Zamora gripped my hand and shook it firmly. "I had a check-up downstairs, and I thought as long as I was at the hospital, I'd come over and say hello. Maybe see how things are going on our shiny new wing." Checking up on me, I thought, but my expression didn't change. It wouldn't be a good idea for me to piss off the vice president of the board of directors. The hospital's governing team had been supportive of my project from the beginning of my tenure here, but I was well aware that I'd tested the board's tolerance when I'd abruptly left the country for a year. I was doing everything that I could to make up for that. "Of course." I regarded Mr. Zamora carefully. "I hope everything's okay with you." "Oh, yes, yes." He waved his hand. "Just my annual tune-up. Check the t
Diagnosis: Love Chapter 90:Restless
EMMA"I always forget how beautiful the sunsets are here." I sighed a little and wriggled down in my Adirondack chair, bunching the cushion behind me to get more comfortable. "Or maybe more accurately, I think I remember how amazing they are, and then I come back and realize my imagination doesn't do them justice.""This is an especially pretty one," my mother, sitting in the chair next to mine, agreed. "But I'm fairly sure they have sunsets in Florida, too.""True, but not over the mountains," I countered. "Florida is flat." "I'll give you that." She paused. "But the day we were at the beach on the Gulf last year was pretty damn amazing, if I remember correctly.""It was. I'm not arguing with you. I guess there's just something about this place, though, that holds so many fun memories . . . it feels like everything here is better than anywhere else." I drew up my feet to tuck them under me, hugging my knees to my chest. "I was thinking the other day about what Nana used to say-t
Diagnosis: Love Chapter 91: History
EMMAMy mother didn't answer right away. The twilight was falling all around us, and crickets were tuning up for their evening concert. The tiki lamps that burned oils to keep away the mosquitos crackled and blazed."Did you know that when I met your dad, I was dating Uncle Cal?" My mouth dropped open. "No. I did not know that. Are you serious? You and Uncle Cal?" Calvin Allan was not my blood uncle; he was a friend of my parents who'd been part of my life as long as I could remember. He'd always been a little bit of an absent-minded professor type, and in fact, he was now the English department chair at William and Mary. I'd always assumed he was my dad's friend more than my mother's, so this was a shock. "Yes. Cal and I met during our undergrad days, and we were friends for a long time before we started dating. Like you, I thought we made sense. It just seemed right, you know? We had a love of words in common. We could spend hours talking about books and history and things that
Diagnosis: Love Chapter 92: Dinner at the farm
DEACON"Gram, that was the best fried chicken you've ever made. I don't know how you manage to top yourself week after week." My grandmother shot me a skeptical glance as I passed by her, clearing the table after dinner. At the sink, Pop snickered. "The both of you are full of blarney." Gram eased back her chair slightly and folded her arms over her chest. "One of you is worse than the other.""It was all that early training I gave you." Pop elbowed me in the ribs when I set down a pile of plates. "You make me proud, Deacon." "And the two of you give me a headache," Gram grumbled. "These are the days when I wish I had a granddaughter who might take my side on occasion. Or at least I wish there was another woman in the family who would commiserate with me." She leveled a particularly pointed stare my way.I chose to ignore the reference to Emma. Conversations about my ex-girlfriend who was also a close friend to my grandparents never ended well. Nor did I necessarily want to th
Diagnosis: Love Chapter 93: Surprise or set-up?
DEACONGram was right; her directions to Emma's cabin were so accurate that I didn't have a problem finding it. I aimed my truck down the newly graded gravel drive, coasting along until I came to a stop in front of a cabin. For a moment, I stayed put behind the wheel, just gazing out the windshield at the place. It was a surreal experience, seeing the plans that Emma had shared with me now fully realized. Since I hadn't been around to see the process-the preparing of the land, the building of the house-it was almost as though she'd spoken her dream into being. The cabin itself was made of split-logs. It sat pretty high on the ground, giving her a decent-sized crawlspace beneath the floors. I wondered if she had gotten the root cellar she'd talked about once upon a time. Colorful plants and flowers decorated the front of the house, below the generous porch. A single rocking chair graced the porch itself, and I smiled a bit, imagining Emma sitting there at the end of a long day. T
Diagnosis: Love Chapter 94: Unlikely advice
DEACON"Because Noah might get mad?" I was fishing now, trying to get her to say something that would give me a clue about their status. Why the hell I cared was a nuance I didn't care to examine just now. "Because it's pointless." She jumped to her feet and began stalking the length of the room. "Why does it matter to you how long it's been since I saw Noah or if I'm going to be with him this weekend? It's none of your damned business, Deacon." "Sorry." I wasn't, not one little bit, and it probably showed in my tone. "I was only . . ." What? Curious? Nosy? Desperate to know if they were on the verge of breaking up so that maybe I'd have another shot with the woman I couldn't forget? "Uh, making small talk." "Yeah, well, I'm not much into that." Emma sat down again, wrapping her arms around herself. She drew in a deep breath. "If you must know, Noah and I . . . we're kind of on a break. After everything with the press . . . and there were some other tensions between us-""The p
Diagnosis: Love Chapter 95: Back to the grind
EMMA"Have I told you how happy I am that you're back at work?" Darcy, one of our two nurse practitioners on the oncology wing at St. Agnes, smiled at me as we both sat behind the desk at the nurses' station. "We did okay while you were on vacation, but it just felt like something important was missing. You make the oncology floor a little nicer place to be."I grinned back at her. "Awww, Darcy, that's so sweet of you to say. And I'm sure that you really mean it, and you're not sweet-talking me into covering hours while you're on your honeymoon.""Hey, I don't have to sweet-talk anyone for that. I'm using my accrued time off for that, and I have zero regrets. How you all decide to work out the coverage is up to y'all." She paused before adding, "Now, it's entirely that it's the pregnancy hormones getting me all soft and mushy about having you back, but I can't be held responsible for that. This is what happens when you're making up for lost time with a super sexy football player." S
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