Jasmine Guillory - The Proposal

Fifty-seven more people had emailed her in the two hours that she’d been gone. And not a single one of the fifty-seven was named Carlos Ibarra.

• • •

“It was like this, Dr. Ibarra,” Luke, his newest patient said. “There was this girl, right?”

Carlos laughed.

“How did I know that that’s how this story was going to start? But keep going, all of the best stories start that way.”

Carlos listened to the kid’s story, took notes, gave him both medical advice—for the sprained ankle that he got from running down the street with the girl (rest, ice, elevation, lots of ibuprofen) and the rash he’d gotten from hiding in the poison-oak-laced bushes behind her house (a prescription cream)—and general life advice (girls who make you go through dangerous situations to prove your worth to them are always exciting at first and then you regret it).

That, of course, made him think about how he’d shoved that cameraman out of the way in order to get Nik safely out of Dodger Stadium. The difference, though, was that was his idea, not hers. But he understood where his patient was coming from—he still felt a rush when he thought about swooping down on Nik and getting her out of the stadium. It was probably just because he didn’t do anything dangerous these days other than driving too fast.

He’d had SportsCenter in the background on Sunday morning and was engrossed in the Sunday L.A. Times movie section, when he’d heard the announcer say “Can you believe what happened to this poor guy?” He’d looked up at the screen, just in time to see Nik’s wide-open mouth and Man Bun drop down onto one knee. He’d been wondering all day how Nik was doing. He wished he’d figured out a way to smoothly get her phone number before he and Angie had left the bar. Maybe sometime he would go back to see if he could accidentally run into her there. She said she and her friends went to that bar a lot, right?

He went back to his office after that appointment, hopefully his last one of the day, unless there was an emergency in the next hour and a half. He typed his notes from his appointments into the online system, making sure to only note the parent-friendly details from the stories that the teens had told him since their parents all had access to their information. With just half an hour to go until his Monday was over, he clicked over to his work email, to see what stupid administrative tasks people had sent him this time.

Nikole Paterson? He clicked on the screen so fast that he accidentally clicked on the email below it first, and had to skim through a message about vaccinations before he realized what was happening and went back.

“I don’t know if you saw, but the whole proposal has kind of gone viral.” He had, in fact, noticed that the whole proposal had gone viral. She must have heard from everyone she knew, and then some. He had no idea how she’d found his email address, but he was glad she had.

To:Nikole@NikoleDPaterson.com

From:Carlos_Ibarra@eastsidemedicalcenter.com

Hey! Good to hear from you. I figured you’d want to yell at me about the drinks, but I also figured you and your friends already had too much bourbon to figure out a bill. And yeah, I saw you on SportsCenter. Have you gotten emails and texts from literally everyone you know?

Carlos

He got an email back right before he was about to leave the office.

To:Carlos_Ibarra@eastsidemedicalcenter.com

From:Nikole@NikoleDPaterson.com

To answer your question, every single other email in my inbox has the subject line “Was that you?” or “OMG that was you!” and I can’t bear to look at any of them. So yes, I’ve gotten texts and emails (and Facebook messages, and tweets, and LinkedIn messages, for the love of God) from literally everyone I know. I have ignored all of them so far and have been hiding in my apartment almost all day, with a brief excursion to pick up cupcakes from Courtney’s shop, but I’m going a little stir-crazy.

Nik

Was that a hint? She didn’t seem like a hinting kind of person, but maybe?

To:Nikole@NikoleDPaterson.com

From:Carlos_Ibarra@eastsidemedicalcenter.com

If you’re in the mood for a friendly face tonight, let me know. About to leave work, want to grab dinner? Text me, I’m at 310-555-4827. I promise I won’t say “OMG that was you!”

Carlos

He double-checked his phone all the way to the parking garage, but nothing. Okay, maybe it wasn’t a hint. Damn it. It had been a long time since he’d met someone who could laugh at herself the way Nik could, even in the middle of a crisis.

Also, he’d really liked the way she’d looked in that snug baseball T-shirt and those jeans, he wasn’t going to lie.

He’d seen way too many accidents in his stint working in the ER to check his phone while he was driving, but he had to fight himself more than once from reaching for it on the way home. But when he pulled up to his apartment and grabbed it out of his pocket, there was nothing other than five group texts about his basketball league.

Just as he walked in the door, his phone chimed.

Going to take you up on that offer for dinner, but this time it’s my treat. What time and where? Not a bar, though, I’m still recovering from Saturday.

He was so busy grinning down at his phone that he almost tripped over the Amazon box in his entryway. Worth it.

7:30? Thai? There’s a fun place on Sunset, do you know it? Night+Market?

She did know it. He changed into jeans and his favorite T-shirt, killed some time by replying to all of the basketball messages with trash talk, and walked back out the door.

He put his name on the list and hung out by the door and pretended to be absorbed in his phone. She walked in the door at 7:33, not that he was checking. She stood at the door and peered around the restaurant, a guarded look on her face, her sunglasses again tucked into her dark curly hair.

“Hey!” He waved at her. Her face relaxed into a grin when she saw him. She was wearing jeans and a black shirt that looked better on her than any plain black shirt had a right to look.

“Hey yourself. Thank you for rescuing me yet again. If you hadn’t suggested dinner, I would have had a half-dozen cupcakes for dinner, hated myself for it, and then had another half dozen for dessert.”

He laughed.

“Thai food is definitely a much better idea. Where’d all the cupcakes come from?”

She leaned against the wall next to him.

“I forced myself out of the house today and walked to Courtney’s shop. I hung around until closing and she gave me the leftovers.”

“That’s convenient to have a friend with a cupcake store.” Now that he was looking at her closely, he could see a spot of white frosting standing out against her warm brown cheek and fought his impulse to wipe it off.

“You’re telling me. She usually gives any leftovers to the employees at the other shops nearby, as a sort of goodwill/‘we’re all in this together’ kind of thing, but I guess today she thought my need was more important. I certainly wasn’t going to argue with her.”

They made small talk as they waited for their table, too surrounded by other people to talk about anything important. After longer a wait than he’d hoped, the host finally called his name.

As Carlos walked behind Nik on the way to a table, he admired her shape in her snug jeans. He was pretty sure this woman hated all men at the moment, but he could look, couldn’t he?

They both ordered beer before they opened their menus.

“You’re going to have to keep me from ordering everything on the menu, I’m starving,” he said.