hands after work.
'But I haven't been sick in years. Nothing more than a mild
cold or two. I think I immunized myself to everything when
I was a kid, so I can't get anything now. In med school
they caled me Iron Man because no matter what we
faced, stomach bugs, coughs, colds, flu…whatever it was,
they usualy got it and I never did.'
'Wow. Lucky you.'
He swirled those long fingers through the crumbs again,
bringing them out covered with buttery salt. He licked
them one by one as I watched. If I'd thought he was doing
it on purpose to tempt me I'd have been annoyed, but Eric
didn't seem to have any awareness about how he looked.
Or of how my mind went at once to that dirty place.
'Yeah. Pretty amazing.' He held out the bowl. 'Want
some more?'
I shook my head. 'That's interesting, though. Why you
decided to become a doctor. Was it everything you
thought it would be?'
'It's not like I dreamed it would be. No,' Eric said flatly.
I waited for more. It seemed there must be more, but no.
His gaze went to the bowl in his lap. He swirled again
through the popcorn and licked the tips of his fingers. He
put the bowl back on the coffee table and looked up at
me.
'It's an incredible amount of responsibility. It's a lot to
'It's an incredible amount of responsibility. It's a lot to
handle, you know?'
I didn't, realy. Not the way he meant. I thought of my own
job and the lists from Paul, and how there realy wasn't
anything I had to be accountable for there. How I had
nothing in my life I needed to take care of. How I never
had. Even when I was married, what had I ever done but
taken care of myself?
'But Monty Python makes it better?'
Eric laughed and ducked his head again for a moment
before looking back at me. 'I'm glad you liked it.'
'It's a classic. What's not to like?'
Eric shrugged and leaned back against the couch, one arm
stretched out along the back. His fingers could have
touched my shoulder if he'd stretched half an inch more.
Neither of us moved.
'Some of the women I've known…most of them, actualy,
don't get Monty Python. Don't like it.' He shook his head.
'So when you said you loved it, I wasn't sure you meant
it.'
I studied him. Many things had brought us to this point.
Too many to discount as coincidence or chance. There
was a reason I was here, I believed it in my gut.
