“Hold on,” César said as the massive metal gate swung open. He pulled out his phone and flipped through his texts, scrolling and scrolling, farther and farther down his list of messages. Popular guy. “There it is, in October. I still have your number.” He held the phone so I could see what I had written to him back then, giving him my address so he could come over and “hang out.” I felt a rush of anger at my stupid October self. “I’ll let you know about the appointment,” he told me.
“Ok.” I walked to my car but he asked me to hold on again.
“Camdyn, I wasn’t trying to be an asshole before. This is…” He trailed off and stopped, holding up his palms to the sky and shaking his head, a “what the hell is happening to me?” pose.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’m with you there.” I got into my car and drove away.
∞
“Camdyn. Camdyn!”
“What?” I lurched awake and my head flew up from my desk. Ow. I rubbed the spot on my forehead where it had been smushed against the sharp edge of a binder that we showed to prospective bridal couples.
“Were you asleep again?” Euna demanded. My supervisor in special events coordination at the winery frowned down at me.
“I was resting my eyes. There isn’t that much to do today, Euna,” I tried to explain.
She frowned harder. “Then maybe I don’t need another employee in this department!” she snapped. “Did you talk to the Keatings about the June twenty-third wedding?”
God, had I? I rummaged around on my desk, then remembered that I had a computer and woke it up. It had been sleeping more than I had today, because things in the event coordination department were dead after the New Year’s party. We had already booked most of our summer weekends for weddings, anniversary and business parties, and bachelorette stuff. Now we were just sitting around. “The Keatings,” I repeated the name. Now I remembered them. “Yes, they’re confirmed on that Friday and we have the Visie Optics group on Sunday for their corporate retreat but—wait, what?” I looked at the clock on the screen. “Is that the right time?” Now I jumped to my feet. “I have to leave. I have an appointment.”
“You’re leaving, now?” Euna asked.
“It’s lunch. Just about,” I qualified. “I have a doctor’s appointment. For a feminine issue.”
“I see.” She drew back, nostrils pinched. Those were the magic words that usually worked to get her off my back. She had a bred-in-the-bone horror of the female body, despite being a woman herself. “Does this appointment relate to the amount of time that you’ve been spending in the bathroom and why you’ve been late so many mornings?”
The lateness was generally due to me being sick in the parking lot. “Euna, I’m sorry, but I have to run. I’ll be back soon.” I hurried out of the winery and to the address that César had sent to me, which was a grey office building filled with doctors, dentists, and a big medical lab taking up the whole first floor.
I rushed into the waiting room and he was already there, looking pretty out of place as the only man in a big bunch of women, many of them obviously pregnant. And since he was six-foot five and his body filled the chair he sat in, he looked like he would have been more at home at a superhero convention rather than an obstetrician’s office. Almost every face was turned towards him, because not only was he huge and male, but he was also a Woodsmen, famous for what he did on the field.
Also, he was just so good-looking. I had forgotten how attractive he was until he had opened the door to his house the day before. Even though I had been close to flying apart with nerves, I had still noticed. And even though I felt the same way now, pretty much shaking with anxiety, I noticed it again. I couldn’t see his dark brown eyes because he was looking at some papers in his lap, and from here, I couldn’t see the tiny, tiny freckles he had on his nose, either. His bronze-colored hair was cut so short it was hard to pick up the color. So mostly, I could just see what every other woman in the room was staring at: put everything together, and the man was handsome as shit. On top of that, his body was enough to make them all wish they hadn’t spent their time getting pregnant with someone else.
“Hi.” I put myself in the chair next to him, out of breath from my run from the car. I was totally going to do more cardio.
“You’re late,” he greeted me. “You were supposed to be here ten minutes ago.”
“Well, the doctor is late too, so it worked out perfectly. What are you filing out?” I asked, pointing to the clipboard he held.
“It’s your medical history, but I didn’t get very far. They asked if you have records from your regular doctor.”
“I don’t really have one.” I leaned over to look at what he had written. “You don’t even know my last name? It’s Riordan,” I told him. “Camdyn Riordan. Camdyn with a Y. You got my height right.” I was tall, but the weight he had guessed was very much on the low side. “I’ll take over.” César sat quietly while I filled out the rest of the form, information about me and my family history, some of which I left blank. I glanced up to see his eyes on what I wrote, but then he looked at the fish tank on the wall opposite to us.
“Are you coming in with me or something?” I asked him. “Is that why you wanted to be here?”
“They
