“What’s wrong?” I asked as I quickly reviewed what I had said.
“Nothing. I just like the sound of that. I finish my shift at seven. I should be able to get away at seven unless we have some big accident just before my shift ends.”
“Okay. I’ll be here. Oh, wait!” I said, suddenly remembering something important. “In case I’m out or in the shower or on the phone or something, here’s a key for you so you can let yourself in.”
Kyle looked like he was going to lose it right on the spot. “Thank you!” he whispered as he gave me a nearly bone-crushing embrace.
“You’re hurting me!” I joked.
“It’s okay. I’m a doctor.”
“I’m not a You Break It, You Buy It kind of guy. Now go on! Get out of here, or you’ll be late for work. And somehow I don’t think you’ve ever done that.”
“Never. Bye,” he said as he dashed out the door and down the hall to the elevator.
Chapter 13
OVER the days and weeks that followed, when we weren’t working, we spent every moment in one another’s company. We ate together. We talked together. We ran together. We debated issues together. We slept together. We had sex like rabid tree squirrels together. We cooked together. We watched movies together.
When he ran out of clean clothes, Kyle went back to his apartment to pick up some things. He asked me to tag along, which I was only too happy to do. One glimpse at the place where Kyle lived was all it took for me to see why the man had never asked me to stay there. “This is where you live?”
“No. I didn’t really start living until I met you.”
“Now you’re gonna make me cry!” I really was afraid of doing just that.
Kyle moved around the apartment, packing up a few things. The place was rather spartan in appearance. The furniture, what there was of it, was used—not secondhand, but something like tenthhand. The tiny place was simple: one room, square, with a rickety bed, a simple wooden chair on which he had piled his clothes, an old sofa with books stacked where one leg should have stood, no TV, and a monster pile of medical journals on the floor next to the sofa. There was no place to sit to eat. The kitchen, if you could call it that, was a tiny corner of the tiny room. The refrigerator was tiny (and ancient), the stove was tiny—everything about the place was tiny. Which was odd because the man who resided there was anything but tiny.
It didn’t take too long for the two of us to collect what few things Kyle needed and return to my apartment. The walk back to my place was unusually quiet; neither of us had much to say, which wasn’t to say that we didn’t have things on our minds—quite the contrary.
When we were back inside my place, I asked a simple question. “When does your lease expire?”
“End of next month.”
“Let it go,” I said decisively. “Move in with me. I have the space. I want you here.”
Kyle looked expectantly at me. I knew what was still to be said, but I was finding that I was unable to get the words out easily.
“I’d say it first,” Kyle half joked, “but it doesn’t count coming from me.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I’m new at this and probably fall in love more easily. You, on the other hand, are the battle-hardened, dating-weary man of the world. If you say the words, you’ll really mean them.”
“No more so than if you say them,” I objected as strenuously as possible.
“They’ll be harder for you to say. For me, the hard part has been waiting to say them. I’ve been working hard to hold them in and not let them fly out and go bouncing around the room at least seventeen times an hour. Now come on! Say them!” he ordered. “It’s starting to hurt having this bounce around inside me!”
I took a deep breath and gave my boyfriend an understanding, loving smile, knowing that the words Kyle had just spoken were true. With no additional hesitation, I took Kyle’s hands in my own, looked up at those gorgeous eyes—which were wild with anticipation—and said, “Kyle, I want you to move in here with me because you wash dishes really well.”
Kyle slapped my arm and yelled, “Dude!”
“Sorry! Couldn’t resist. Let’s try this again.” Taking a deep breath and refocusing myself, I once again took both of Kyle’s hands in mine, looked up into his eyes, and said, “Kyle, you came out of the blue and burst into my life so unexpectedly. Before I realized what was happening, you had stolen my heart. And then I realized that I could entrust it to your loving care. Kyle, please move in with me because I love you and want to be with you now and always.”
Tears were shed at that point as we grappled in a hug. I’m sure it was Kyle who cried first. I am, after all, the dating-hardened man of the world. You buying any of this? I’m not. Kyle was able to get out his words. “I love you, Jo-Jo.”
“Jo-Jo? Where the hell did that come from?” I laughed.
“I wanted a pet name for you.”
“How about ‘rabid tree squirrel’?”
“I can call you ‘squirrel’, but I think I’ll skip the rabid part when we’re with others. But I still like Jo-Jo and want to use that sometimes.”
After mulling it over for a moment, I relented. “Okay. No one’s ever called me Jo-Jo before. I kind of like it. Now get out of here! Go to work! You’re going to be late!”
And Kyle dashed off to make it to the ER in time for his shift to start at 7:00 a.m.
The days that followed were a blur of activity. Long hours at the ER for Kyle, hard work at the office for me, time to get acquainted in the evenings
