Page 43 of A Brush with Love
“Because you’re a terror. An absolute terror.”
“What? How?”
With a long, defeated sigh, Harper propped her elbow on the table, careful to keep her eyes shielded. “You make me so nervous, and I don’t know how to deal with it. Not looking at you helps,” she said, gesturing at herself with her free hand. “I let myself relax for one tiny second and think that any of this can actually feel normal, then you do something absurd like smile or call me beautiful and it’s like…” She pressed her lips together like she was about to reveal something too honest.
“Like what?” he asked, his hand circling her wrist and running a coaxing thumb over the back of her hand.
She let him pull her hand away and fixed him with her gaze, searching his face. Harper opened her mouth to speak, but closed it and shook her head with a smile.
“Nervous,” she finally said, letting him know he wouldn’t get anything further. “You make me nervous.”
Dan wanted to pull the unspoken words from her—wanted confirmation that he wasn’t the only one drowning in this tidal wave of feeling.
But instead he sat there and sipped his coffee, letting her lead them.
Her hands returned to play with the checker pieces and Dan watched her body relax a fraction.
“Talk to me about school,” Dan said, handing her a few stray checkers to add to the tower she was building. Harper looked at the pieces and smiled.
“What do you want to know?”
“What are your plans after graduation? You want to do surgery, right?”
Her eyes sparked with excitement, and tenderness flooded his chest. He was so undeniably fucked.
“Surgery all the way,” she said, relaxing back into her seat andsmiling as she looked back out the window. “I applied to a bunch of residency programs—New York, California, Texas—and I’m waiting to hear if I matched into any of them. If I don’t get accepted, I’ll do a surgical internship or something like that. I’ll know one way or another in a few weeks.”
Those places were… not exactly close.
“Do you have a top choice?”
She nodded, their eyes meeting in the reflection of the window. “Dwyer’s Hospital in New York.”
“Why there?”
“It’s a level-one trauma center with complex cases, and I’d work holistically with other surgery specialists on bigger ones. With oral surgery, it’s so much more than pulling teeth. Reconstructions, cancer treatments, transplants, it’s endless.” She turned away from the window to look directly at him, her eyes holding an excited wildness that Dan wanted to drown in.
Her passion was intoxicating. He almost envied her for it. Dan had felt something close to it, but when he’d shared his ambitions with his parents, telling them he was backing out of his original Callowhill acceptance and taking the position in New York, his father had all but backhanded him, cutting him with a slew of belittlements over what a stain he was to all that they’d worked for until Dan wanted to drown in his overwhelming shame. His mom had stared quietly down at the floor.
“When I talked to the current residents at the interview, they told me about the incredible cases they saw right from the start,” Harper continued. “One guy said he scrubbed in on a facial reconstruction for a gunshot wound his first night on call. It’s extraordinary to have opportunities like that.”
“So you’re a fan of the gore?” Dan asked. He’d never seen someone smile so radiantly over a bullet to the face.
“Love it. The more the better,” she said over the rim of her coffee cup before taking another sip. “I feel like it’s how I’ll knowI’m really helping someone. Doing something that can save their life or change it so drastically… it’s an amazing privilege.”
“Why oral surgery?” Dan asked.
Harper’s mouth twisted. “I just told you.”
“No, I mean whyoralsurgery? Why not neurosurgery or cardiology or any other type of surgery?”
The change was instant. Dan watched the blinds close over her eyes and her arms cross over her chest. She gave him a stiff smile.
“I guess I just really love teeth,” she said, not meeting his gaze.
Dan gave a noncommittal hum as he sipped at his coffee. He wanted to press her for more. He wanted to dig, find the source of the sudden change and ask her about it, get every detail from it. Knowing that wasn’t an option, he studied her, tracing her features for anything they could reveal.
After a moment, Harper brought herself to look at him, peeking through the blinds and deciding how much he could be trusted to know. Something softened in her expression as she landed on some piece she could offer.
