Page 16 of Doctor Dilemma

“Sometimes, but never this quickly. I think the move has messed with her a little bit. She’s a good judge of character, though.”

“I’ll take it as a compliment.” I looked at Leo to see if maybe he wanted me to stick around, too, but his face was blank. It didn’t much matter what he wanted, though. The question was whether or not I wanted to stay and even though I felt somewhat guilty for it, I knew that deep down I did. “I suppose I could stick around for a little while longer, if it's okay with you."

Leo shrugged his shoulders again. He just oozed apathy, giving off strong “divorced dad energy.” Why was I finding it hot? The way he looked at me with those sleepy, uncaring eyes like he didn’t give a shit was only making me hornier for him.

"I don't have any plans. You want to watch TV or something?”

“Yes,” I said, a bit more energetically than I meant to, but I guess I was excited about the prospect of having someone to hang out with.

He went over to a bag in the corner of the room and pulled out a tablet. He flipped the case open and folded it into a little stand, then placed it on the floor where Kiefer once housed his television. It was remarkable how different the apartment looked with all of Kiefer’s stuff moved out. I’m not sure I’d even have recognized it. What was once kind of a kooky living space now appeared dull and generic. And, most of all, vacant. There was no furniture or anything like that and, with it just being a temporary solution, I didn't foresee Leo putting much effort into making it more homey.

For a second, I contemplated inviting him back to my place, but I didn’t want to send the wrong signal. As long as I was here, I had the option to leave whenever I wanted. If he was over at my place, I’d have to kick him out when I was ready to go to sleep.

"What do you want to watch?" he asked.

"I'm between shows."

That was a lie. I'd been getting into baking shows. My sister had gotten me into them. Whenever I start a new one, I tell myself that I won't get involved, and then I end up having my favorite contestant on the show, who ultimately never makes it to the finale, which makes me more emotional than I’d care to admit.

At any rate, I wasn’t about to confess to this near stranger that I was addicted to this kind of thing.

"I'll tell you what," he said. "Let's put on Bagel's favorite show."

Bagel turned her head at her name and ran over to Leo. With me stepping away from the door, she knew that I wasn't leaving just yet and could focus on whatever it was Leo was doing. I sat down beside Bagel, making sure to keep as much distance as I could between myself and the sexy doctor. The combination of it getting late and me feeling lonely was a potentially deadly combination. Add to the fact that he was smolderingly hot, and I knew I probably should have left when I had a chance.

“Bagel has a favorite show?”

"Yeah," he said. "Puppy Palace. It's a cartoon for toddlers, but it’s full of dogs and Bagel just loves it. She cannot take her eyes off the screen.”

"If it's good enough for her, it's good enough for me," I said.

“She’ll focus so hard on it that eventually her eyes roll into the back of her head, and she falls fast asleep. Once she goes to bed, you should be able to sneak out without waking her.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Leo started up his tablet and scrolled through the shows until he found it. The instant the theme song — a simple little earworm that I was going to regret having heard for the next week — came on, Bagel was enthralled. More than that, she was absolutely hypnotized. Leo wasn't kidding. She put her nose right up to the screen and practically refused to blink. She didn't want to miss a second of it. I'd never seen anybody or anything so into a TV show.

“When I went to med school,” Leo said, “this is not how I thought I’d be living my life.”

It was hard to tell because of his droll delivery, but I was pretty sure that was a joke, so I carefully laughed.

“I see patients all day and they’ve all got their worries, and I’m supposed to pretend my life is together, but it’s a complete mess.” He shook his head. This was definitely a different side of him than what he presented in the office. “It’s only temporary, though. It’ll be a lot easier to have my life together now that I’m on my own. Or on my own with Bagel.”

He looked over at his dog with affection as he petted her on her head as she let out a soft sound of contentment, almost like the way that a cat might purr.

I had questions, but worried they were none of my business. Whatever, though, that was his business if he didn’t want to answer them.

“What happened?” I asked.

He let out a deep breath. “You want the short story or the long story?”

“We have time.”

“There’s not enough time in the world for the long story,” he said. “We met online and, after date after date of people I couldn’t connect with or who were boring, Hannah was someone who was actually fun to talk to. She had a personality that gelled with mine. So things were going so well so we moved in, and that’s when things started getting weird.

“You know what the first thing I noticed?”

I shook my head.

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