My heart was pounding.
“Ask what?”
“Would you go out on a date with me?”
I should have hesitated.
Doctors dating patients was complicated. I knew that. I’d worked in social services long enough to know about power and boundaries and all the ways people get hurt.
But I liked him. I liked him more than I’d liked anyone in a long time.
“You’d have to stop being my doctor,” I said.
“Done,” he said, so fast I laughed.
“Then yes.”
He transferred my care to Dr. Lim the following week. True to his word.
Dating him felt easy. That’s the only way I can describe it. Easy, like breathing.
Nigel described the world to me without pity. When we went to a restaurant, he’d read me the menu without me asking, and he’d add his own commentary. “The salmon comes with something called a citrus foam, which sounds like a mistake.” When we walked in the park, he’d tell me what the people around us were doing. “There’s a man over there walking a cat on a leash. The cat looks humiliated.”
