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“...And that about covers the internal structures of the small and large intestines. Does anyone have any questions?”
Quickly glancing down at his phone on the lectern, Randolph confirmed that his class was in fact coming to an end. He’d suspected as much with the amount of fidgeting he’d been hearing for the past ten minutes with closing books and laptops and the distinct sound of moving zippers, and he was certain that at least one person had snuck out early based on the slamming door he’d heard about five minutes ago. Hitting the light switch and ignoring the accompanying groans, he looked for any raised hands and when he didn’t notice any, he said, “If there aren’t any questions –”
“Actually, if I might, Dr. Bell...”
The voice made him immediately freeze on the spot, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end as his heart threatened to beat right out of his chest. His eyes flew over the sea of faces before him but when none immediately jumped out , he couldn’t help but feel disappointed that his mind was playing tricks on him and conjuring up the one person he was most desperate to see.
Seconds later he heard the clicking of heels across the concrete floor and then his eyes tracked the movement of a tall brunette in a familiar dark navy silk trench coat and dark slacks as she slowly made her way down the staircase nearest him. Even from halfway across the lecture hall, Randolph could see the tender look in the eyes of the love of his life and he felt a weight lift from his chest for the first time since he’d left her teary-eyed at Hartsfield.
“Yes, of course, Ms...” he purposefully trailed off and watched her face shift with delighted amusement.
“It’s Doctor, actually,” she corrected him playfully and he didn’t even try to stop the grin that was rapidly overtaking his face.
“My apologies, Doctor. Please, do go ahead.”
He watched her take two more steps closer to him before she stopped to lean against the wall and crossed her arms over her chest. “I was curious, when you described the adaptations of the mucosa and submucosa of the small intestine, was it the villi or the microvilli brush border where the terminal carbohydrate digestions take place?”
The fact that she could so easily rattle off that question like her specialty hadn’t been bones for the past forty years was so impressive and more than a little arousing. His hands instinctively tightened on the sides of the lectern that he was suddenly feeling very grateful for and he saw and then promptly ignored the way her eyebrows quirked up and the smirk that grew on her lips.
“I’m afraid that the answer to your question requires more time than is left in the class today, but if you’d like to stick around, I’m sure I can satisfy your curiousity.”
She gave no obvious reaction to his statement, but he saw how she shifted on her feet and how her hands tightened on her arms and he took heart that she was as affected by this little game they were playing as he was. Desperate to get her all to himself, he tore his eyes from hers and gazed out at his students again, finding some looking curiously between him and Kit (and even a few openly checking her out) but most just looked like they were impatient to get on with their days.
“If anyone ends up having questions about what we covered today, feel free to e-mail me; otherwise, have a good weekend and I’ll see you again next week.”
As the cacophony of noise associated with 200-plus students in an introductory anatomy course being dismissed on a Friday afternoon took over, Randolph focussed on his usual post-lecture rituals to stop himself from running over to Kit and possibly making even more of a scene than they already had. He picked up his phone, turning the ringer back on before sliding it back into his jacket pocket and then shuffled his lecture notes with slightly enlarged font for ease of reading until they were back in proper order. He removed the USB drive from the reader and placed it, his notes, and his trusty laser pointer for indicating things on the screen back into the small messenger bag he’d been using around campus. He took one final drink of water from the metal ‘Chastain Park Memorial Hospital’ water bottle that AJ had given him as a gag so he ‘wouldn’t forget home’ before adding it to his bag and finally closing it. Once he completed his last task of signing out of the computer, he finally looked up and saw that it wasn’t Kit who was standing in front of him but a smart and slightly shy (and clearly clueless) student of his named Drew.
“If you don’t mind, Dr. Bell, I do have a few questions about today’s lecture. Do you mind if I ask you them before I forget?”
Biting down hard on his tongue to stop the irritated ‘NO!’ that wanted out, he gazed up helplessly to where Kit was still standing and she merely smiled at him warmly and mouthed ‘Go on then.’ Calling on years’ worth of experience chatting up people when he really didn’t care to, he plastered a smile on his face and said, “What would you like to ask, Drew?”
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For twenty-eight agonizing minutes, Randolph answered each and every one of Drew’s questions. In that time, he’d managed to surprise even himself with just how much he was able to focus on the young man and his thoughtful and detailed questions, but his awareness of Kit never wavered or waned either. As he bid his student goodbye and vaguely heard the door to his left open and close, his attention snapped back to his fiancée, who’d taken a seat four rows back from the front. Now that he’d finally gotten his wish – him and Kit, all on their own – he found himself battling unexpected nerves as he tried to think of the perfect thing to say to her. In the end, he settled on the simple, “Hi beautiful.”
It seemed to be the right thing to say as he watched her face crack open with a toothy grin before she reciprocated with, “Hello handsome.”
The tension between them roared back to life but below it was the comforting blaze that was lit and constantly nurtured by two people who understood and loved each other with a breadth and depth that seemed endless. He noticed something shift in her eyes and it took him a moment to name the new emotion there. When he recognized it as pride, something he was familiar with dating back to their earliest days of getting to know one another, he tried to mask his growing blush by coming around to perch on the edge of the table that sat next to the lectern. He crossed his arms over his chest and gave her an innocent look before asking, “What?!”
She continued to stare at him with that same look in her eyes and he tried and failed not to squirm and fidget under her scrutiny. Just as he was about to crack, she finally spoke up. “You are a wonderful teacher.”
He felt his mouth drop open ever so slightly in surprise at her admission and as he felt his cheeks flame red, he craned his neck to the side as though he could shake off her words and tried to deflect her with some words of his own. “How are you even here right now?! I thought that we said no surprise fly-ins for visits.”
“I knew you were good with the interns and residents; I’ve been in the OR with you and witnessed it first-hand, and Dr. Devi has really flourished in the years since I first asked you to take her on. But getting to see you stand in front of an entire lecture hall filled with students –”
“You saw me?” he whispered in a rush and she leaned forward in her seat, a smile once more overtaking her face.
“I had hoped to be here earlier, but the plane was delayed and I ran into a bit of traffic on the way over so I only caught the last twenty or so minutes. Even so, your passion and enthusiasm and joy for medicine came through so clearly to me – you had the entire class enthralled.”
He couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped his lips at that. “I think you’re a little jet-lagged from your flight. Most of them couldn’t wait to get out of here, they –”
“That was only after you finished your actual lecture and instead of dismissing them straight away on a Friday afternoon, you made them sit through that little game of ours. Before that, you had a captivated audience, through and through. Believe me, Randolph, you had them eating out of the palm of your hand.”
“Really, Kit, I think you’re exaggerating –”
“No,” she stated firmly and punctuated her statement by quickly rising from her seat and beginning to stalk her way over to him, pinning him in place with her words and her gaze. “I just had the pleasure of watching you spend the past half hour thoughtfully and patiently answering each and every one of that young man’s questions. Not only that, you asked questions of him to try and show that he understood the concepts better than he believed he did. I promise you, darling, that young man walked out of this hall with just that much more confidence in himself and in his career choice.”
By the time she took a pause in her speech, she’d finally come to a stop before him, standing between his knees and looping her arms loosely around the back of his neck. Still feeling a little self-conscious and unsure, he tried to avoid looking directly at her, but she wasn’t having any of that, craning her neck in a move she’d clearly learned from him to force him back into her eye line.
“I know you still have work to do in the OR and frankly we can’t stand to lose surgeons like you with everything else that Chastain might be facing in the coming months, but you clearly have a talent for teaching as well. I hope that you’ll consider it as an option decades from now when you’re finally thinking of putting down the scalpel. The decision, as always, will be completely up to you and I’ll support whatever you decide to do, but please don’t doubt for a second that you’re making a difference in their lives.”
The soft and sure look in her eyes had him finally giving up the fight and he threaded his fingers together at the small of her back and quietly admitted, “I really really like teaching, Kit. It gives me a chance to show them the way medicine should be, on a scale that I could never reach just as a mentor to a surgeon or two here and there. Don’t get me wrong, I love doing that too, but this...if I can reach them before they ever don the coat and have ‘M.D.’ attached to their names, maybe I can make even a small change in the culture of medicine and stop the mistakes that I and too many others have made from ever happening again. I think I want this to be the next phase of my career, whenever that will be.”
Kit gave him a smile for that as one hand shifted slightly to play with the hair on the back of his head. “I’m glad to hear that because if I’m being honest, the scholarly look of Professor Bell is very becoming on you.”
He let out a delighted chuckle as he followed the way her eyes were giving him an appreciative once-over, but he was a little confused as well because his sports coat, button down, and dark jeans weren’t any different than how he’d been dressing most of the time for years now. When a stray thought about the reason for her extra interest popped into his mind suddenly, he flashed her a sly smirk and asked, “Is this some overdue crush from your med school days, a fantasy about one of your professors that never went anywhere?”
He wasn’t quite expecting her look of surprise and then the long hearty laugh that followed and eventually ended up with Kit having to reach up and wipe the tears from her eyes. “My professors were all a bunch of stodgy old men who’d barely wrapped their heads around the idea that women were fully capable of being successful doctors. The very idea of a woman wanting to be a surgeon was laughable to them – which I learned first-hand from several of them over the course of my studies. To boot, they were all absolutely ancient...probably as old as you are now.” His shocked reaction had her trying to contain her laughter. “I was in my mid-twenties – anyone over the age of forty was a fossil to me back then. Now I’m much wiser.”
Unwilling to capitulate so easily, he let a deep pout grow on his lips and she didn’t even try to hide her eye roll at his antics.
“The truth is, this has absolutely nothing to do with me and everything to do with you, Randolph. There’s an energy to you when you’re mentoring someone, but it’s heightened when you’re in teacher mode – I only needed five minutes of seeing you in action today to figure that out, it’s that palpable. Before me is a man who is content and happy and excited with a purpose and a vision for the future, despite any challenges that may be coming his way, and I for one am very glad to see him.”
When he could only stare at her in awe, he realized that his continued silence was slightly unnerving as she began to fidget in his hold and as she tried and failed to stop herself from biting her lip. Tightening his hold on her, he slowly shook his head at her as a tender smile grew on his lips. “That has less to do with me and more to do with you, Kit.”
“That’s not true, I haven’t done –”
“No,” he turned the word back on her, using the same tone and inflection to get her to listen to him. “I may be the one doing the work, but the inspiration behind it – the spark – that has always been you, honey. None of what you see before you happens without you there to cheer me on, but more importantly, none of it matters much to me if I don’t have you. I only want this life because you’re here to share it with me.”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, love,” she whispered thickly and he could no longer hold himself back from kissing her, finally getting a chance to release some of his pent-up longing for the woman who was his everything. She was equally eager, his hands quickly moving over him and seeming to be everywhere all at once. Rapidly losing any sense of thought that didn’t revolve around her, he reluctantly broke the kiss and slid his hands to her hips to push her a step or two away. His resolve nearly faltered as she pouted her lips at him and said, “I was rather enjoying that,” and then tried to pull him close once more. Digging down deep, he found the strength to resist even as her eyes flashed with minor irritation.
“As much as I’d like to continue this right here and now – and trust me, I would very much like to – need I remind you that we are in a lecture hall that seats over 200 people with multiple entry points that anyone could walk through at any moment?!”
“They can either move along or enjoy the show, I don’t much care either way.”
Randolph’s guts twisted painfully and he had to take a deep breath to try and calm his racing heart...among other things. “How the hell did we switch places?! When did I become the voice of reason to your advances?!”
He knew he was in trouble as her face lit up with a wicked grin and one hand started to play with the buttons on his shirt. “We’ve always been quite adept at switching positions, if you ask me. We might be able to teach these young people a thing or two...especially some of those young men who were very clearly checking me out after I announced myself.”
“Like they could handle you,” he muttered with a low growl without thinking, which caused her smile to grow even wider.
“If you’re so certain that you can handle me, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is and show me, Bell?”
What little blood that already hadn’t rushed south thrummed through his veins and almost everything inside him screamed to give over to the jealousy, possessiveness, and longing that she’d stirred up and accept her challenge. As always, she knew all the right buttons to press with him but he managed to surprise them both by resisting her for the first (and likely only) time in all their years of being together and instead circled back to his earlier question.
“How are you even here right now, Kit?”
“As I said, a plane.”
The short and flippant answer let him know that she was none too pleased with him at the moment, but he pressed forward nevertheless. “I thought we said no surprise visits – you made me promise that I wouldn’t fly home to see you.”
“Well, I made no reciprocal promise...though right this minute I’m wishing that I had.”
“Kit, I –”
“I’ve got family and friends all around and a job that I love, but for months I’ve been so lonely and yesterday it got so unbearable that I decided to call in sick from work today and paid a small fortune on airfare to come here so I wouldn’t feel quite so alone anymore, but perhaps you don’t feel the same –”
At her words, every last shred of resolve he possessed disappeared in an instant as he grabbed her and yanked her into his arms, feeling her collide with his chest none too gently. He shoved his hand through her hair and pulled her head back before crashing their mouths together. He dominated the kiss from the off, trying to erase every doubt he’d unwittingly raised in her with his hesitations until the desperation for oxygen just barely edged out his desperation for her. Ripping his mouth off hers roughly, he made a conscious effort then to gentle his movements when her eyelids fluttered open to reveal wide, emotional eyes. He moved his hands to cradle her face as his thumbs swept over her cheeks in slow, sure movements and he locked eyes with her, making sure he had her full attention before opening his mouth to speak.
“I miss you with every fibre of my being from the second I get up in the morning to the second I finally fall asleep at night and my dreams are filled with you too. Every day I pull up the airline website and look at a round trip ticket to Atlanta and some days I get as far as putting in my credit card information and being a breath away from clicking to confirm the order, but then I stop myself.”
“Why?” Her voice was quiet but thick with emotion as she asked the simple question.
“Because of the promise I made to you, but mostly because deep down beneath all of the denial and the bargaining, I know that I need to be here for me and for our future. I hate every minute of it, but I have to do it. Keeping busy helps and so does seeing you and talking to you on our calls and texts and video chats, but –”
“But it also amplifies the distance and the longing at the same time as it helps.”
He matched her sad knowing smile with one of his own as he closed his eyes and tipped his forehead to meet hers. “I’m so glad that you’re here, Kit; this has been really hard without you and I – ”
“Hush,” she told him gently as she pulled back a bit to look him in the eye. “Let’s forget about the rest of it and focus on the fact that we’re here together.”
“How long are you here for?” he hesitated only a little in asking, but he needed to know how long they had before it was back to the agony of their separation.
“My return flight is about this time on Sunday afternoon.”
That news brought the bright smile back to his face. “Then let’s get the hell out of here and make the most of it. Did you leave your carry-on in your rental?” He noticed her bite her lip as her ears and neck filled with colour.
“I didn’t rent a car – the line was three people too long and I was already running late because of the delay, so I took a cab over here, which also cost me a small fortune. And my carry-on is sitting at the foot of our bed at home,” she added matter-of-factly and Randolph nearly choked on his own tongue.
“What?!”
“I spent an hour and a half this morning meticulously packing a bag when I finally realized that I didn’t need anything else but to get to you as quickly as possible. I’m afraid that all I have with me is my phone, my wallet, my passport, my keys, and the clothes on my back.” As his stunned silence continued, she added on teasingly, “Besides, I wasn’t imagining that we’d be spending any time outside of your temporary lodgings, so it’s not like I’ll have much need for clothes or anything else in my bag.”
“Shit,” he hissed out through gritted teeth as his body tipped back over into full-blown arousal and with the way they were pressed together there was no way that she wouldn’t know it as well. A throaty chuckle that settled low in his core was quickly followed by her teeth nipping at his jaw and her whispered, “Speaking of things that are really hard...”
“Please stop,” he pleaded with her in desperation and she let out another chuckle as she pressed her lips to his cheek quickly before stepping back to give him a little space.
“Better?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t get used to it, though. We have months-worth of separation to make up for.”
“And I still have to put my money where my mouth is as well so I’m all for the lack of space, just not the getting arrested for indecent exposure potential.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure, darling?”
“My entire life has been one grand adventure since you came into it.”
“Sap.”
“Love you too, sweetheart.”
“Enough dilly-dallying, let’s get on with it.”
“Yes dear.”
“I can’t believe that I’m going to say this, but I’ve missed how annoying you can be.”
“And I’ve missed how bossy and impatient you can get when you want something.”
He couldn’t help but start to laugh when Kit narrowed her eyes at him playfully and she was soon joining in. As the laughter eventually petered out, Randolph reached for his bag, slinging it over his shoulder before pulling his keys out and dropping them into her hand.
“Why am I driving?!”
“So you’ll have something to keep your hands busy with that is not me.”
Her bright smile broke open over her face and she crowded into his side as she wrapped her hand firmly around his bicep. “Off we pop, darling.”
“That’s the best idea I’ve heard in a long time.”
“Just wait until you hear my ideas for the next forty-eight hours.”
“God I love you.”
“And I you, and I you.”