He winks at me. “One cream, no sugar.”

He’s got it right. Not that I’m surprised.

Gloria follows Luke with her eyes as he darts back to the break room to pour me a cup of cheap coffee. When he’s out of sight, she grins at me. “He’s cute, isn’t he?”

I shrug because I don’t want to encourage her. Is Luke Strauss cute? I suppose some women would think so. Women who like men that walk around in dress shirts badly in need of ironing, a poorly knotted tie, dark brown hair that looks like he rolled out of bed five minutes ago, eyeglasses smudged at the edges, and jaws that should have been shaved yesterday. Would it kill him to tuck in his shirt? I rarely date, but when I do, I don’t date slobs. The best I can say is he smells of fresh soap. He’s a clean slob, but a slob nonetheless.

“And he likes you,” Gloria adds.

I pretend not to hear her. I don’t want to acknowledge that I am aware Luke likes me. However, I do not wish this relationship to progress past him fetching me coffee and showing me how to send a prescription for Seroquel to the outpatient pharmacy.

Luke returns with my cup of coffee. The liquid is black, and he’s brought me a little cup of cream on the side, as well as a stirring stick in the cup itself. I didn’t even have to tell him that’s how I wanted it. Somehow he figured out that I wanted to add the cream myself.

“Thank you,” I say.

The corner of his lips quirks up. “I hope that helps.”

I pour the container of cream into my coffee. I stir it slowly, until the black morphs into a tan color. I take a long sip and let out a sigh. “I needed that.”

“You must be exhausted, Doc,” Gloria remarks. “You got that big drive both ways. What is it—an hour?”

My fingers dig into my coffee cup. “Something like that.”

Luke arches an eyebrow. “You live in Manhattan?”

“No, she doesn’t.” Gloria won’t let me get a word in edge-wise. “She lives out in Westchester. In a fancy schmancy house. All by herself.”

I silently curse the fact that Gloria is privy to my home address. But I appreciate that Luke didn’t know. He may have a pointless and irritating crush on me, but he’s not a stalker—I’ll give him that much.

“It’s not safe out there,” Gloria rambles on. “All by yourself, in the middle of nowhere. You probably don’t even have an alarm system.”

It’s an echo of what Paige said to me when she dropped off the proof copy of my book. Why is everyone so convinced I can’t take care of myself? “I’m fine. Really.”