Chapter Text
Something In The Way You Move
If You Dare, Come a Little Closer
The coffee at Doc Magoo’s was always a bit thin and weak. Sometimes better than the Roach Coach, sometimes not. Serviceable, but nothing to write home about. But for Luka Kovac, it seemed appropriate for the moment.
Nothing would be strong enough for this moment, except maybe Rakia. Most of the Americans Luka knew didn’t have the stomach for it.
Then again, there were some things one wasn’t supposed to stomach. Some things no one should have to see.
It was Valentine’s Day. A day for love. A day for romance. For passion. For sex, meaningful and meaningless. He hadn’t celebrated Valentine’s Day in eight years. And after tonight, he didn’t know if he ever wanted to again.
It had been a little over three months since he’d accepted a permanent position as an Attending Physician in the Emergency Room at County General in Chicago. It wasn’t the first time a permanent position had been offered to him, but it was the first time he’d accepted.
He'd spent the last few years of his life moonlighting, on walkabout, searching for something that he was positive he would never find: the reason he was alive.
He'd made a point of being unattached, disconnected, a journeyman physician in a foreign land, impressing his colleagues with his medical prowess and mystifying them with his enigmatic persona. He knew everyone wondered who he really was and what he was about.
He also knew that they really didn’t want to know the answer to that.
He didn’t know why he felt drawn to a rundown, underfunded, over-utilized ER in a public teaching hospital in a city that had two winters a year, horrible traffic, corrupt politicians and enough potholes to cover his entire hometown twice, but he was.
He was just starting to feel as if he fit in, as if maybe he could put down roots again. Then Valentine’s Day came. Two people who he was just getting to know, Dr. John Carter, a brash resident with the makings of an excellent doctor, if he could check the chip on his shoulder, and Lucy Knight a fourth-year medical student who was a natural but didn’t quite know it yet, had been stabbed, gutted in the middle of an exam room by an insane patient...on his watch.
It was as if God wanted to remind him that roots were dangerous. Getting attached was for fools. It was a lesson that should not have required a refresher, not for him.
He and the rest of the Emergency Room staff had managed to stabilize Carter and Lucy. It was in the surgeon’s hands now. All he could do now was wait and hope. He thought of praying, but he really didn’t want to.
When his shift ended at 10:00, he found himself, hanging around, not wanting to leave, not being able to leave until he heard word of how his injured colleagues were doing.
And that was how he found himself ordering two coffees at Doc Magoo’s. One for him and one for Abby Lockhart, a third-year medical student who had just begun her ER rotation. They’d found themselves walking over to Doc Magoo’s at the same time, neither wanting to be in the way, or far away from everything that had been going on.
“Sugar? Cream?” Luka asked Abby as he placed a tall, burnt red cup of coffee in front of her.
“No thanks,” Abby said with a sigh. “This stuff is weak enough on its own, it needs no further dilution.”
He grinned despite himself. He'd only met her a week ago, but he could tell she would make a great doctor. If he was totally honest with himself, he’d been slightly disappointed when he found out she was still a student. Anyone with eyes would’ve found her attractive, and he was no exception. Fraternization was highly discouraged (not that it stopped anyone), but med students were strictly off limits.
Luka, being as new as he was, didn’t want to break what was considered to be the strongest of the “no dating” rules.
But still, he couldn’t deny: he was attracted to her.
There was something alluring about her, something hopeful and haunted at the same time. It was something in her eyes, big and brown, tinted with sadness and alive with something else.
She wasn’t the first woman to catch his eye at County. He’d also found himself drawn to Carol Hathaway, the nurse manager. She was beautiful and brilliant and there was something almost familiar about her. He thought perhaps the attraction was mutual, but a couple of lifts home, a repaired water heater, a few troubling patients and a glass of eggnog did not a relationship make, so who knew? Luka didn’t think she had anything to do with his decision to stay, but at the very least, he had found a friend.
Abby, like every other woman working in the hospital, was trying to figure out who exactly Dr. Kovač was and if there was a Mrs. Kovač or a Mr. Kovač. He didn’t wear a ring, so he was most likely single. Hopefully, he was single. Not that his relationship status, single or otherwise, did her any good. She was a student. He was an Attending. Big no-no there.
She didn’t want to ask, and she was thinking of a safe subject as she stirred her coffee because they couldn’t just stare at each other in silence until they heard news about Carter and Lucy. Well, Dr. Kovac was certainly handsome enough to stare at, but she didn’t want him to think she was an ill-mannered freak.
Stupefying was already an over-the-top word in Abby’s opinion, but she felt in Dr. Kovač’s case, it could be classified as an understatement. The man was stupefyingly gorgeous with his thick, raven-colored hair that her fingers literally itched to touch, porcelain skin, eyes somewhere between gray as a stormy sky, blue as a cobalt vase and green as the Chicago River when the sun began to set over it. Not to mention that smile. She could write poetry about that broad, dizzying grin that spread across his face.
Was he single? If so, how on God’s Green Earth was that possible? Was he an ax murderer? Impotent? Commitment shy and bedding a different woman every night? Considering the way he looked, her last thought seemed the most likely. She longed to know but didn’t dare to ask. There was something mysterious about him and maybe it was that he was European and seemed a bit out of place, but it seemed like it was more than that. She couldn’t quite place it. But she wanted to. She wanted to unwrap him in more ways than one.
She chided herself and her raging hormones for thinking about sex at such a terrible time. But it had been over two years since she had any, so she decided no to be too hard on herself. Her messy divorce had killed all romantic notions for a time. Still, it wasn’t the time or place.
Abby had been an Obstetrics Nurse for years. She had started to think nothing could rattle her, not really. A week in the ER had cured her of that notion. Sick kids, sick old people, sick young people. Mothers poisoning their kids for the thrill of it and now patients stabbing doctors. She was truly curious and truly terrified about what she’d see next.
“So,” Dr. Kovač asked as he put his coffee cup back down. “You sure you still want to work here? Not ready to run upstairs back to OB?”
Abby laughed despite herself. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted. The ER has certainly lived up to its name thus far.”
“Well, some days it’s fine. Some days, it’s insane. And then there’s today.”
“They’ll be okay, don’t you think?” she asked, though neither could say for sure.
“Chances are good,” he told her before taking a long sip of coffee.
It was not a topic either wanted to dwell on.
“So, you’re from Latvia?” Abby tried, hoping to steer the conversation in a safe direction, free of dread.
Luka smiled and the words, “Be still, my heart,” flashed through Abby’s brain for the second time that night, but for a very different reason.
“Croatia,” he corrected her.
“Oh, sorry.”
“No, it’s okay,” he said shaking his head slightly. “To Americans, Europe is only France and Italy. Everything else is Russia.”
Abby chuckled, realizing how right he was, especially since she was slightly embarrassed to acknowledge that she wasn’t exactly sure where Croatia was.
“I had never really heard of it before all the…unrest.”
Luka nodded, a bit of a shadow crossing his face.
“It’s our international claim to fame.” A dry, dark chuckle escaped his lips and Abby longed to know the story behind it.
“What about you?” he continued after clearing his throat. “Is Chicago home?”
“St. Paul, Minnesota. 400 miles north, and 40 degrees colder in the winter.”
“Colder?” Luka grimaced. “It’s my first winter here and I don’t know how people take it.”
“Get used to it, I guess. Like with everything. But I hope I don’t get used to a night like this.”
“I hope there are no more nights like this,” he said looking out the window towards the ER.
“Do you get home much, Dr. Kovač?” Abby asked, not ready to think about what was happening across the street.
“Call me Luka, please. And no, not so much. Sometimes for the holidays.”
“Do you have family here?”
“A small amount of very extended family is in the States. But no, most of my family is in Croatia.”
“Do you miss it?”
Luka shrugged. “I miss my father and some of my old friends. The seaside, and the warm weather. Do you have family here?”
Abby snorted. “Just a useless ex-husband. I came to Chicago after college. It’s his hometown. Well, he’s from Skokie. But we came back here because the medical schools are good.”
“You didn’t want to be near your family, your parents?”
“It’s just my mother and no, I didn’t. My mother is...she can be a lot. She and my brother live in Florida. He’s in the Air Force.”
“The Air Force? He’s a pilot?”
“He’s an air traffic controller.”
“You must be proud of him.”
Abby nodded enthusiastically and a genuine smile lit up her face. “I am. It was the best day of my life when he got his wings.”
Luka could tell she meant it. He couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she looked when she smiled, really smiled. She almost glowed.
“I practically raised him, so I take great pride in the fact that he turned out even vaguely all right,” she continued, that same smile still tugging at her lips before she took a sip of coffee.
For some reason, he wanted to make her smile like that again.
“I was in the Army in Croatia,” he told her. “I was a, uh a padobranac. In English...it’s...para...something.”
Abby’s eyebrows shot up. “Paratrooper? You jumped out of planes?” she sounded impressed.
“Mostly in training, but yeah.”
“Were you...active...during the war?”
Luka shook his head. “No, I was doing my internship then. My mother was very glad of that. She didn’t want me or my brother near the fighting.”
Abby nodded. “I know how she feels. Eric has never seen combat. He’s never been stationed outside of the States. But that could change and then something could happen. And I'd have no one,” she added, almost to herself, suddenly struck with a few disquieting thoughts. “I mean, there’s Mom, but...” she trailed off and shook her head, apparently not wanting to finish that sentence.
“Your father passed?” Luka asked after a beat.
Abby scoffed. “No idea. Haven’t seen him since I was 10. He split when I was 7. Popped up every now and then for a couple years and then one day, just stopped.”
Luka shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
Abby shrugged dismissively. “It’s not your fault. Like I said, my mother is a lot. I guess he couldn’t handle it. I can’t quite blame him.”
Luka shook his head again, firmly. “There’s no excuse for ever leaving your children,” he told her with such conviction that Abby felt something in her quiver at the sincerity of his words.
“Well, I didn’t think so,” she said with a wry smile. “What about you? You have a brother? Younger?”
“Older. His name’s Niko. He lives in Zagreb near my father.”
“You two close?”
“Not so much since I moved here.”
Abby sensed that there was something else, something he wasn’t saying. It seemed the more she learned, the more mysterious—and hot—he got.
Luka changed the subject again and asked about medical school.
“I can’t believe I’m in my third year already,” Abby said sincerely. “Learning a lot. Happy to finally be in the hospital.”
“You’re a natural,” he told her. “The medical profession will be lucky to have you.”
She bit her lip. “I don’t know, I can’t even properly diagnose aplastic anemia and spot an oncoming MI so obvious it can be seen from Mars,” she sighed, slightly dejected at the memory. “God, I need a cigarette. You know, I'm third in my class. But when I'm here, on the floor, it’s like my nurse’s instinct takes over and I end up screwing up things that I can do with my eyes closed. Maybe it’s a sign...”
Luka smiled. “I don’t think so. You’re going to be a great doctor. Patients respond to you. And whether you believe it or not, you’ve got a doctor’s instinct. I’ve seen it this past week. I think the bumps, they’re all in here,” he told her tapping his temple. “You’re third in your class. Which means you know this stuff. You just need to know you know it. You need to believe it. A little confidence and we will make a neurosurgeon out of you, Dr. Lockhart.”
Abby had never wanted to kiss someone more. Not even Richard on their wedding day. She smiled and stared down at her coffee, more flattered and flustered than she wanted to admit.
“Thanks,” she said, suddenly shy, her fingers tightly gripping her mug to avoid lunging across the table and planting one on him. Luka mumbled “you’re welcome” and their eyes met in a comfortable silence for a long moment.
“Well,” Abby said after a beat. “We'll see about neurosurgery, if they don’t kick me out for payment delinquency, that is. My ex is supposed to pay it, but like I said, he’s completely useless.”
“Is he having financial troubles?”
Abby rolled her eyes. “He says it’s B.I., bad investments. I say it’s just B.S.”
Luka smiled. She was funny. Funny was good. “Well, there must be something good about the guy: you married him.”
“I was young and stupid. And he was good at reciting poetry. English Lit major, so I found that endearing. But he’s useless at everything else. Useless at marriage, even more useless at divorce, useless at sex unless it was with other people. Knowing him, he probably moved all the money into the whore’s account. He’s quite generous if you’re good at faking it, so she’s probably a hell of an actress.”
Luka nearly choked on his coffee.
Abby suppressed a laugh. He was cute. Cute was good. “Sorry, didn’t mean to overshare.”
“No, not at all,” Luka reassured her.
Abby glanced downward, trying to hide the blush on her face.
“So, what about you?” She asked quickly, eager to change the subject and hide her embarrassment. “Is there a Mrs. Kovač? Or soon to be?” she found herself asking the question that had been on her mind since they sat down. Or in reality, since they’d met.
“There was,” he said with a soft, resigned sigh.
“You’re divorced?”
A sad smile tugged as his lips as she shook his head. “Um, no. She died.”
Abby flushed again. “I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “Don’t be. It’s a long time ago now.”
“She was ill?”
Luka shook his head, a shadow crossing his face. “No, she…she was killed during the war, her and both of our children.”
Abby felt her heart break for him. She stammered for the right words to say, but they wouldn’t come. And they wouldn’t have been strong enough anyway.
“It’s ok, it’s ok,” he told her when he noticed the struck look on her face. “Life goes on,” he added as he forced a smile and hoped that one day, he would actually believe the words he said.
“Is that why you moved?”
Luka nodded. “Among other reasons. It would be difficult to be a doctor there. I would always meet patients who had lost loved ones. There would be no escaping it, not that there is, anyway.” He paused for a second, a clouded look in his eyes before he looked down and shook his head. “Do you go to Minnesota, much?” he asked, hoping she’d take the hint and change the subject. They were getting good at changing the subject.
“Not ever. Some of my mother’s family is still there. No clue about my dad’s. They weren’t around much. But there’s no reason for it, really. Besides, we moved when I was twelve and lived all over.”
“What, did your mother's work keep her moving?”
Abby scoffed. “I wish. I don’t think my mother held down a job for more than eighteen months ever. She’s…she suffers from bipolar disorder.”
Abby couldn’t believe she said that. It seemed her and Dr. Kovač—Luka—were both oversharing. Maybe it wasn’t a night for guardedness. Maybe life was too short to worry about who knew your demons.
She watched Luka’s eyes widen in understanding.
“That must be difficult,” he said with a sympathetic smile.
“Yeah, it is. She’s…I don’t know what she is, to tell you the truth.”
“Is she med-compliant?”
Abby rolled her eyes. “Occasionally. But she likes the mania. It makes her feel alive or something. She’s an artist. She sold cosmetics, Tupperware, Amway, anything you could think of. When I was young, it was fun. We’d go camping in the living room. Have ice cream for dinner. Spend days driving around aimlessly. And then she’d crash. Wouldn’t get out of bed for a month. The rent would go unpaid. The heat would get cut off. By the time I was 10 I’d knew how to skim a meal off my neighbors so that Eric, my brother, and I could eat.”
“I’m sorry.”
Abby laughed. “Is it just me or have we said that a lot?”
Luka laughed. “That kind of night, I guess. Maybe we’re trying to remember worse, so tonight seems...less.
She shook her head. “Well, maybe we could find a happier subject? How long have you been in America?”
“I’ve been here since ’92. I’ve lived all over, too. I did my residency in New Jersey. But in Chicago, there’s like five hospitals in as many blocks.”
“And yet you chose County? Rush or Northwestern too low-class for you?”
Luka laughed and shrugged. “Something about this place gets under your skin, I guess. I’d bet you’ll say the same after your residency.”
Abby laughed. “Maybe. In the meantime, I’ll try not to kill any of your patients.”
He smiled. “Don’t worry, if someone crashes, I’ll assist with resuscitation.”
“I hope so, otherwise the morgue will have to give my patients their own floor.”
“Hey, you’re not a doctor until you’ve killed or nearly killed someone. You’ll be fine.”
“So, you’re not going to recommend to the other Attendings that I get transferred to Pathology right away?”
“As far as I’m concerned, Abby, stay as long as you’d like.”
“Really?” Are we flirting? She wondered.
“Well, who else am I going to get to leave fake bottles of poison out for crazy mothers? That takes a special kind of med student.”
Definitely flirting, she decided.
“Oh, by all means, please feel free to involve me in your Munchausen by proxy schemes at anytime.”
They both laughed and shook their heads, slightly bewildered at their mutual dark humor.
Abby sighed. “We may go to hell for joking about that.”
Luka scoffed. “I think God and the Devil both have bigger problems.”
“Yeah,” Abby said looking out the window again toward the hospital.
“So, what’s next, do you think?” she asked, her mind not daring to fathom what was or wasn’t happening in the OR at that moment.
He gave her a questioning look. “What do you mean?”
“I mean we’ve had deranged mothers with poison and deranged patients with knives. What’s next?”
“At this point, nothing would surprise me. Probably hostage takeover or arson.”
“My money’s on arson,” Abby said gazing off in the hospital’s direction. “After all, it’s an old building. It's probably a tinderbox.”
They proceeded to run through an increasingly ridiculous list of disaster scenarios, everything from a gas leak to a tank being run through the front door.
“We should memorize all the escape routes,” Abby said with a sly grin. “That way, if any of these ever happen, we can just find each other and split. Don’t leave me.”
Luka laughed. “You have my word.”
“And I can take your word?”
“I’m European. We’re very gallant. I'd never leave a lady in times of distress. I’ll come find you, I promise.”
Abby laughed. He was a charmer.
“Well,” she said, raising her mug. “To the next crisis. Hopefully, it won’t be so bad.”
“Looking forward to it,” he said raising his own mug. They both chuckled and smiled, another moment of comfortable silence passing between them. Their eyes met and neither said a word.
In any other circumstance, Luka would have classified it as the calm before the kiss. But this wasn’t any circumstance. As much as he might’ve wanted to, there were hundreds of reasons why they shouldn’t kiss. Though, he had to admit, he couldn’t think of any of them then.
They finally tore their eyes away from each other, both realizing that they had been leaning over the table, inching closer to the other. Abby sat back, ran a hand under her chin and looked away.
Luka, still practically slumped over the table, his head propped up by his hand, sighed and tried to think of what to say next.
He was spared having to think too much when Dave Malucci, a resident that no one was holding out their lowest hopes for, and Jing-Mei Chin, the resident most likely to take over the world, if she slowed down a bit, walked into the restaurant and ordered coffee.
“Hey,” he called out to them as he sat up and leaned back in his chair.
“Hey,” Malucci called. “Guess you didn’t want to go home either,” he asked.
“Yeah,” Luka said. “Sit down,” he said, scooting over to make room for Jing-Mei.
“We thought it was better than waiting upstairs,” Abby said as she made room for Dave.
“Pretty scary, huh?” Malucci said with a shudder.
“Yeah, pretty scary,” Luka agreed, though it was an understatement.
“I was complaining about my day,” Abby said shaking her head. And thinking about getting laid, she chastised herself. She looked over at Luka, who somehow seemed closer than he had been before and further away than ever.
Luka asked Jing-Mei and Malucci if they had heard anything, which of course they hadn’t. Carter and Lucy were both still in surgery.
“What did the guy’s wife say?” Malucci asked Luka.
“She’s in denial,” Luka said, recalling his earlier exchange with Samantha Sobriki before sipping his coffee. “Can’t say I blame her. No one wants to believe anyone could...let alone someone they love, you know?”
“Do they have family here, Carter and Lucy?” Abby asked staring out the window, then her mug.
Jing-Mei nodded. “Carter’s entire family is here. His parents are out in Oak Brook. His grandparents live in this monstrosity up in Lincoln Park.”
“Lincoln Park?” Malucci asked. “What are they, rich?”
“Loaded,” Jing-Mei said as their coffee arrived. “Like the entire family has been loaded for decades or something. I think Lucy’s family is from out of town, though.”
“Kerry was going to call them,” Luka said running a hand through his hair. “Let’s hope she has good news for them.”
“Yeah,” the other three chimed in.
“The wife’s expecting?” asked Jing-Mei, with an air of clear apprehension.
Luka nodded gravely. He felt for the woman, but he was in no humor to forgive her husband just yet.
“That’s scary,” Abby said with a shudder. That poor kid may have been cursed before they were ever born. She still couldn’t shake how disturbed and volatile and unhinged Paul Sobriki had seemed on the gurney. But that was what mental illness did to a person.
Some people weren’t cut out to be parents, but unfortunately some found out too late. Abby was personally glad that she already knew that.
“Poor kid,” Malucci said with a shudder. “What kind of waking nightmare he’ll be when he’s all grown up.”
“Schizophrenia isn’t necessarily genetic,” Luka reminded him.
Malucci scoffed. “Yeah, but I doubt growing up with a schizo dad is going to lead to model citizenship.”
Luka turned his eyes to Abby who didn’t seem fazed by Malucci’s remarks. Like nearly everyone at the hospital, she’d stopped taking him seriously about 12 hours after she met him.
“If the mother had any sense, she’d get away from him now,” Jing-Mei said with a sigh. “Denial or not, the guy is dangerous.”
“Easier said than done, if she loves the guy,” Abby remarked with a sigh.
Jing-Mei shrugged. “Yeah, but she has herself and her kid to think of. She has to take action.”
“It may not be up to her,” Malucci said as he stirred his coffee. “The guy might end up in a rubber room for the rest of his life.”
“Do you think he’ll be charged with anything?” Abby asked.
Luka shook his head. “The guy is having an active psychotic break. No shrink is going to declare him fit to stand trial.”
The conversation now focused on Carter and Lucy. Chen, having known Carter the longest, informed everyone of his semi-functional relationship with his rich family.
Abby was happy and unhappy that she and Luka were no longer alone. The conversation was less intense, less heightened despite the fact they were discussing their wounded comrades. That put her a little more at ease.
At the same time, she couldn’t learn more about him. Couldn’t unravel the mysterious man opposite her. And she wanted to.
As the night wore on, they were joined by Haleh Adams and Lydia Wright, both of whom had known Carter and Lucy since their earliest days at the hospital.
Every so often, they would catch each other’s eye. A gaze would be held for a microsecond and then they would re-engage with the conversation around them.
It was a good thing Doc Magoo’s didn’t close and they could keep the coffee flowing.
They told various war stories, somehow always managing to circle back to Lucy and Carter for the next few hours.
The mood finally seemed like it was beginning to lighten around 3:05 in the morning, even though they still hadn’t heard anything.
And then Chuny Vasquez walked in.
Everyone immediately knew it wasn’t good news. The question was, how bad?
“Lucy,” was the only thing she said, and everyone immediately knew it was as bad as it could possibly be.
Lucy Knight, fourth-year med student, as bright-eyed, bushy tailed and ballsy as they came, was dead.
A stunned, pained silence washed over them all.
Luka and Abby’s eyes met across the table. This couldn’t be happening and yet, it was. They knew it was, even if they didn’t want to believe it.
They were doctors, they saw people die on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. But one of their own was a different kind of trauma.
For several minutes, no one said anything.
“Son of a bitch,” Malucci finally ventured after what seemed like hours of silence. “God, we shouldn’t have had the party, we shouldn’t have had the music up so loud—,”
“Dave,” Luka said, his voice trying to remain calm. “None of us could have seen his coming.”
Abby bit back a sob. She was just getting to know each of them, but they had both seemed so nice, so encouraging. And now, Lucy was gone. Her career was over before it started. Her life was over before it started.
She was so focused on trying to process what had happened that she barely noticed Luka looking intently at her.
“What do we do now?” Jing-Mei asked as she wiped back a tear.
“Pray,” Haleh said. “It’s about all we can do.” She looked over at Lydia, who was barely holding it together.
“I need to get home,” Lydia said finally. “My husband’s probably worried sick by now.”
“We should all go home,” Luka told them. “There’s nothing more any of us can do. Malucci, you on shift tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I gotta be in at noon.”
“Well, we’ll all have plenty of time to think about everything we could’ve done differently.”
No one argued Luka’s point, and after a few lingering moments of grim and grieving solidarity, everyone slowly began to disperse. Finally, Abby and Luka were the only ones left. She was thumbing through her purse. Abby looked at her watch. “I don't know if I have enough cash for a cab. If I can find one this time of night anyway.”
“I’ll give you a ride,” Luka offered. “I’ve got my car. Where do you live?”
“Over in University Village, 16th and Ashland. Where are you?”
“Over at the Knickerbocker.”
“The hotel? It's totally in the opposite direction.”
“It’s no trouble,” he assured her. “Besides on a night like tonight, I couldn’t let you find your own way home.”
They exited the now deserted café and as they did they each looked across the street.
“Should we head inside first?” Abby asked. “See if there’s something we can do?”
Luka shook his head. “There isn’t.”
“Well, it sounds like Carter’s going to be okay. That’s good news,” she said as they headed off to the employer parking garage.
“Yeah,” Luka agreed. “We need all the good news we can get.”
“So, is your apartment being renovated or something?” she asked as they entered the elevator of the garage.
“Hmm?”
“You’re at the Knick, right?”
“Oh, yeah. But I live there.”
“You live in the hotel?”
“Yeah, I just moved in about a month ago. They needed an in-house physician and I needed to find a place quick, after I sold my boat.”
“You used to live on a boat?”
He nodded and shrugged. “I used to spend summers on the seaside when I was a kid. I guess it made me feel at home. But when I took the position here…”
“Yeah, no such thing as being out on Lake Michigan in February,” Abby said with a grin.
“It's great, though,” he assured her. “My rent’s discounted. Amenities, maid service, free meals. You should stop by, sometime,” he added as they got off the elevator approached his car.
Abby stopped dead in her tracks, a look of amusement tugging at her lips. “To your hotel?”
“Yeah,” Luka said and then his face fell, realizing the implications. “I mean, no. I mean…I didn’t mean it like that,” he shook his head, bit his lip and stared at the ground for a moment, slightly flustered. “I’d never ask such a thing of a lady,” he said finally as he unlocked his car and held open the passenger door.
“No, no, I should hope not,” she said as she got in the car.
But if you did, Abby thought to herself, I’d probably take you up on that. What is wrong with you, Abby? Your colleague just died.
Abby, however, was alive and being alone with Luka reminded her of that in a very specific way.
The car smelled like new leather and pine and maybe a hint of his cologne.
“Ok,” Luka said as he hopped in the car. “Point me in the right direction.”
The drive was over quicker than they both thought it would be. The Loop was deserted that time of night, and it had only taken about ten minutes to get to Abby’s apartment. They both had been pretty silent, the weight of the day washing over them both.
“This is me,” she said with nodding to her building. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
Abby had meant to open the door, hop out of the car and dash inside. She’d meant to do that, really she had.
But for some inexplicable reason she would never be able to name, she did not.
Slowly, she turned back to face Luka, who had a questioning gaze in his eyes.
“This is probably a bad idea,” she started. “But, um, would you like to come in?”
”