After rounds, Will made his way back to his office. His stomach growled and began to contemplate if he wanted to brave the cafeteria or grab something outside the hospital. Glancing at his schedule, he groaned and rubbed his temple. He seriously needed a break. Between a super busy ER, friends getting married and organizing ideas to start his own practice, he had his plate quite full. A break would have to wait, he thought to himself. There was too much going on to slow down. Especially on the new practice.

He was really anxious to get a practice of his own. There were a number of his colleagues who told him that it was crazy to do something like that so young. That he would really miss having the support of a full hospital staff, but in the end it was his choice to make and he always loved the idea of having his own practice. He wasn't quite sure how he found himself in emergency medicine. Maybe it was all the adrenaline when the crazy shit came through. Maybe it was being able to make an impact so quickly when possible. But in all reality working the ER just showed how many problems the healthcare system had in order for him to successfully help people. The misgivings and failures were inflated a hundredfold in a giant County Hospital and made it abundantly clear that there was only so much he had in his control. He wanted a bigger opportunity to be the kinda healer he wanted. So, it was time to make a bigger impact and get back to his first love, Cardiology. Creating a private practice where he made the decisions was his dream.

Oh, he had dreams, alright. Lots of them. But as of recent, most of them featured a gorgeous lady with curly long black hair and a curious leer in her eyes. He smiled at the thought of Diane. She was interesting, indeed. He didn't think she'd challenge him so much, but then again, he didn't know what to expect when Gina talked about her. She mentioned brilliant and sweet, but did leave some key things out. It wasn't the smoothest of meetings at the dinner and thinking about the wedding, well...she definitely kept him on his toes. He leaned back in his chair and stared at his phone. It was a while since he pursued a woman, part of him wondered if he had the time, but once he laid eyes on her and spoke to her in the courtyard, something sparked. It didn't hurt that her curves had his fantasies going into overdrive. And those lips...the amusement in them when she thought he wasn't looking; it kept him driven to kiss her. But he wasn't an idiot--a woman like Diane wasn't easily charmed. She was a fighter and protective of her heart. A wise woman would be after the pain she been through. He didn't want to forget that, but he also didn't want it to prevent him from taking a plunge to know her. When Gina slipped him Diane's number, he hesitated for a moment. He wanted to get it from her himself, but that fast talking bride had him cornered as he remembered it:

"Here's her number. You've earned it taking the abuse of my grandmother. I like you, so don't make me regret it. P.S. She likes Mocha cappuccinos, wrestling and Italian food. Go get 'em, tiger." Then promptly smacked him on the ass before Derek pulled her away. True, she was a little buzzed when she did it, but Will couldn't help but wonder if the manhandling just ran in her family. Hmm, Mocha, wrestling and Italian food. He could work with that.

He looked up from hearing a gentle knock on his door frame. "Hey Tyler," he greeted.

"Hey Will," Tyler walked in, adjusting his glasses. "What are you up to for lunch?"

"I don't know really. Likely a sandwich in the cafeteria unless you had something else in mind."

Tyler nodded. "Yep, actually I do. Wanna get a free lunch outta it?"

Will sat up. "This isn't med school, you know. I can afford my own food. The loans didn't take everything." At least, not yet.

His friend shrugged. "I've been invited to a focus group at Trylatech Industries. They want to present a couple of cutting edge medical shit and looking for some trauma doctors for feedback or whatever."

Will shook his head. "I'm not a trauma doctor."

"Yeah you are. You're down here with us, even if you're trying to leave us in the pit. As of now, you're still in Emergency medicine, jerk."

He raised his hands as a cease fire. "What's with the hostility? A second ago you were inviting me to lunch."

"Sorry man, I just don't see why you gotta go off and be some lone wolf. You know there's strength in numbers."

"You pretend as if there's no egos here in the badlands. Trust me, there are. But even so, I told you a while back that the ER was just a temporary thing. I enjoy the ride, but since I've been done with my residency, I'm ready for something different."

"Yeah, yeah. Playing with hearts and old people." Tyler grinned.

Will rolled his eyes. "I'm tired of trying to convince you that Cardiology doesn't always yield older clients, but even if it did, so what."

"You're never gonna meet Miss Future Lamoureux working with senior citizen's hearts. Unless, you like them much, much older."

He sighed. "Unlike you, Ty, I don't cruise the ward looking to find a date out of a patient. I told you that was creepy if not horribly unethical."

Tyler's eyes widened. "She was discharged before I asked her out. No harm there." He leaned back against the door frame. "What about you? You know all work and no play makes Will a dull boy. When's the last time you got laid?"

"Don't worry about me, alright? I got enough to worry about." He frowned. "Hey Ty, have you ever dated a widow?"

"Whoa. You do like them old. I knew that charm you have has some drawbacks." He laughed. "What's her name, Sophia? Myrtle?"

"Diane. And she's not old. I imagine she's around my age, perhaps younger."

"Hmm. Interesting. Is she hot?"

"She's off the scale."

Tyler leaned forward, grinning with giddiness. "Well, hot damn. What does it matter if she's a widow?  How long ago did her old man kick the bucket?"

Will frowned. "You know, it wouldn't kill you to have just a little tact in talking about people you don't know. For your information, he died two years ago. He left her and a baby girl behind."

He sucked in a breath. "Ouch. A widow with a kid? You sure she's our age?" He chuckled, but it was short due to the look on Will's face. "Sorry, it's just a rare thing you're talking about here. I don't know how to respond, man."

Will stood up. "Forget it, I should've known better than to ask for your input. Let's go to lunch before I remember what an asshole you can really be instead of a good friend of mine."

"I'm just saying, Will. A young widow and a child? That's a lot of serious baggage for a man who's got his plate full of patients and pursuits of a private practice and what-not."

"I really like her and her little girl too. It's just that she's a bit standoffish, that's all."

"Uh oh." Tyler groaned.

Will raised an eyebrow. "What you mean, uh oh?"

"Will. I hate to ask but...have you gone out with her yet?"

He folded his arms, "I'm getting there."

Tyler rubbed the side of his head in angst. "You're gonna play problem solver again, aren't you?"

Will paused from removing his lab coat. His face dead serious. "No, I'm not."

"Yes you are. You're falling for this girl and you haven't even gone out with her yet?"

"I didn't say I was falling for her. I said I wanted to date her. Big difference."

"Not for you, Will. You always tend to find broken women and want to fix them. All it does it get you in serious trouble."

Will shrugged off his lab coat. It wasn't true. They always seemed to find him, not the other way around. But Tyler would never see it that way. "Her plight had nothing to do with me being interested in her. I admire her for it, but there's something else about her. There's a warmth to her; she hides it well, but I can see it."

"You said that about Margaret back in med school, remember?"

Will's eyes softened at the name of his ex-girlfriend. Margaret was supposed to be his end-all, be-all. The woman he'd given his heart to. But in the end, she was a horrible mistake. All his energy went into a love that was a big joke, nearly costing him his career. "Diane isn't Margaret. She has a good head on her shoulders. Besides, I was an idiot back then."

Tyler chewed his lip. "The hardest lessons are the ones you fail to learn from. Look man, I'm sorry. I didn't want to throw the past in your face like that. I just worry about you. I remembered how you were turned inside out. All the hail Marys you pulled to help her. I get it, you like to help. I just don't want you burning yourself out. If she's still grieving, you need to let this one go." He looked at the time. "Let's forget all this woman business and eat some free food and pick apart some pompous techies."

Will grabbed his keys and walked past him. "You can be an asshole sometimes."

"I don't think that's the proper definition for a man that rains truth down on his friends." Tyler caught up to him.

"No, no I think that definition still applies. You're driving by the way."

As Tyler droned on about the state of hospital affairs, Will wondered if he was headed towards another Margaret-sized disaster going after a woman who preferred to shut herself out from the world.

***

Diane fidgeted in her seat waiting for the adjacent conference room to finally become available. She saw some little blonde salesperson dash in there about a half-hour ago and that was the only one with blockable time. Her team sat in the couches nearby; nothing but the unified clacking of keyboards were heard as if it was their very own secret language. They had only a half hour to deploy the bug fix and run the demo before it went live. When everyone else were running off to grab some food, her team had to hunker down and make sure the code launched without a hitch. Her eyes heavy, she quickly refocused to jar them alert. There's no time to get groggy. It would soon be game time. Then afterwards, she could raise her blood sugar and get some sleep. She swiveled in her seat and finally got to her feet, grabbed her laptop and made a beeline to the conference room door. Her blood pressure rising, she managed to wrestle up some calmness enough to knock on the door. Five minutes overdue, the short blonde blatantly ignored her until Diane knocked again. This time more forceful. With a noticeable huff, the blonde finally made eye contact and put up two fingers, pleading for more time as the voice on the speaker continued to talk. Diane rolled her eyes then put up one finger. Not the one finger she really wanted to put up, but it would do for now.

The blonde hung up the conference phone and quickly closed her laptop as Diane opened the door and whistled for her crew to come in. "Sorry 'bout that," she whispered. Both of them put on a plastic smile as they exchanged glances.

"No worries," Diane sat her system down on the table. "Just a quick pow wow before today's presentation."

The blonde smiled like a pageant contestant. "Good luck with that." She walked out but found herself blocked by several of Diane's engineers. All of them gave her a look of annoyance. Especially, Adrian, who stood a toppling 6'3 with piercing gray eyes through his clear framed glasses. He gave everyone the willies except Diane. With a smack of her lips, the blonde plowed through, cautiously scooching by Adrian. "Excuse me."

When she finally escaped, the engineers laughed and proceeded to enter the room. Diane shook her head, opening her laptop. "Sorry about that, guys. I know we're short on time."

"No problem, Dee. She was the rude one. How many times we gotta kick her out of these rooms?" Patience folded her arms. "Next time, you should sic Adrian on her."

Adrian cut his eyes at her. "I'm not a dog." He started typing. "But I'm not a fan of the salespeople getting rude with Dee. They have a whole floor to wallow in." He pushed up his glasses. "Sorry, Dee."

Diane plugged up her monitor to the main screen. She gave a lazy smile. "It's okay, guys. I'm not a fan of the sales team either, but they have their place. Let's focus on the demo today and put all our energy there where it's best used." Her little crew were viciously loyal and protective, and she never understood why. Adrian was a transfer from another team. He didn't talk much, but his code work spoke for itself. The kid was a genius and she saw a lot of herself in him. He just wanted to do great things and be left alone to his devices. She totally understood that. She wasn't too good with people, but she knew her code. She knew her science. That was far safer than trying to connect with people. People who would eventually leave you. Even handsome doctors who seem to chase you around, she thought to herself. She didn't know how Will popped in her head, but it wasn't like he didn't occupy her thoughts as of late. She never knew someone so stubborn and impetuous and just didn't get his attraction to her. She was as pleasant as Adrian most days and yet, the doctor made it clear he wanted to see her again. His genuine interest in her was unexpected, just as much as her mutual intrigue. She wished she could get his eyes out of her head. And that devious little smile. The man had far too many gears turning in his head to figure out what he was thinking of her. But, then again, it wasn't like he kept any of it a secret. If he called her, would she say yes?

"Miss Dee?"

Diane peered up to notice everyone staring at her. "Uh, yeah?"

"Everything okay?," Patience asked.

Her cheeks on fire, she cleared her throat. "Yep! Of course. Let's um, let's re-run the demo and I'll talk it through downstairs."

A half-hour later, she went over and over on all the details and everything for lack of a better word, seemed perfect. Right down to the demo. Logging into her laptop, she pulled up the file and synced it to the presenter deck while the crew was laying pamphlets and cards on the chair seats. Diane looked up to see the buffets all lined up. The caterers had a ridiculous spread, but perhaps she thought that because she didn't eat breakfast and everything looked delicious right now. She cracked her knuckles as her stomach filled with butterflies. How the hell did nerves get into this? She must've done these types of presentations over a dozen times and it wasn't like she was delivering this to the executive board. It was just a field test. Diane picked up her laptop and set it on the podium as the moderator started to bring in the doctors. Most of them broke off and headed for the buffet and smaller tables in the back. She sat off to the side when Adrian waved at her. Calling him over, all her team came out of the woodwork. "What's up, guys?"

Yuri, her team's code reviewer grinned. "There's food over there."

She nodded. "Yep, there is." She looked into their hopeful eyes, anxiously waiting for mercy. She also could've sworn she heard Adrian's stomach roar, not growl. "Okay, okay. Just be quick about it. And don't talk to the doctors."

"Thank you!," they whispered as they hurried into the buffet lines. She smiled watching them fall into line, grabbing tongs to pile food on their plate. She was tempted, but eating right before a big presentation never worked well for her in the past. Her thoughts went to a time when she begged Christian to pick up a burger and fries on his way to attend her product launch at the other company. It was just before her promotion, but no one could forget her loud belch just after her last comment in the presentation. Of course, only Christian laughed, to which he laughed himself into the doghouse for at least a week. She was mortified and perhaps to this day it was why she still go nervous talking to crowds. Trying not to make eye contact with those coming in, she put her head down and browsed through the recent photos from Gina's wedding on Facebook. Clicking through, she saw one tagged with her name and paused to see it was an image of Chrissy and William dancing. Both of them were all smiles, with Chrissy's dress frozen in flutter. The camera caught every feature of Will's devastating grin, and was the first time she noticed he had just a bit of dimples; enough to be beguiling all the same. She clicked on to see a picture of her dancing with him and her expression on her face. Though she could've sworn she had a wall of a scowl held up, in reality she was content. They almost looked like a couple. She quickly closed the laptop and sighed. "What have I gotten myself into?"