#mellangdon

"You know what the problem is," she says, then jerks her head towards the ring on his finger. "It's not fair, Frank. You getting her hopes up - it's not fair."

"Getting her -" He follows her around to the other side of the nurse's station and leans in close while she casually sorts through some discharge papers. "I'm not getting her hopes up about anything,” he explains. “She's my friend. We're friends. I'm not gonna be the asshole that asks her to stop touching me when she’s excited or whatever, especially since I'm not..." His eyes flick to his ring finger, and he tucks his hand into his pocket. "I'm not doing anything wrong."

"Really?"

He leans in closer to make sure no one - especially not Perlah and Princess - overhear. "She knows about the divorce; she knows I only wear my ring to keep the others off my back." 

"That’s my point. You don't think it's wrong that the two of you are acting like a pair of monkeys picking fleas off each other when you just got divorced from your college sweetheart?”

“It's lice,” he corrects.

“C’mon, Frank, that’s a mean thing to call your ex-wife.”

“Dana.”

“I was joking, kid. And I’m just trying to look out for you. For both of you.” She looks up at him from behind her glasses. “You’re not in the right headspace to get into something new.”

“We’re just friends.” She raises an eyebrow. He hates when she does that - when she knows something he doesn’t, or at least acts like she does. “What?”

Dana looks across the room. Frank follows her gaze. Within a second he’s spotted Mel in the corner, pointing at her phone and talking animatedly about whatever's on it with Dr. Al-Hashimi, who unsurprisingly isn't even pretending to give a shit. The sight of it makes him frown. When he turns back to Dana, she’s mirroring his expression.

“You don’t think maybe she has a bit of a crush on you?” she asks.

His first instinct is to laugh. Not only because he’s the last person on Earth that a woman like Mel would have a crush on, but because he doesn’t know if she’s ever had a crush on anyone. She never realizes when patients are flirting with her - which happens a lot - and the times that Frank points it out afterwards, she always wrinkles her nose and shakes her head like the thought of being flirted with, regardless of the person, is enough to ick her out. If she had a crush on anyone, he would know about it. And it definitely wouldn’t be him.

“I think I'm just her best friend,” he answers.

Dana snorts. “Yeah, and no other relationship’s ever started out that way.” 

As if on cue, he hears footsteps approaching and turns in time to see Mel appear at his side with her phone in her hand. “Frank! Um, do you remember - that new vegetarian place, the one opening down the street from me that I was telling you about -”

“Meet-Cuke?”

“Yes, yes, Meet-Cuke, that’s it! And - do you remember when I said that they were opening next month? Well, it turns out that we had that conversation a month ago, which means they’re opening on Wednesday!”

“Wow, really?”

“Time flies when you’re havin’ fun,” Dana mutters. Frank turns to glare at her. “What?”

“Are you free after work this week?” Without giving him time to answer, Mel squeezes into the space between him and the nurse’s station and starts flipping through her schedule. “I have volleyball on Thursday, but maybe we can go Friday…?”

“Uhhh..." He clears his throat and tries to focus on her screen instead of the fact that her back is pressed up against his chest.  "How about this. It’s gonna be super busy the first couple weeks, right?”

“Oh, yeah, it might be…” 

“And they probably have a ton of reservations booked already. So let’s go…” He points at one of the few dates in her monthly calendar that doesn’t already have a colour-coded scheduling block on it. “Then. After work.”

“Why then?” 

“Well, it’ll have been open for a few weeks at that point; a liittle bit of the hype will have died down, but they’ll still be working hard to impress us. Plus, it’s a Monday, so they won’t be super packed.”

“Sounds like a plan!” She clicks on the date, selects an orange colour block (which is the colour she uses for “non-spontaneous hang-outs and other social plans”, according to her), and types out “Dinner with Frank at Meet-Cuke” with five green hearts, two blue hearts, and a cucumber emoji. He feels bad about reading over her shoulder, but is pretty sure she would’ve done a better job at hiding her phone  if she didn’t want him reading it. 

“Ahhh’m so exciiiteeeed!” she exclaims as she spins around to look at him. “I can’t wait!”

“Yeah.” Despite how close they’re standing and despite the fact that he can still feel fucking Dana staring daggers into him, he smiles. “Yeah, me too.”

Mel pats his shoulder, then his bicep, and then grins and claps a couple times before turning on her heel with one last excited “Ah!” and skipping through the the ED. No, seriously, she skips at least a couple of steps before Santos gives her a look that makes her stop. He’s still smiling as he watches her, though, and smiles even wider when she turns over her shoulder to give him one last round of happy applause.

“You’re taking her to a restaurant named Meet-Cute and somehow I’m the bad guy for suggesting there might be something between you two," Dana mutters.

Frank reaches for his Red Bull and downs the rest of it. “It’s Meet-Cuke,” he corrects afterwards as he wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.