“Wow,” Jay says after he takes the first bite of the food on his plate, the sweet potato breakfast skillet with veggies and bacon and sunny-side-up eggs that I’d made before he came over and was keeping warm in the oven. “This is really good.”
We’re sitting across from each other on the tall chairs at my round, counter-height dining table, our plates on rust-colored placemats with matching cloth napkins, white wine in our glasses, and the flames from taper candles casting a soft glow over the corner just beyond my kitchen.
No, the candles aren’t to set a romantic mood. The recessed light in the cathedral ceiling above burned out a few days ago, and I haven’t worked up the energy to change it, so without the candles it’d be way too dark in here.
“Thanks,” I tell him. “Found the recipe on Pinterest, and I just modified it a little.” I glance at him as I say it, and I’m pretty sure I sound sincere. Praise for my cooking is really praise for my grandma, who started having me help her in the kitchen as soon as I could hold a spatula, but it still warms my heart. Especially when it comes from Jay.
But tonight, and for the past two days, it’s been hard to feel much of anything besides tired and weighed down, like I’m dragging an anchor around. Getting that text from Jay earlier was the first time the load lightened since Wednesday, possibly the shittiest day of my life—maybe surpassed only by the day Matt smashed my heart to pieces.
When Jay showed up on my doorstep, looking so big and solid and fuckable, and when he started kissing me, I forgot everything except him. And that worked so well, but it didn’t last. The funk returned as soon as I climbed off of him and put my underwear back on. Which kind of made me feel like I was using him, like Angela was suggesting.
Not that he wasn’t perfectly willing to be used.
“Guess I should have you cook me breakfast for dinner more often,” he comments between mouthfuls, and my smile in response is just a twitch at the corners of my mouth.
“How about just breakfast for breakfast?” I scoop up a heap of food and lift it to my mouth. It feels like a lump of nothing on my tongue. I know it has a good flavor, but my taste buds aren’t in the mood to acknowledge it.
“Yeah.” Jay sets down his fork and takes a quick drink of wine, his glacier-blue eyes sharp on me while he tips the glass against his lips. “That reminds me. We should probably lay down some rules.”
I swallow a sigh. Why does he have to make everything so complicated?
“Like what?” To my own ears my voice sounds testy, which isn’t intentional.
“If this is going to work, we need boundaries.” He looks at me intently while he says this, elbows on the table and arms spread out, not touching food or drink—not doing anything except focusing on me.
I guess that means this is important, and I need to pay attention.
So…boundaries? What does that even mean?
“Like a Fight Club thing?” I ask, squinting at him. “But it’d be Fuck Club, wouldn’t it? And the first rule is—”
“You don’t talk about it,” he interrupts. His brows are pinched and his eyes hard.
Yeah, he didn’t think my comment was funny. That’s okay; it wasn’t really a joke.
He drops back in his chair. “That’s actually a good place to start.”
Don’t talk about the fact that I’m sleeping with Jay? Fine. Whatever.
Except I already did, didn’t I? Crap.
“Oops,” I say, wincing.
“Seriously?” he bursts out after a short silence. “Who did you tell?”
“Just Angela. From work?” I throw him an apologetic look. “Sorry. But she doesn’t know anyone you know, so there’s that, at least.”
He just stares at me, stares so long that I start feeling like I’ve got needles in my stomach, and then he delivers a flat, “Yeah. Great.”
Ducking my head to avoid his obvious disgust—which I suppose I deserve—I notice that somehow I’ve managed to eat most of my food. I set my fork down, deciding I’m full enough, and take a drink of wine. The Pinot Grigio glides smoothly over my tongue, light and tangy with a hint of citrus, and it’s the only thing that tastes good to me right now.
“Got any more rules?” I ask, eyeing him over the top of my glass.
He finishes chewing before he answers, “We don’t stay over or leave any of our stuff at each other’s apartments.”
Uh. What? I almost ask if he’s serious, but the answer is written in his expression. The boundaries thing makes so much more sense all of a sudden. He’s drawing a line in the sand. And apparently keeping a toothbrush and clean underwear at my place is crossing it.
“Okay,” I say, shrugging because it’s not worth arguing over. Emptying my glass, I reach for the bottle and give myself a refill. Then I hold it tilted over Jay’s glass and give him a questioning look. He declines with a quick shake of his head.
I lean back, holding my wineglass to my chest. No sense in setting it down only to pick it right back up again, is there? I start running my fingertip around the edge of it, making a faint humming sound. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. Just one more thing…” He gives his right cheek a quick scratch, and then he crosses his arms over his chest.
Defensive posture.
Uh-oh. What now?
“Are we allowed to have sex with other people?” he asks like he’s in a hurry to get the words out.
Oh, what the hell? Did he really just ask me that? My grip on my cup tightens, and involuntarily, my thighs clench together. My thighs, between which I can feel that my underwear is still damp and sticky. Not from me. From him. Because barely half an hour ago, he came inside me. And now, while I’m sitting here with his cum still leaking out of me—which I do not mind—he asks me if he can fuck other women?
That I do mind.
“No,” I snap. “Absolutely not. Are you kidding me?”
His eyebrows shoot up. “But if we’re just friends with benefits...?”
My scoff comes from deep in my throat. “I don’t share towels with strangers at the gym. Or share drink straws with the people at the next table in a restaurant.”
His tone flat, he asks, “So we have to be monogamous because anything else is too gross?”
“Uh-huh,” I reply. And because if another woman touches you, I’d have to claw the bitch’s eyes out. I decide to keep that thought to myself. “Is that a problem?”
It’s his turn to shrug, but the casual gesture doesn’t gel with the quiet and measuring way he’s watching me. “Just figure it’s best to know where we stand is all.”
’Kay, then. “Yeah, it’s pretty simple. You want to screw someone else, you tell me.”
His gaze sparks with something I can’t identify, something that makes me want to squirm in my chair, and his voice is gruff as he asks, “And then what, Mia?”
“Then we’re done,” I answer simply, and I’m pretty confident that I sound calm about it, but in my chest my heart is pounding painfully. No, Jay is not my boyfriend. He’s not, and I know that. I. Know. That. I don’t even want him to be.
But he of all people should understand how I feel about this. He knows what a wreck I was after Matt cheated and left. In fact, he was so pissed on my behalf that right in the middle of midterms, he packed up all his stuff and moved to a different dorm room, choosing to live with a stranger with unknown quirks and habits rather than stay with the guy who’d been his friend for nearly three years. Because that guy was a piece of shit who’d broken my heart.
Jay kept it cool, though. Even when he’s furious, you kind of have to know him to notice. I’ve fantasized over the years about Jay losing it and punching Matt in the nose. There’s always a lot of blood in that daydream; I’ve never been squeamish about blood. Too bad that’s not how Jay rolls. I’ve never known him to be any other way than he is now: self-restrained, level-headed, and laid-back. He turns his anger inward. Which is maybe not the healthiest way to live.
So yeah. I’m not sharing Jay. Now he knows, and I’m not entirely sure why he asked, because my answer didn’t seem to bother him at all.
Without a word, he gets to his feet, grabs his plate and glass, and takes them into the kitchen. I pick up mine, as well, and follow him. While he opens the dishwasher and begins filling it, I lean against the counter next to the fridge. Clenching my hands on the edge of the counter, hesitating.
I really should ask him about going to my grandma’s party now. It hasn’t been on my mind that much—the events after she called on Wednesday kind of derailed me—but it’s still hovering at the back of my mind that it’d be so, so easy to just not mention it to him. Telling my family he couldn’t come because he had to work wouldn’t stretch anyone’s credulity.
But telling white lies for your own comfort is pretty immature. Part of being a grown-up is cutting that shit out. I have to remind myself of that way too often, it seems.
“So…” I begin while Jay is scraping the small amount of food left on my plate into the garbage disposal in the sink, “is there a rule about attending family events?”
While placing the plate in the dishwasher, he looks at me sideways and asks, “Why?”
I quickly explain about the change in plans for my grandma’s party in two weeks and his invitation.
He straightens, his eyes unreadable. “She specifically said she wanted me to come?”
“My grandma really likes you,” I point out. “My whole family does.”
Jay bends to close the dishwasher door, but not before I catch the slight grimace on his face. “I’m not so sure about your dad.”
“He just likes intimidating people. Loves making people squirm.” I pick the dirty skillet up from the stove and start taking it to the sink, but Jay plucks it out of my hand, and I step back and let him. It’s the only thing left to clean, since I washed everything else while waiting for him to come over.
While he scrubs the pan, I continue on the topic of my dad, “If you’d heard half of the stuff he says to Paige’s husband about doing criminal defense… And he still picks on me for becoming a nurse instead of going for an MD. I guess I’m the underachiever in the family.”
“What?” Jay throws a sharp look at me over his shoulder as he rinses the soap off the skillet. “That’s horseshit.”
“Yeah, and I’d tell him that if he really meant it. But he doesn’t.” It’s hard to explain my dad to anyone outside the family. A softhearted puppy with a big bark would be a start, but no one is that two-dimensional.
While Jay puts the clean pan on my drying rack, I clear my throat and say, “So should I tell my mom you’re coming?”
Toweling off his hands, he watches me narrowly. Stays quiet for a while, making me edgy, antsy. He sounds a tad peevish when he finally says, “Will you be able to follow rule number one?”
Ha. Is he kidding? I’m picturing my parents’ faces as I try to explain to them that, no, Jay’s not my boyfriend; I’m just having sex with him. Yeah, that’d go over really well.
I bob my head and say, “Yup.”
He looks down. Hangs the towel back on the bar hooked on the door under the sink. Gives a small nod and says, “I’ll see if I can switch shifts with someone.”
Whew. Okay, so that’s done.
Now I’m not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, the weekend will definitely be less complicated if it turns out he can’t go. On the other, I’m starting to feel like we’ve figured out how to do this. How to be friends and lovers.
Sure, it might take some more adjustments, a bit more fine-tuning, but he seems to have come to terms with it, and I’m not so worried anymore that he’s going to jump ship. Not after that quickie on the couch earlier. A pulsing and tingling flares up between my legs at the memory—the memory that’s still fresh and raw.
Tilting my head, I watch him across the short space of the kitchen. He’s fished his phone out of his pocket and is thumbing the screen with a mild frown, his head bent. His grungy charcoal tee hugs his torso just right, defining his broad shoulders, his muscled biceps and chest. The tapered lines down to his waist and narrow hips. And below the shorts ending just above his knees, his sinewy runner’s calves.
This is Jay. He hasn’t changed much since I first met him—a little more filled out maybe, more like a man with not a shred of boyishness left. So it’s just me who’s looking at him differently now. Less like something pretty in a window display. More like something that belongs to me, something I’ve wanted to get my hands on forever, and now the need to touch him is a constant, whispering purr beneath my skin.
I clear my throat. “You wanna watch House or something?”
He shoots a glance at me, and then he does that thing again where he looks at his watch. Even though his phone is right there in his hands. Telling him what time it is.
“I should probably go. Need to hit the gym tonight,” he replies. Then he eyes me directly, eyebrows cocked. “Besides, isn’t it almost your bedtime?”
I check the oven clock and find it’s almost a quarter past nine. Okay, sure, so I’ve been known to hit the sack at ten even on the weekend. But sleep is not my foremost need right now.
Stepping close enough to touch him, I sneak a hand up under the front of his shirt. Stroking his flat, taut abs, I murmur, “Want to tuck me in?”
He exhales audibly, harshly. Reaches up and slips his thumb under the strap on my shoulder. “Are you wearing a bra under that dress?”
All the air is sucked out of my chest. I wasn’t expecting playful, flirty Jay, and I really like it. “Why don’t we go in the bedroom, and I’ll show you?”
With a tiny, genuine smile, he lets his arm drop and takes my hand in his, which is so much bigger it envelops mine in a warm and secure grip that sends a shock straight to my core.
Clutching his hand, I pull him behind me as I lead the way to my bedroom.
The light from the lamp on my nightstand is soft and warm and intimate, shrinking the room down to only the bed and us. I’m lying on my back with my arms flung above my head, tangled in the sheets, panting and damp with perspiration. Jay is spread out right next to me, also trying to catch his breath.
Wow. Just wow. If the couch earlier was an appetizer, this was dessert—delicious, decadent, and yet not at all fattening. I smile at the thought, and something loosens up inside me.
Last Thursday morning it was like we were trying something new and seeing if we liked it. The rushed and frantic thing in the living room was like scratching an itch. This time we took it slow, teasing and exploring, learning each other’s bodies.
Not since Matt have I felt this way after sex. It’s a kind of vertigo, a heightened awareness, a sense of being more—more feminine, more spent, more alive.
I turn my head to look at him. His chest falls and rises quickly still, his arm slung over his face. Something strange on his bicep catches my eye, and I move my head closer, squinting at it. There’s a faint outline on his skin, like writing in pencil that’s been removed with a rubber eraser.
It looks like a number: 88.
What the hell?
“What is that?” I reach out but stop myself just short of touching him. It’s almost invisible, so I’m not really surprised I never noticed it before.
Letting his arm fall, he turns his head to me first, then glances down at his arm. A grimace passes over his features, his eyes shuttering. “It was a tattoo.”
My eyebrows shoot up. Jay had a tattoo?
“When did you get it?” I ask, frowning. “And what does it mean?”
He sighs, rubbing his palm over his face. It seems like it takes him forever to answer, and apprehension squeezes my chest.
“I did it in college,” he says tightly. “One night when I drunk off my ass, and I don’t even remember doing it or what it was supposed to mean. I had it removed as soon as I scraped together the money.”
Uh, okay. I’m watching him with my lips pinched. Because that doesn’t sound like something he would do, and I’m getting dismissive vibes from him. Like he really doesn’t want to talk about it.
But on another level, it’s kind of comforting to know that even Jay did some stupid stuff when he was younger. So with a mental shrug, I let it go.
My hands are prickling with the urge to touch him. And really, why shouldn’t I? This hesitation…I don’t get it. No physical contact except while we’re getting it on was not one of his rules, so why do I feel as if it’s forbidden?
Well, the only way to find out if it’s acceptable is to give it try. Tentatively, I place my palm on his chest, right above his heart, where I can feel each beat as a faint fluttering where my skin meets his. Uncovering his eyes, he twists his head toward me, seeking my face and finding it, holding my gaze.
I want to say something, but I have no idea what, so I only stare at him while my fingers caress his chest in tiny, slow circles.
His arm falls down on the pillow above my head.
My pulse stutters. Is that an invitation?
I decide to take it as one. Pulling the flat sheet with me, I flip onto my side and slide nearer, until there’s no longer any space between us. Tugging the sheet to cover us, I rest my head on his shoulder, my breasts pressing against his rib cage. Then I hook my leg over his and stroke him with the arch of my foot.
His hand comes up to rest on my upper arm, and when he squeezes me even closer, it’s like he’s also squeezing my heart. A hard knot forms in my throat, and I try frantically to swallow it away.
Picking my hand off his chest, holding it tight, he brings it up toward his face. Trailing his thumb along the dark-pink ridge of healing skin, he comments idly, “Seems like your hand’s doing well.”
“Yeah. It feels a little tight, and I’m still being careful with it.” With Angela’s help, I removed the stitches myself yesterday at work. A perk of the job, but maybe not the smartest decision considering I hadn’t slept at all the night before.
With a hint of queasiness high in my stomach and desperate to switch mental gears, I ask Jay, “How was work this week?”
“Crappy.” Heaving a sigh, he drops our hands back on his chest, though he doesn’t let go. “A lot of trauma cases, and there seems to be some sort of late-season Norovirus outbreak going on right now. The nurses were overwhelmed with dehydrated patients and spent a lot of time cleaning vomit off the floor.”
Blech. Making a face, I continue with, “I saw on the news there was a shooting not far away. Did they come in to you guys?”
“Yeah,” is his terse response, and I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. Which is kind of weird.
He draws in a breath as if about to speak, but only silence follows as he releases it again.
Something’s eating at him. I raise myself up on my elbow so I can see his face. “What?”
My stomach drops at the sight of Jay’s eyes watering, turning his irises a glacial blue. It’s not like him to take the ugliest sides of his job to heart. Or at least, it’s not like him to show it. Just like anger, he draws his sorrows inwards, too. Maybe that’s why he stonewalls me whenever I try to get him to talk about his family?
Knowing better than to push him with stuff like this, I just watch him quietly while his Adam’s apple bobs and he works through whatever’s so difficult to say. At the same time, seeing his obvious pain is like holding a mirror up to myself, and I can feel that anchor again, trying to pull me underwater.
“There was this two-year-old boy,” he says finally, clearing his throat as his voice cracks. “Fell into the neighbor’s pool. The neighbor performed CPR, and paramedics brought him in breathing but unresponsive.”
“What happened?” I ask even though I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.
“He’s in the ICU in a coma. If he wakes up, which is unlikely…” Jay trails off, going silent, and then he shakes his head. “He was underwater for at least five minutes.”
“Shit,” I breathe out. Five minutes of no oxygen to the brain means serious, irreversible neurological damage. No one should have to go through what this kid’s poor parents are going through right now, the choices they have to make.
I swallow hard. The air feels heavy and oppressive in here now, and I’m struggling to stay focused. Wriggling my hand out of his, I lay my palm flat and smooth it across his chest. Quietly I ask, “How do you deal with that stuff?”
Rubbing his eyes with his thumb and index finger, he draws air in through his nose—a moist, runny sound. With a shake of his head, he replies, “You do what you can for the patient and the family, you show empathy, and then you move on to the next person who needs your help.”
Disappointment sinks heavily into my gut, and the anchor hits bottom. Guess I expected that Jay, having done his hospital rotation and now as a resident in the ER, would have some miraculous recipe for coping with the tragedies that he’s witnessed much more of than I have. Because I could really use a lifeline right now.
Staying there in his arms is suddenly intolerable. I’m choking. Nausea swells from my stomach and up into my throat. Blindly, I scramble away from him, across the bed, my feet hitting the floor. I run to the bathroom, slamming the door behind me, and then I’m kneeling in front of the toilet, frantically pushing the seat up.
Nothing happens. I just sit there like that, waiting for the gagging, for dinner to come back up. I’m gasping for air, a low moan escaping me with every other breath, but there’s no relief.
A knock comes on the door followed by Jay’s voice on the other side. “Mia?”
I don’t answer him. I just can’t summon up the energy or find my voice. My heart is hammering so hard I’m sure it’s going to pop right out of my chest. Sweat breaks out on my scalp, coating the back of my neck.
“Hey,” Jay calls through the door. “Can I come in?”
No, no, no. I shake my head frantically. Go away. Please, go away.
“Mia, I’m coming in,” he says firmly, loudly.
Fuck. I force out a half-strangled, “Hang on!”
Pushing down the toilet seat and lid, I brace myself on it and somehow manage to stand up. My hands are shaking, my legs weak. I grab my sheer floral kimono robe from a peg on the wall and shrug into it, tugging the belt into a knot above my waist.
Closing my eyes, I draw air into my lungs and let it flow down through me. It’s okay. I’m okay now.
I open the door and find Jay right outside. He’s put on his boxer briefs, and his face is tight with worry. “What’s going on?”
“Um.” Hugging myself with one arm, I lift the other up, pressing my fist to my mouth. “I think I just had a panic attack or something. Maybe a…a delayed reaction to—”
He waits a couple of seconds, then says, “To what?”
Okay. I can’t do this standing up. Brushing past him, I walk back into the bedroom. Plunk my butt down on the edge of my bed. Feel the mattress dip as he sits down next to me.
“I had a pretty awful week, too,” I confess without looking at him.
And then it spills out. All of it. I describe Tricia Michaelson, but of course, for her privacy, I can only give him the basics: thirty-nine-year-old patient, thirty-seven weeks pregnant. No fetal heartbeat. Me, chickening out and running to Dr. Borawski for help.
The look on Tricia’s face when we came back into the room. She knew something was wrong.
The look on her face when the ultrasound confirmed it.
The look on her face when she asked what would happen next. Borawski calmly and apologetically listing the steps. Me, handing her tissues, squeezing her shoulder for comfort, feeling utterly useless and helpless.
And when the doctor left the room, Tricia asking me in that fragile voice if I would be there with her. I could see in her eyes that she knew what my answer would be, and it made me hesitate. It was on the tip of my tongue to say that, no, I’m not a midwife. I don’t work in L&D. Being there at her side when she gave birth to her dead baby was not my job.
But she hadn’t wanted us to call anyone for her. I asked her about it again, and she gave me her story. She and her girlfriend had decided they wanted a child. Tricia did the artificial insemination. Four months into the pregnancy, her girlfriend bailed. Tricia’s family lives on the East Coast. She was going to move back to be closer to them and have a support network, but she hadn’t found a way to do it yet.
“So I went home on Wednesday, changed my clothes, and then I met her at the hospital,” I tell Jay. “It went pretty quick. She was induced at eight p.m., and by four-thirty in the morning it was over.”
I don’t give him any more details. I know I don’t have to. He’s done rotation in L&D. There’s no need to describe to him the sight of Tricia holding her quiet, unmoving child, so carefully swaddled by the nurses. No need to explain to him how it made me feel—thankfully, because I have no words for it.
When I’m done, he silently wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me into him. I sink against him, my forehead ending up in the crook of his neck, and we sit like that for a long while.
“You know what keeps going through my mind?” I say when I muster up the energy to talk again. “In the office, before we found out what had happened, she mentioned Dr. Crane was pressuring her to schedule an induction, and I wanted to tell her not to let herself be bullied.”
“But you didn’t tell her that,” Jay points out, his voice a low and rumbling murmur.
I let out a snort, my lips twisting miserably. “Which only makes me marginally less of an idiot.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself. You know that, right?” He draws away from me to gaze into my eyes, tucking my hair behind my ear. “You gave her the best care that you could. To think you can do more than that is like swimming upstream.”
Something snaps inside me. Tears press behind my eyes, and I let go, let them flow. Jay pulls me into his lap and wraps his arms around me.
He holds me while the floodgates open.
Holds me until I’m empty.
When I feel somewhat pulled together again, I slide off his lap and go to the bathroom to get a tissue, blow my nose, and splash some water on my face. Returning to the bedroom, I find Jay in the process of getting dressed.
“You know,” I say as he buckles the belt on his shorts, “before last week we would’ve told each other about this stuff as soon as it happened.”
“Yeah.” He picks his shirt off the floor, shoves his arms into the short sleeves, and pulls it on over his head. “Told you things would change.”
I press my lips together. Why does he always fall back on that smug, told-you-so refrain? “It doesn’t have to be like that.”
He throws me a look, saying nothing. Moves toward me. Stops half an arm’s length away, still saying nothing.
Which says plenty.
I give it one last try. Clutching at the front of his shirt, I bunch the fabric in my hand as I tug him closer. Tilt my head back and meet his eyes. “I don’t want to see you just once a week, Jay.”
There’s a short pause. “How about tomorrow? I’ll have a few hours in the late afternoon before I go to work.”
“Okay.”
He bends down and presses his lips against mine. It’s a quick kiss but soft and briefly lingering. And then he leaves.
I should be perfectly happy with how things are going between us.
So why aren’t I?