Chapter 34

When I got back to the clinic, Jack opened the door before I even made it up the stairs. He pulled me in and locked the door behind me.

“Sorry it took so long,” I said. “Annie’s was busier than I expected for such a small town.”

“It’s Featherton’s best restaurant, that’s why. But it worked out great because I called and canceled all my appointments for the rest of the day.”

“You didn’t need to do that. I don’t need to take priority over sick people.”

“Don’t worry about it. There was nothing urgent. I rescheduled everything. I might still get called in for something, but as of right now, I’m spending the rest of my day with you. Come back to my office.”

At his desk, he took the plastic bag of food from my hand and set the boxes on the surface.

“Hungry?” he asked.

I looked from his face to the food and back to him. “Very.”

He slid his arms around my waist and kissed me again. “I don’t really want lunch.” Then his stomach gurgled.

I laughed and pushed his arms away. “Liar. Your French dip is going to get cold.”

“I don’t really care,” he grumbled but sat down and opened his takeout carton, while I did the same to mine. “I got you the chicken salad sandwich which might sound really gross, but it’s so good. We can trade if you want.”

“This is fine.” It did look good, but I didn’t touch it. I was more interested in watching Jack. He had an underlying nervousness I wouldn’t have expected. I had a feeling he was the kind of guy who had swaggered through the halls of hospitals with the confidence of any Grey’s Anatomy heartthrob. I’d sensed it in the sure way he’d laughed and kissed me. But there was an endearing eagerness to please in the way he checked on my lunch order and cleared his schedule.

“I can’t believe you came up here.” He shook his head. “I guess the update went well?”

“No hitches so far. But I definitely needed a break.”

“Then we’re going to make it a good one. What do you want to do while you’re here?”

I raised my eyebrows at him and fought a smile.

He shrugged. “If you insist.” Then he reached over and hauled me onto his lap for more kissing.

Several minutes later while I rested my head on his shoulder to recover from a self-diagnosed case of oxygen deprivation, I idly reached up to tug the elastic from his messy knot of hair and let the dark strands fall over my fingers, combing through the soft pieces. I leaned back far enough to see the full effect and shook my head.

“What?” he asked, drawing me back against his chest.

“It’s like looking at two different people when your hair is up and when it’s down.”

“So people tell me.”

I toyed with a few more strands until my own stomach grumbled, and I laughed and climbed from his lap to reclaim my chair. “I guess I need to eat too. Tell me what else there is to do around here.”

He thought while he took a bite. “Whatever you want. Featherton is your oyster. Tell me what you want to do, and we’ll do it.”

“Let’s do whatever you normally do around here for a first date.”

He gave me a look I couldn’t interpret. “That could be a little tricky.”

“Why? Are we going to bump into all your exes?”

He shook his head. “No. I haven’t been out with anyone since I moved here.”

“But…” He’d been here for over two years.

“There wasn’t anyone I wanted to take out. Now I do.” He watched me as I processed that. “Look, I was a head case when I moved here. It’s why I moved here. I needed to get as far away as possible from all the noise in my life. It worked.”

“Except now I’m here…making noise.”

“Not that I mind, but while we’re on the subject, can I ask why?” he asked, setting his sandwich down. “Why did you decide to come?”

Here we were at the threshold of our first real conversation in person, the kind you have when you’re dating someone, and you want it to go somewhere. “Why did you invite me?”

He studied me for a long moment. “I needed to know,” he said. “I’ve been in a fog for a long time. You’ve been a steady light. I wanted to know what I’d find if I followed it.”

Ranée was wrong. It was Jack who was making me swoon, not the other way around. But even as his words sent a soft, warm glow through me, a flicker of worry trailed it.

“You’re frowning.” He leaned forward to brush his finger over the furrows on my forehead. “Was that the wrong answer?”

“Not if it’s the truth. It’s just…” I tried to figure out what the flicker meant. “I don’t know. The light in the fog thing. It’s rescue imagery, you know? And once you rescue someone or get rescued, there’s this moment of intense ‘yayness’ and then you both move on and that’s it.”

He looked like he was trying not to smile. “‘Yayness?’” he repeated.

“I’m a programmer, not a poet.”

“Could’ve fooled me with talk like ‘rescue imagery.’ But I get it. It’s kind of like how no one wants to be a rebound. You don’t want to be a rebound from my hermit life?”

It pulsed like truth where the flicker had been. “Basically.”

He took the sandwich from my hands and set it down. “I can’t make a single promise. The reality is that we’re committed to lives in two different places, and there’s nothing we can do about that. But you’re here now. I want to be in this moment, for as long as it lasts, before you have to go back to your life. I don’t think we can solve anything, and I’m sure if we try we’re only going to frustrate ourselves. Let’s not do that. Let’s just be here, right now, like there is nothing else to worry about, nothing to fix.”

I reached up and tucked back a piece of his hair that hadn’t made it into the elastic. “I’ve wanted to do that for weeks.”

“Then do it as often as you want this weekend. Deal?”

What else was there to say? He was right. All that mattered was right now because I couldn’t do a thing about anything else. “Deal.”

And then lunch got cold as we disappeared into countless long, sweet kisses.