50
If I moved back to Austin, would you hang out with me?
He’d told her no. But if she did move back—say, to live with Eve or Hart for a while—she would probably insist on seeing him every so often.
Maybe she would insist on hugging him every time.
He’d been back from Romeo almost two months now, and he was starting to feel pathetic. Why was he sitting around trying to think of ways to get Clara to put her arms around him? But ever since he’d realized that no one ever hugged him in his daily life, he couldn’t forget it.
He’d started following her fashion blog account, and it was the first thing he checked every morning. He didn’t care about her clothes, but he liked the confident way she posed in them and the breezy, knowledgeable way she described each item. Sometimes he even read her replies to her followers’ comments, and caught himself thinking smarmy things about how she saw the best in people.
Was he turning into a DeWitt Petty? He needed a girlfriend. A not-Clara girlfriend—maybe a blonde. Maybe another doctor, one who would understand the demands of his job. They could go to movies together and play tennis with Harry and talk to each other about their high-powered careers. It would be whatever the opposite of crushingly lonely was.
But he didn’t want a not-Clara girlfriend. He wanted Clara, and it was freaking him out.
“Dr. Flores,” Margo said, sounding mysteriously happy.
“What?” he asked, wishing he didn’t sound so depressed.
“Grisham wants to see you,” she singsonged.
That got his attention. Grisham was the chief medical officer—the one in charge of promoting one of the trauma surgeons to unit chief once old Pat Paterson finally retired.
“You think it’s about the promotion?” he asked.
“What else?”
“I don’t deserve it,” he reminded her. “I just finished my fellowship. Jake’s been here way longer.”
“But Jake’s a jerk,” she said cheerfully. “You’re the opposite of that.”
“Your flattery’s not suspicious at all,” he said dryly.
“If you’re going to the top, take me with you,” she begged. “Now, hurry up and go see Dr. Grisham.” She glanced at the styrofoam box from his Indian takeout. “Have a breath mint, just in case.”
“Just in case he wants to kiss me?” he asked, popping a couple of Altoids as he got to his feet.
“Just in case your breath smells like curry,” she said distractedly. “Do you have a less wrinkled white coat?”
“Not on me.”
“Darn it,” Margo muttered. “I should have—“
“There’s one on that hook over there, though.”
She scowled at him, but handed him the fresh white garment. “Don’t try to make any jokes when you’re talking to Grisham, all right? It’s not your strength.”
“There’s the Margo I know.”
“Get upstairs!” she urged.
His head swam with possibilities as he waited for the elevator and rode it up three flights. Unit chief meant longer hours, more time in the OR and a lot more responsibility, but he wasn’t afraid of that; it was his dream. It also meant more power, which didn’t sound bad, either. The chief surgeon made the final call on all the cases in his unit, all the time. There would be med students and residents following him around, eager to learn from him, and he would have the satisfaction of training them.
Then there was the pay raise and the prestige—Clara’s parents couldn’t object to her seeing a chief surgeon. Or, whatever—blonde not-Clara’s parents couldn’t object, either.
But why shouldn’t it be Clara? Far from her father’s all-seeing gaze, why shouldn’t they be together? She could have a new car and all the Louis Vuitton bags she wanted. House cleaners and a cook—maybe a nanny someday. And she’d be sleeping in his bed when he got home late at night, and when he left early the next morning.
And maybe once in a while he’d be around when she was awake.
“Jesse, thanks for coming so quickly,” Grisham greeted him.
“No problem,” he said. “I’m on my lunch. Well, dinner.”
“I’ll make it quick. I want you to take over for Pat. It’s an interim position, but the board believes you’re a better choice than Jake—you’re young, but you have the character for the job.”
“Thank you,” he said automatically.
“You’re talented, probably the best we have, you make good calls, and your first priority is the patient. You’re married to the job, but you’re not power-hungry and even Jake speaks well of you—albeit reluctantly.”
“Thank you,” he said again, wondering why he wasn’t thrilled. The conversation couldn’t have been going better if he’d scripted it himself.
“You’d be chief for twelve months. That’ll give us time to find a permanent candidate. The board won’t approve you on a permanent basis because of your age, but that won’t surprise you. Well, you know what it entails. You’re looking at a fifteen percent raise in pay, and an additional seven vacation days per year.”
“A month,” he said in surprise. They could travel.
“Don’t want you burning out,” Grisham said, and then slapped his shoulder fondly. “Not that you’re the type. Pat is gone on the first. You can move up to his office then.”
“Can I have some time to think about it?” Jesse heard himself say.
Grisham raised his eyebrows. “Sure. Take the weekend. Come see me on Monday.”
Jesse shook his offered hand and made his way numbly back to the elevators. Was he crazy? He didn’t need a weekend to think about it! This was the job of his dreams. It was an interim position, but his foot would be in the door.
His cell phone buzzed in his pocket, which probably meant she’d texted him another picture of the dog. He’d look at it later, or maybe tomorrow.
Even as he had the thought, he took out his phone and swiped to view the picture message.
Sure enough, there was Mrs. Milkbone—Greer—posing on a canvas dropcloth next to a newel post and an unfamiliar flight of stairs. Her mouth was open and her pink tongue was hanging out, clashing with her pink bow.
What’d I tell you? Just needed a lighter stain.
He stared at the caption, uncomprehending. A new message appeared in the thread.
Greer is now cast free and has zoomed up the stairs 100x today. You do good work, Dr. Flores!
Just needed a lighter stain? All at once, he recognized the stairs and banister. She was at the Del Amos’ cabin. Had she convinced her parents to buy it? That figured.
It kind of bummed him out that she’d given up on her crazy idea of the place being a legacy for future generations of Floreses, but why shouldn’t she? He’d told her flat-out that it wasn’t happening.
He returned his phone to his pocket as the elevator doors opened on his floor.
There stood Margo, looking expectant. “Did you get the job?”
“He offered it,” Jesse said. “I give him my decision on Monday.”
“What’s to decide?” she exclaimed. “This is it! You’ve made it!”
“I know. I just want to make sure it’s the best move.”
She stared at him, stunned. Then she gasped. “It’s Clara Wilder, isn’t it? She bewitched you!”
It was 100% Clara, but he didn’t feel like explaining that he was tragically susceptible to the wily ways of witchy women. “No, it’s not Clara.”
“What else could it be? Are you burning out? You just took three weeks’ vacation!”
“That was a working vacation,” he pointed out, and then he stopped. “Grisham was right. I’m married to the job.”
“That’s normal for surgeons,” Margo assured him. “You save lives, for heaven’s sake.”
It kind of sounds like your job is all you have, and I definitely don’t envy you that. What happens after you make unit chief? More money, trophy wives, fancy cars, burnout, alimony, golf.
He had no interest in trophy wives and he didn’t plan to burn out, but the thought of paying alimony to Clara was distinctly depressing.
In thinking he could dazzle her with cars and servants, he’d wronged her. She was a high-maintenance woman, that was for sure, but that didn’t mean she’d be happy with piles of money and a husband who worked a hundred hours a week. She was her father’s princess, and as such had incredibly high expectations. She wouldn’t put up with it for six months, let alone twelve.
“I can’t have both,” he said aloud.
He’d probably always known that, but hadn’t wanted to admit it.
“Both what?” Margo asked.
“I can’t have Clara and be unit chief. I’d never see her. She’d leave me.”
“Since when do you even want Clara?”
“Since she extracted my blackheads,” he answered without thinking.
She made a face. “What?”
“Why am I explaining this to you?” he demanded. “My personal life is none of your business.”
“I thought we were discussing your professional life,” Margo protested.
“They’re connected. It’s complicated.”
“It’s not complicated,” she disagreed. “It’s very simple. If you can’t have both, then which one do you love more? Clara Wilder or surgery?”
He didn’t answer right away.
“What?” she screeched. “That was supposed to be a no-brainer! You live and breathe surgery!” She grabbed his shoulders and gave him a shake, but she didn’t seem angry. “Jesse, you’re in love with this woman!”
He finally got home at two in the morning. He stopped inside his front door and looked across his condo, trying to see it as Clara would see it.
It was a new build, modern but welcoming, in a neutral color palette that wouldn’t overstimulate his exhausted brain—because, in all honesty, he mostly came here to sleep. One wall of the living room was brick, with an enormous flat screen above an electric fireplace insert. The living room flowed into the sleek kitchen, warm wood tones and cool veined marble.
Clara would look good here, he often thought. His annoying imagination conjured her up, put her on the sofa flipping through a fashion magazine. She glanced occasionally at her phone, checking his location. Still at the hospital.
“I get it,” he said aloud.
He gave so much of himself to his job that there was barely anything left to give to a relationship, let alone a family. He had a gift, and that meant he had a responsibility to use it. That had never bothered him before, but now he wondered if it would be selfish to put his personal happiness first.
As always, there was a little voice in his head saying, Surgery is what I’m good at. It’s how I’m useful. If I quit, I have no value. But that was the voice of his inner foster child.
His heart, by far less eloquent, just wanted Clara.
“I can’t do this halfway,” he told his empty condo. “If I want her, I have to go all-in, or I won’t be able to keep her. And then I’ll lose her family, too.”
And he did want her. He wanted her to cover his eyes and douse him with hairspray to prevent hat hair. He wanted to walk her in and out of the grocery store after dark. He wanted to watch her princess persona disappear while she decimated friendly strangers on the tennis court. He wanted the total peace of having her nearby even when they were each doing their own thing.
Heck, he wanted her to bring him dying animals and tell him with total faith that she knew he could save them.
The more he thought about it, the more he knew that giving up the chief surgeon job was the right choice; he was too young for it anyway, and he’d have other chances.
But that didn’t mean he could quit his job and move to little Romeo to be a general practitioner, did it? He liked the idea of living in a closer knit community and having relationships with his patients, and he liked the low-stress atmosphere of Romeo Family Health. But giving up surgery altogether would feel like losing an arm, or worse. Clara was worth it, but it’d break him. And he wouldn’t be using his gift.
He lay awake for over an hour, despite his exhaustion, looking at the picture he had taken of the pair of them lying on the tennis court, and trying to think of a solution that would suit everyone. Clara liked Austin, but she didn’t need a partner who was too busy to see her. If he stayed in Austin, his work-life balance would gradually deteriorate despite his best intentions. That was a hard truth. He lost total track of the outside world whenever he stepped foot in the operating room.
Always in the back of his mind was the knowledge that he simply did not know how Clara would react if he made some kind of pass. If he asked her for a date, there was a chance that she would turn him down, and given his quasi-sibling status, it was kind of a big chance. Maybe she wouldn’t want to cross that line, knowing it couldn’t be uncrossed.
She’d joked about it, though. And she’d kissed him, for crying out loud. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. If she took convincing, he was prepared to convince her.
Finally, he texted Hart.
Want to grab breakfast tomorrow?
Despite the late hour, Hart replied almost immediately with a time and address, and Jesse had a feeling that a series of unstoppable events, like toppling dominoes, had been set into motion. He just hoped the inevitable conclusion, when it came, wouldn’t be catastrophically bad.