Chapter Nineteen #3
“You chose to surrender,” Quinton said. “Which is what I bet on. So thank you for the twelve hundred dollars.”
“I hate all of you.”
“No, you don’t,” Winnie said. “You love us. You’re just embarrassed that we were right.”
“I’m not embarrassed.”
“You’re blushing again,” Gabriel pointed out.
“I’m not.”
“You absolutely are,” Fitz said. “Your face is the color of a tomato.”
“It is not.”
“It really is,” Nathan agreed.
I closed my eyes again and counted to ten, then reminded myself that murder was illegal and I’d worked too hard on my career to throw it away over workplace ribbing.
“Are we done?” I asked.
“Are you going to keep showing up late in sneakers?” Fitz asked.
“Possibly.”
“Are you going to keep being happy?” Nathan asked.
“Probably.”
“Are you going to keep having transformative sex with your wife?” Gabriel asked.
“That’s none of your—”
“He is,” Quinton said. “Look at his face.”
“I’m looking,” Fitz said. “That’s definitely the face of a man who’s planning more transformative sex.”
“Can we PLEASE,” I said, my voice rising, “discuss the patient load for this week?”
“Fine,” Hayden said, taking pity on me. “But first—” He pulled out his wallet. “Quinton, I believe I owe you two hundred dollars.”
“You do,” Quinton said cheerfully.
One by one, they all pulled out their wallets.
Fitz handed over two hundred with a dramatic sigh. “I really thought you’d divorce.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” I said dryly.
“You didn’t disappoint,” Nathan said, handing over his money. “You just surprised us. Which is arguably better.”
“I thought you’d keep her at arm’s length forever,” Gabriel said, adding his bills to the pile. “I’m glad I was wrong.”
“Me too,” I admitted.
Winnie was the last to pay up. “I had a side bet with Quinton,” she said. “I bet you’d figure it out, but he bet you’d surrender. Turns out we were both right, but his was more specific.”
“So you’re both winners,” I said.
“Exactly,” Quinton said, pocketing the cash. “Which is how it should be.”
“Now,” Hayden said, opening his folder with a smile, “shall we discuss Wednesday’s patient load?”
“Please,” I said.
“Before we do,” Fitz said, “I just want to say—”
“Fitz.”
“—that we’re happy for you,” he finished. “Genuinely. You look good, Julien. You look... alive.”
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
“Even if you are wearing dad shoes,” Nathan added.
“Especially because you’re wearing dad shoes,” Gabriel said.
“The shoes are a symbol,” Quinton said sagely. “A symbol of surrender.”
“The shoes are comfortable,” I said. “That’s all.”
“That’s everything,” Winnie said softly.
Looking around the table at my friends, my colleagues who had bet on my happiness, who had watched me be miserable for years and wanted better for me, who were genuinely pleased that I had found something good... I had to agree.
It really was everything. The friends, the laughter, the ability to be late and wear sneakers and not care that everyone was betting on my marriage.
The ability to be human.
“Right,” Hayden said, still smiling. “Now that we’ve established that Julien has been completely transformed by his chaos wife and Quinton is twelve hundred dollars richer, can we please discuss this week’s patient load?”
“Please,” I said.
“We have three complex cardiac cases,” Hayden began, pulling up his notes. “The first is a sixty-two-year-old male with—”
My phone buzzed.
I glanced at it.
A text from Athena: Missing you already. The universe says you’re having a good day. Is it right?
I smiled and typed back: The universe is correct. See you tonight.
Her response was immediate: Can’t wait. I love you.
I love you too.
I looked up to find everyone staring at me again.
“What?”
“You’re texting,” Fitz said.
“I’m aware.”
“During a meeting.”
“Yes.”
“You, Julien Darcy, are texting during a professional meeting.”
“It was my wife.”
“You once confiscated my phone,” Nathan said, “because I checked a text during a meeting.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“It was from your bookie.”
“It was important information!”
“About a football game.”
“A very important football game!”
I slipped my phone back into my pocket. “Shall we continue?”
Hayden was laughing now. “Yes. Let’s continue. Before Julien does anything else unprecedented.”
“I’m not that different,” I protested.
Six voices responded in unison: “Yes, you are.”
And they were right.
I was different. Completely, utterly, cosmically different. I was late to meetings and wearing sneakers and texting my wife, and genuinely unbothered by any of it. I was in love with a woman who believed in destiny and talked non-stop and had somehow convinced me that chaos wasn’t the enemy.
I was happy.
For the first time in my carefully controlled, precisely ordered life, I was genuinely, completely happy.
The universe knows what it’s doing.
And I was done fighting it.
“Right,” I said, pulling out my own notes. “The sixty-two-year-old cardiac patient. What’s the proposed approach?”
Hayden launched into the case details, and we fell into the familiar rhythm of medical discussion.
But I was still smiling.
And I didn’t even try to stop.