Chapter 8
Jules
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Hey, this is Russell Burch.
Before I know what I’m doing, I smile down at the phone in my hand.
Around me, Christmas music plays softly, and other market-goers walk around the little tent we’re in. Gus sits to my right side, working on his Christmas letter with the top of his little pink tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth.
All day, I’ve been keeping a close watch on him.
After what Dr. Burch said the other night, I haven’t stopped thinking about what might happen if Gus doesn’t get the surgery.
The chances are low, but he could develop a permanent arrhythmia, need a pacemaker.
Or the hole could get bigger, cause a clot.
My own letter to Santa is abandoned in front of me as I bite my lip and stare at the little screen in my hand.
How did Russell get my phone number? Apparently, I don’t care, because, my body is reacting with a smile to this man despite the fact that I’ve already decided I want nothing to do with him.
Especially not when he stopped by our booth at the market dressed in a snug sweater, his collared shirt folded neatly over the top, looking like the successful and put-together man of my dreams. Smelling like cedar and something almost minty—eucalyptus?
Yesterday, while killing time waiting for a haircut, I’d wandered through the cologne section of Ulta, sniffing different bottles without acknowledging to myself that I was trying to find the one he used.
He’d smelled great, and looked great, and while Sienna was apathetic, Ettie was practically drooling over him when I told her about it later. Her first move was to find his photo on the hospital website and let out a low, long whistle.
“Shit, Jules, how did you pull a man like that?”
“I did not pull anything,” I’d said, rolling my eyes and trying not to look nonchalant, even though her confirmation of how hot he was only made my heart beat a little faster. “He’s just Gus’s doctor.”
“So, you wouldn’t mind if I hang around Sienna’s booth and ask Gus’s doctor on a date the next time he happens by?”
“No, of course not,” I lied, ignoring the stupid and unnecessary possessive feeling welling up in my chest. Not my place—not even close.
Dr. Burch is cocky and pushy, and just has the look of a man who’s used to getting everything he wants.
As capable as he is, and as enticing of an idea it would be to be with someone so successful and driven in their professional life, it would not be a good idea to do anything with the flutter in my stomach.
Besides, it’s not like he would even want that, anyway. He’s probably married with two and a half kids of his own. And even if he wasn’t, it’s not like hot, eligible, salt-and-pepper men are interested in dating single mothers a decade younger than them.
“Earth to Jules.”
I look up to find Ettie waving a hand in front of me, her gaze flitting down to my phone, a knowing expression on her face. She’s wearing a Kiel James Patrick Christmas sweater with little red trucks, and a red pea coat thrown on over the top.
Ettie is more the type to play the lead in a Hallmark movie, not me.
Her son, Dawson, shares her brown hair and hazel eyes, and is wearing a matching sweater and a little hat with reindeer antlers.
Together they do a pretty good job of screaming trust fund, and not single-parent household. “What’s got you smiling like that?”
Dawson sits between Ettie and Gus, also working on a letter to Santa. I got lucky that my down-the-hall neighbor had a kid just a year older than mine. It’s opening weekend at the market, free for kids, and has given us something to do.
Ettie is taking Gus home with her later, when I go to help Sienna at the booth.
“You watch too much TikTok,” I say to her, instead of admitting that I’m smiling about a text from Gus’s pediatrician.
“Answer the question, Jules.”
“It’s just—”
My phone buzzes again, and I glance down at it.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Insurance got back to me. Any chance you can meet me in my office to chat about Gus’s surgery?
UNKNOWN NUMBER: This is my office location. In the West Wing of the hospital. Can we meet in about thirty minutes?
Before I can even think about an answer, Ettie grabs my phone and angles it toward her just long enough to see the first message, then she lets out a little puff of laughter.
“Hey,” I say, clicking off the screen and scowling at her. “Ever heard of privacy?”
“So, are you going to go meet up with him?” she ignores my question and asks her own, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.
Rather than actually writing a letter to Santa, she’s working on a drawing of a buff, younger, handsomer version of the man, scant red swim trunks his only clothing.
“If it’s a doctor, is it called a gluteus maximus call? ”
Ettie snorts at her own laugh, and I roll my eyes at her, though I can feel a flush climbing my cheeks.
“It’s not like that,” I insist, running my thumb over the ridge of my phone case.
“He’s not interested in me. Even if he was, it’s not like I’m interested in him.
He’s Gus’s doctor, like I told you before.
And he’s arrogant. Like, the typical surgeon stereotype.
Asked if I’d ‘tried talking to the insurance company’ like because I don’t have a medical degree, I don’t have a basic, functioning brain. ”
“Ri-ight,” Ettie says, glancing up at me from under her eyelashes. Now, she’s shading Santa’s abs. The look she’s giving me now is the same one she gave me before, when Dr. Burch’s face was filling her phone screen. Disbelieving. “You totally hate him. And you don’t want to bone him.”
I give her a look and glance at Gus and Dawson, who are both too enthralled in their letter-writing to pay attention to Ettie’s thinly-veiled euphemisms. The last thing I need is for Gus to loudly ask me what boning is.
“He wants me to meet to talk about—” I jerk my head in the direction of Gus, my heart rate picking up. I’m going to have to eat my words if Burch actually got the insurance company to approve the surgery for real this time. And I was being something of a bitch about it, too.
“Go,” Ettie waves her hand at me, then glances at her watch. “Like, right now, if you want to have time to get back before Sienna opens up.”
I hesitate, “Are you sure?”
Ettie doesn’t have a job—or, not a nine-to-five like me. She does freelance graphic design, picking up jobs when she feels like it. I try to keep my jealousy of her very real trust fund at bay.
But even though she has more time than I do, and far more flexibility, I always feel bad about asking her to watch Gus, even when we frame it as play time or a sleepover for the boys.
“Yeah, go,” she says, then her head snaps up, a sparkle in her eyes that tells me she’s just had a very dumb idea.
“Hey,” she says, dropping her voice and raising her eyebrows at me.
“Didn’t you meet…” a pointed look at Gus here, “…your mystery man at a hospital thing? Wouldn’t that be, like, crazy serendipitous—? ”
“No.” I’ve made peace with the fact that I’ll never know who it was that night.
And, if I’m honest, the whole sex with a masked stranger is sexy when you’re twenty-seven, but not so much of a fun back story when you’re supposed to be a mature mother of thirty-two.
“That guy was a lot younger. You watch way too many telenovelas.”
“You’re just jealous.”
I stand, throwing my purse over my shoulder, “You sure you’re good?”
Ettie waves her hand at me, returning to her buff Santa drawing. “Go ahead. You know we’ve got it handled.”
Giving Gus a quick kiss on the head and telling him to be good, I turn and make my way through the market, heart already thumping at the thought of seeing Russell Burch in his office alone. I pull my phone out and text him back.
Jules: Sure. On my way now.
The west wing of the hospital turns out to be mostly offices, and of course, Dr. Burch’s is in the corner, overlooking a few older buildings and the vast swath of Lake Michigan beyond that. The lights are down low, nothing like the fluorescent, stinging overheads in my office at the firm.
“I’m glad you could make it,” he says, meeting me at the door when I knock. I, strangely, feel like I’ve been summoned to the principal’s office.
When I walk in, my eyes skip to the cream couch against the window, and an image instantly flashes to my mind—Dr. Burch lowering me down onto that, pushing up my skirt and pulling down my tights—
Jesus.
“Me too,” I say, realizing a moment has passed while I’ve been objectifying him in my head. I clear my throat and stand behind one of the chairs on the other side of his desk.
It takes some work to keep my eyes from wandering.
This room has the energy of a brand-new apartment, but I can tell there are things that have traveled with him from somewhere else.
A potted plant that’s mature and well-cared for.
Awards that, from here, I can’t quite make out, but which shine gold and silver in the gentle light.
Little knick-knacks, like a tiny blue crab on the desk, pincers raised.
“What’s this?” I reach forward and tap it.
“Oh,” Dr. Burch’s gray eyes flick to it for a moment, and he laughs. “My dad was a huge Baltimore fan. So I am, too. He got that for me on a trip we took to see a game out there.”
“Huh.” For the first time, I feel some details sliding into place. The name of the hospital. His last name. “Was your dad…Franklin Burch?”
He looks like he saw that coming. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” The medical world has its own community and politics, and it’s not like I’m within them.
But when I saw that Franklin Burch passed in the newspaper, I recognized the name.
Anyone would, with BHC being so ubiquitous in this town, and Franklin being known for his charity work.
I’m pretty sure they’re putting up a statue somewhere for him.
And I’m pretty sure he was at that party in Manhattan. Where I met my mystery man. Gus’s father. Franklin Burch gave a speech there, announcing his cancer diagnosis.
Ettie’s voice rings in my head. Wouldn’t that be, like, crazy serendipitous?
Yes, it would. It would also be impossible. The guy I hooked up with had to have been around my age, maybe a little older. Dr. Burch easily has a decade on me, if not more. And surely Gray would have mentioned if it was his father who’d just announced something like that.
“Thank you,” he says, then clears his throat. “Speaking of my father—or not, actually—” he laughs and runs his hand through his hair jerkily, and I stare at him.
Is he—nervous?
“Let’s cut to the chase,” he says, lacing his fingers together and lifting those gray eyes to mine. “Juliette, I brought you here to ask for your hand in marriage.”