Chapter 17
Adam
After a good check-in with Dorian after work, I rolled into a parking spot in the lot near Main Street. I hadn’t heard from Jo since I’d seen her a few days ago at the office, despite my efforts.
Two texts and no dice—absolutely no response. We didn’t text all that much, but she usually responded within a few hours. The ice I’d felt coming from her expression before she and Jess left for lunch came through the silence loud and clear.
I should’ve let it be. If she didn’t want to be near me anymore, then fine. I should’ve taken this and run, victorious over the temptation to compromise my plans and possibly let her down.
But I couldn’t. And this had to be the reason I acknowledged my coworkers settled in at our usual table at Craic, but went right to her, sliding a hand to her lower back and hearing her gasp as I dipped my face to say in her ear, “Do you have a minute?”
Her lips closed, but she seemed to say yes, then told her friends she’d be right back. Dove smiled at me, Elise squinted as though she were taking my measure, Catherine gave me a slight nod, and Nikki and Winnie seemed… intrigued. Curious. Like maybe they’d take up a bucket of popcorn if offered. I left them with a “Ladies,” and followed Jo outside.
The summer air ruffled her long chestnut hair, which she’d worn in waves down her back, and her white-and-blue floral dress fluttered around her knees.
My mouth dried out.
She moved a few meters from the entrance to Craic, and my pulse hammered in my neck like I’d just lifted a car.
“Did you need something?” She crossed her arms over her chest, hiding the scintillating dip of her dress and?—
I swallowed hard. “I wanted to talk. I feel like you’re mad at me and I’m not?—”
She shook her head. “I’m not mad at you, Adam. I am frustrated and I needed some space, yes, but I’m also a busy woman with a whole life outside of responding to your texts, shockingly enough.”
Whoa.Definitely frustrated and it was clearly my fault, though I wasn’t certain why. Maybe because of how I’d nearly kissed her, then run away? Maybe for how awkward I’d been when she’d come to my office?
“Since you obviously aren’t sure what happened, I’m going to make this very clear.” She marched closer, her strappy sandals pat-pat-patting against the sidewalk until she stopped inches from my face. “Your brother is my friend. I care about him. I also have no desire to date him and would appreciate it if you would stop telling him he needs to go for the gold or whatever nonsense you’ve dreamed up that’ll force us together.”
I reared back a little, but not so much it moved me away. Her eyes were fiery, and the fed-up ring to her words were a slap to my face.
“I’m sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing.” It sounded like such a weak excuse, but it was true. Ethan was the best and free of so many things I wasn’t.
But if she doesn’t want him, maybe…
“Please don’t play matchmaker on my behalf, okay, Doc?”
I flinched, the nickname sounding awful coming from her. I liked my name on her lips, not the oddly formal sound of my work persona.
“Jo, please. I—I want you to be happy,” I said, chest hollowing out and hands aching to touch her, to hold her this close and convince her to believe me.
She exhaled sharply. “Kind of you. Thank you. Please hear me when I say I am very happy with your brother as my friend.”
I nodded instantly. “Of course. Yes. And… us? Can we be friends?”
Our eyes locked and everything in me froze. Waiting.
Begging.
As foolish as I’d been to resist spending time with her, I would no longer pretend I didn’t want her friendship, at the very least. And if you’re honest, that is the very least.
It took more than a beat, but soon, her gaze dropped away and she stepped back. “Sure. Yeah. We can be friends.”
“Good.” Thank God.
“I’m going to head back in.” She gave me a thin, obligatory type of look, and walked past me toward the entrance.
I stayed put, exhaling and shutting my eyes against the mess I’d made and the mess I felt.
“Looks like that went well,” Ethan said, shooting me an amused smile as he wandered up to lean against the wall next to me.
“You can shut it.”
He chuckled. “I tried to tell you, man.”
My head was shaking before I spoke. “I guess you did, but I’m…”
“Stubborn. And pretty oblivious to the fact that the woman you’re trying to shove at me is far more interested in you than your brother.”
I shifted, uncomfortable with the statement, and yet the tightening low in my stomach, the little flip in my chest, suggested I might have other feelings about it, too.
“I still don’t know that I have anything to?—”
An arm came around my shoulders, and Bruce squeezed me in a side-hug.
“Is this guy trying to convince himself he’s got nothing to offer again?” He directed this question to Ethan.
“Yes. He’s working overtime at it,” Ethan said, settling in with a widened stance as though he had nowhere else to be.
Bruce turned to me. “We’ve talked about this, my friend.”
We had. He’d been so happy with Nikki, and now they were engaged and he was over the moon and he wanted all of us to have that same happiness. I loved him for it, but I’d struggled to embrace his suggestion that my past didn’t define my future.
“Your past doesn’t?—”
“Define my future,” I finished along with him because this wasn’t the first time he’d made this argument.
He grinned. “Exactly.”
“I disagree, though. Isn’t that the very thing that defines it? I trained as a medic for years and therefore, I was a great one. I did turns in trauma ERs and handled all kinds of problems on missions, and each of those things in my past built the skills I have now. That’s my past defining my future.”
Bruce leaned against the wall of the building and crossed his arms, getting comfortable. “No. It informs it, yes. But take me. Deadbeat criminal dad. A mom who loved me but ultimately didn’t know how to love herself very well and ended up hurting not only herself but my sister. Are you going to tell me that because of that, I’m destined to be a deadbeat criminal father?”
I scowled. “No. Of course not. You had no choice in those things, and that’s totally different. That was years ago. I ruined my own marriage. I made the choice to make vows, and then I ultimately broke them by not caring for the relationship like I should’ve.”
Ethan and Bruce shared a look.
“Did you cheat?” Bruce asked, stone-faced.
“What? No. I didn’t cheat,” I spat, offended at the question.
“Well, you keep saying you ruined it as though it was one moment, and I don’t buy it. It also wasn’t just you, from what I understand,” Bruce countered.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “It was a hundred—maybe a thousand choices over the five years we were married, okay? It was the choice to work late, the choice to take the TDY or extra training or extra hour at the gym. It was the choice to sit next to her and play video games like a little idiot instead of turning to my wife and talking to her.”
“Yes. Absolutely yes. Those were bad calls, especially repeatedly over time. But what was she doing? Was she asking you to stay? To come home earlier? Was she waiting there next to you to talk?”
In truth, she’d been just as disconnected as I had—out with her girlfriends, working Saturdays at the salon and sometimes offering cuts on Sundays, doing whatever she wanted whenever. And I liked how we had that freedom. At one point, I’d taken pride in how separately we operated, as though it was a sign of maturity rather than a pretty clear red flag we weren’t interested in each other enough to prioritize the other.
But she’d wanted to change things, and I didn’t realize it until it was too late. She’d asked about a marriage retreat the unit was doing, but I decided to take a training trip instead. She’d suggested I look at other possible jobs instead of wanting to be an operator medic. I’d been so angry with her then, hating how she didn’t seem to see me and my goals. But with time and distance, I’d felt the truth needling in my gut. She’d wanted me around, eventually. She’d wanted me to try with her, not just for my career goals.
Yes, she’d played a part in the failure, but I was accountable for my actions, and I couldn’t forget that. Ever.
Bruce gripped my shoulder and shook me a little. “I know it was complex. But it doesn’t define you. It has informed you. My guess is that if you’re with someone you really love and not someone you’re infatuated with and marry too young, you’re going to work harder than ever to pour into that relationship because you know what can happen when you become complacent.”
Ethan snapped and pointed. “What he said, A. For real.”
I sent him a glare.
“You may not know that person yet. But you’re a natural caretaker, Doc, and you’re a good man. You would make a great husband to someone, if you decide to. But that’s the thing—you have to decide. And I get that me lecturing you isn’t going to do the job. But from one man who thought he had to wait for what was right in front of him to another, I’m saying consider letting yourself change your own mind.”
Bruce’s words couldn’t be ignored, but I could change the subject. “Sure. Yeah. So, uh, can I get a meeting with you and Wilder Monday? I have something I wanted to propose.”
Bruce raised a single brow that practically shouted “Really?” but he nodded.
“Consider it scheduled.” He patted my back and hollered over his shoulder, “Now come get a beer with your friends!”
Ethan raised a brow and gave me a knowing smile. “He said everything I wanted to say, and yeah, let’s go get a beer.”
I grumbled but followed. Swirling thoughts jammed my mind so full I wanted to go home and sit on the deck and watch the stars wink into existence as the sun set, but instead, I sucked it up and went with my brother and promised myself I wouldn’t instantly reject everything he and Bruce had said. I’d let it sit until I could pull it out and inspect it more carefully.
And then maybe I’d be able to decide if the ways my past had informed my future meant I could share a life with someone else.