Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Mia
While Brax went downstairs, I pulled myself together. Yes, I was upset about the lying. But something else was bothering me. I’d made light of my brothers whisking Brax away to the barn, but the truth was, I had to stop them at any cost.
Oh, I didn’t mind if they gave Brax a little bit of a hard time—they were just doing what brothers do, protecting their younger sister. But I needed to tell them that the subject of Charlie was off-limits. It would surely come up because my entire family was going to that Christmas party.
But I was not. And I did not want to discuss the details with Brax. At all.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t commandeer either of my brothers because the kitchen was bustling as I walked down the stairs to find everyone busily helping to prepare for dinner. Caleb was setting the table. Liam and Dina were filling the water glasses while letting Emma help drop the ice cubes in with tongs. The fire was blazing brightly in the little brick fireplace. A smallish tree decorated with antique cookie cutters my mom had collected over the years glowed softly in the corner. Mom had woven pine boughs through the arms of the chandelier and lit candles all down the table. It smelled like a pine forest and a delicious beef dinner, all at the same time.
Watching the pre-dinner bustle gave me time to ponder the other problem I was having, which was that I couldn’t help liking the handsome, fun, annoying man I’d brought home to my family. I thought I’d managed to put my attraction to Brax in its place. But being near him, bantering, watching him interact with everyone, was starting all my rogue feelings up all over again, and what was I supposed to do about that?
Not to mention those kisses that felt anything but fake.
I’d been so worried about my mom, wanting to do anything not to disappoint her, but what if I was the casualty here? It had taken my poor heart months to get over Brax, to accept that we were just friends. What if this weekend did me in for good?
Speaking of Brax, he was standing at the island chopping pecans. I had to smile because he wore the same intense look of concentration as when he was studying a chart, examining a patient, or playing Wordle on his phone. Next to him, my dad was adding cranberries, cubes of orange squash, and feta cheese to a bowl full of greens.
“My favorite salad,” I said to my dad.
I walked over to the sink and poured a glass of water. My dad had gone to the fridge, where he rummaged for dressing ingredients. “You are quite the chopper,” I said to Brax as I walked over to him.
“Don’t underestimate these good looks,” he said in a voice meant only for me. “I’m multitalented in other areas besides medicine.”
I shot him an incredulous look to disguise the fact that I was already imagining what areas. “Humble too.”
“You bet.” With his knife, he raked the pecans down the cutting board and into a bowl. “Your dad and I had a heart-to-heart.”
“Already?” The thirty seconds of relative peace I experienced devolved into another adrenaline spike. “What about?” I took a sip of water to calm myself.
“Oh, the usual. Business. Sports teams. When we’re setting the date.”
I choked on the water.
“Just teasing.” He tossed me a smile filled with mischief that made me love-hate him. Love because his smile was, well, nothing short of dazzling. And hate because it reminded me that he was not averse to giving as good as he got. He’d be just fine with my brothers.
I helped Caleb finish setting the table, and we all sat down. My mom brought a giant pot of boeuf bourguignon from the stove and set it next to the loaf of crusty, warm bread my dad had baked himself earlier today.
Liam was helping Dina get Emma settled, and my mom and dad were preparing the food. Caleb was staring at Brax. Like, really staring at him. Before I could figure out why, my dad raised his hands, a signal for all of us to join ours together.
Oh no. I knew what was coming. I didn’t mind grace. But I could exactly predict what my dad was about to say.
“Let’s all bow our heads,” he said, giving a definitive nod.
My dad was about to do what he always did every time all of us were home. Say grace, yes. But a very personal, very extemporaneous version that I really didn’t want Brax to hear. I didn’t think my dad would go there with a guest present at the table.
“Dad, I—maybe we shouldn’t—” My brothers sent me puzzled looks the channeled What’s the big deal? Liam shifted in his chair. Caleb tossed me a sad little smile, as if he, too, wished Dad would keep it simple.
My dad was about to get super personal. I suddenly didn’t want Brax to learn of the tragedy that had split our family, that had taken my sister away, that had frozen her in time so that she was eternally nine years old.
It was too intimate. It was as if, by knowing about Grace, he would know other things about me that I tried very carefully to hide.
“How about a generic version, just for tonight?” I asked. More like pleaded.
“It’s okay, honey,” Dad said, smiling a kind smile. “I’m sure Brax won’t mind what we usually say.”
“All good,” Brax said, scanning my face carefully. Panicked, I looked away.
“I just wanted to keep it light, you know?” I said weakly. Because Dad’s prayer was always a tearjerker. I supposed I’d have to get used to spending this entire weekend in tears.
“Dear Lord,” my dad said, ignoring me and plunging in as everyone folded their hands. “We thank you for the blessing of this food. For the blessing of family.” He glanced at each person around the table, and then rested his gaze on my mom. “For the blessing of good health. For the blessing of love.” Then he looked at me and Brax. “We thank you for bringing us new people to love.” Lifting his gaze upward, he said, “We know that our Gracie is looking down at us from your loving arms and is with us in spirit as we celebrate. Amen.”
“Amen,” everyone echoed.
“To Gracie,” Caleb said, holding up his wineglass. For being as tough on the outside as Caleb was, he couldn’t hide his mushy heart.
“To Gracie,” Liam seconded.
My mom lifted her glass and nodded, her lips pressed together. I could only nod and lift my glass as well. Brax lifted his and simultaneously took my hand, leaving me to swipe at my eyes with the other one. And then do you know what he did? He squeezed it. Just like that. No questions. Just a tiny little I got you squeeze.
My mom dabbed at her eyes with her napkin. “She’s always in our thoughts,” she explained. “We like to say her name.”
Leave it to my mom to tell it like it was. As a family, we acknowledged out loud the one who wasn’t with us.
“That’s amazing,” Brax said. And he sounded sincere.
I glanced over, and there he was, giving me the softest smile. And that made me feel…like he got it. Without even knowing who Gracie was, he sensed something personal, private, and sad, and he acknowledged it. He acknowledged her .
Then suddenly, Liam was digging in. He passed Brax the peas, who took some for himself and then handed the bowl to me. “Peas?” he asked.
Studying me closely, Caleb said, “Dude, she, like, hates peas.”
Brax froze with the peas in midair. I could practically feel him wondering what to do next. On the outside, Brax was calm, but a telltale flush was creeping up his neck. He hated screwing up: I knew this well from work. I took the bowl from his hands and said the most difficult words I’d ever had to utter. “Peas have antioxidants and…” And what? “and I, um…I love them now.” I scooped out a generous serving on my plate as I smiled, I’m sure quite maniacally, as my entire family stared.
Why didn’t I tell him earlier I hated peas? And even worse—what else didn’t I tell him that mattered? A lot , it turned out.
“You love peas now?” my mother asked in an incredulous tone. “That’s…amazing.”
I was dying on the inside, knowing that I would now unfortunately have to put my money where my mouth was. I levered a dreaded green spoonful up to my mouth. “Yep. Love ’em,” I said, then forced myself to take a bite, smiling while the sickening pasty vegetable filled my taste buds with its mushy blech flavor.
Then I did the only thing that would make this bearable. Washed it down with my wine. Lots of it.
And then almost my entire glass of water. Trying to do that subtly, while your brothers are watching you openmouthed in disbelief, is not an easy feat. Especially Caleb, who was piercing me with that astute, sharp gaze of his.
I drank more wine to help me get over the trauma. But even then, the aftertaste…ugh. Good thing I didn’t bring home fake boyfriends often, because that had been really painful.
The worst thing was, how many peas could I hide in my beef stew or under the mound of mashed potatoes? Because I still had a giant heap left on my plate. And unless my family wanted to witness someone throwing up all over the pretty Christmas table, I was in big trouble. I had reached my limit.
“What’s your family like, Braxton?” my dad asked. “Mia tells us you’re very close to your sister.”
“I am. She lives in Philly with her husband, and she’s expecting her first child,” he said. I could hear the pride in his voice. “Both our parents have passed.”
Not for the first time, I wondered why he wasn’t with his sister. Why had he agreed to bail me out in the middle of Snowville, Wisconsin, instead?
“Oh, honey,” my mom said. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s okay.” Then he looked my way and smiled a wonderfully smitten boyfriend smile that was so good, it sent goose bumps up and down my arms. Or maybe that was just a reaction from the dreadful peas. “That’s why I was so excited to come home with Mia. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a family Christmas.”
What kind of Christmases did he have? How had his parents passed? He was like the blank pages of a book I wanted desperately to fill in.
This was such a dangerous game we were playing. One that made me greedily want to know more, more, more. The truth and the lies all blended together so that I was losing track of which was which. I felt like I was on the edge of a precipice, ready to fall into the trap of crossing the line between real and pretend. And it was only dinnertime.
Guilt and confusion flooded me. But that awful pea aftertaste kept me grounded in strict reality.
“You’ve come to the right place,” Caleb said, shaking his head as he cut a bite of the beef that was so tender that it literally fell apart on his fork. “Mom loves Christmas more than Mrs. Claus.”
“What I love is having you all here,” my mom said with a crack in her voice.
My heart swelled with happiness and gratitude that my mom was on the road back to health. And that I was with the people I loved most in the world.
“Santa’s coming,” Emma said, her tiny voice almost a whisper. “In this many days.” She held up three fingers.
“What did you ask Santa for?” Brax asked with the practiced nonchalance of someone who talks with kids all day long.
“Mommy and me took my old books to the kids at the hospital,” she said. “So I got to ask Santa for more.”
“That’s really kind of you, Emma,” Brax said. “Having fun books to read is really important for kids.”
Emma beamed. Yet another woman succumbing to his spell, no doubt.
“She loves books,” Dina explained.
As I glanced down at my plate, I noticed my peas had vanished. Just like that. As Brax was dazzling me with his smile, he must’ve scooped them right up.
I felt—well, a little dizzy, to be honest. I wasn’t used to somebody having my back. I was used to having my own back, which was working out just fine, thank you. But still, what he’d done floored me. And also made me relieved, because I knew that I was one pea away from a giant hurl.
I shifted my gaze to Brax, but he was laughing at something my mother said.
As dinner wore on, I braced myself for embarrassing anecdotes from my brothers, like the time I’d tossed a half-peeled potato at Liam and given him a black eye, or how I’d been able to outrun both of them for most of my teen years, until they turned into bricks of solid muscle, or a more touching one about the time I’d gotten into med school and both of them spontaneously showed up at my college dorm with champagne. All classic family lore, which got told in one form or another during that dinner.
“Tell everyone that funny story about how you two met,” Mom said, setting down her fork, propping her elbows, and tenting her fingers, all ears.
Brax seemed to be all ears too.
Panic closed my throat as I considered what to say. We’d actually met twice. The first time was at a bar. We’d each gone with friends, and our respective teams had gone head-to-head in a trivia game.
He’d told me that night that he’d just moved from Philadelphia, where he’d done his residency at CHOP, to take a position in the clinic at Children’s Wisconsin because he loved to teach. And because of his mentor, Dr. Atticus Pendergast, whom he’d met while he was an undergrad at UW. Dr. Pendergast was a legend, a beloved pediatrician who was still revered in town. I loved that Brax had been lucky enough to know and be inspired by him. Brax hoped—like many of us residents who were planning to stay in Milwaukee—to land a prime spot in the impressive practice that he created.
Our connection was instant, raw, and electric. That night was followed by two glorious weeks where I was certain I’d found my soul mate.
I decided to stick with the G-rated version. I racked my brain to remember precisely what I’d told my mom, what exactly that version was.
Our next “meeting” had been at the hospital, at the welcome-new-residents gathering in July where Brax introduced himself as the chief resident in charge of interns.
Yeah, not a meet cute. Because as I sat there, it dawned on me that he was the guy I thought I was in love with, the guy who hadn’t called me in the week since our last date, who hadn’t been answering my texts. Then Sam, who was seated next to me, whispered, “I’d like to have a private morning report with him.” She chuckled. “At his place.”
I sat there frozen, my heart practically fibrillating in my chest. Because I had been at his place. As recently as last weekend, eating Chinese and having hot, wild sex in his bed…and other places.
I smacked my head. Suddenly, I got it. Why he hadn’t called me.
Could it be he’d discovered that he was my colleague? He’d been going to teach in the clinic, but now for some reason, he ended up as a chief resident in my program. But even with the job switch, he had no authority or power over me. He wasn’t my boss—he was in charge of the brand-new residents, the interns, the ones fresh out of med school. Not. Me.
Was he merely ghosting me in the cruelest way possible, one that would mean we’d see each other every single day despite having broken up?
I felt like a fool.
And I was angry. Why hadn’t he told me? Been an adult about it?
Brax seemed completely unperturbed, not acknowledging me in any way other than as a present and accounted-for resident. A warm body to take call and keep the wards orbiting in their usual state of contained chaos.
This was not a meet cute. It was a fricking nightmare.
After the meeting, everyone scurried away to do their twelve-plus hours of work. I told Sam I needed to stay and discuss some business.
How could Brax blindside me like this? Also, how on earth were we supposed to work together after all this?
Brax and I walked down to a tiny used-to-be medical supply closet, which was now his office. He unlocked the door and gestured for me to go inside.
It was a tiny space with a bare desk, white walls, and glaring fluorescent lighting that whitewashed everything. A blank slate, waiting for the next person to move in. As soon as the door clicked behind him, he let out a huge sigh and said, “Mia, I’m sorry.”
To his credit, not the worst way to begin. But still. “For what? Dating me, having sex with me, or ghosting me without a word?” Fists balled, I braced for his answer.
“I could never be sorry for dating you.” He met my gaze. “I just can’t keep doing it.”
I swept my arm around the antiseptic-smelling closet-office. “Is this why you ghosted me? Why didn’t you tell me?”
To his credit, he looked pained. But I had no sympathy. I was being dumped—again. I’d fallen head over heels, but he clearly wasn’t feeling the wonderfulness, the euphoria, the magic. Ouch.
“The person they chose to be chief left suddenly for family reasons, so they offered me the job. I took it because it was academic, and I’d get an opportunity to interact with the residents. Now that I’m the chief,” he said, “dating would be awkward.”
“You’re not my chief.” I knew what he was doing. Using this as an excuse to get out of…us. “If you weren’t feeling it, you should have told me. Before now.” I shook my head. I wanted to kill someone—specifically him. But I was a professional, and suddenly, we were in a professional relationship—one where we would not only be seeing each other every single day, but also working closely together, taking call, saving lives.
The enormity of that revelation nearly brought me to my knees. The entirety of a year. Every. Single. Day.
I’d felt things with him—things I hadn’t felt during my million years with Charlie. I’d been completely, unabashedly myself. I was totally blindsided, and that hurt like hell.
I turned to leave.
He called my name. Put a hand on my arm so I would turn around. And I did. I looked into his eyes. I saw conflict. Remorse. Probably from the regret of starting things up in the first place.
Stupid, stupid me.
He spoke calmly and softly. But that didn’t stop me from being furious. “I want you to know you’re really special,” he said. “But doing a relationship under these circumstances won’t work for me. I can’t show partiality to you. I can’t let my emotions impact decisions.” He paused a long time as we stood there, staring at each other. “I hope we can still be friends.”
It was the typical blow-off line. I hadn’t been the recipient of that because of dating Charlie for forever, but all my friends had. Now it was my turn to experience this special form of humiliation.
Bitterly, I realized that Brax had warned me. He’d straight-out told me from the get-go that he wasn’t the type to settle down, but I’d fallen for him anyway.
He looked miserable, and I was glad. I straightened my spine and pulled out my courage. “I won’t say a word to anyone, and I’ll treat this like a working relationship.” And then I left.
He called my name. Tears were already leaking from my eyes, but there was no way I was going to let him see them.
Back at the table in my parents’ house, I was a mess of emotions, all because of the most simple, straightforward question. I hadn’t wanted to remember that day. It seemed incredible that we’d somehow become friends after that—but we worked so well as a team, and we often found ourselves on call together, bound by the adrenaline rush of life and death. I was trying to figure out how I got from there to here, with Brax at my home, sitting around the table with my family, when he touched my arm, bringing me back to reality.
“I’ll tell the story,” Brax said, completely unruffled by my spacing out. “It was after midnight one night last July, our first night on call together, and we were getting hit with admissions left and right. The cafeteria had closed, I’d missed dinner, and I was starving. I walked up to the toddler ward to maybe steal some graham crackers and apple juice to tide me over until morning. It was dim and quiet, and there was Mia, sitting on the floor in her scrubs, reading a book to a kid and unwrapping a sandwich.”
My heart began a slow but loud thump-thump-thump that surely everyone at the table could hear.
I remembered that night. We’d gotten killed with relentless admissions, one after another, until around 2:00 a.m., when the constant panicked rush of stamping out fires finally slowed. Brax wasn’t the only one who’d missed dinner. I’d had to break out my emergency food supply. And as for the little kid…he couldn’t sleep in a strange, unfamiliar place with the wheezing and a fever and a snotty nose, and the book was the only thing that had stopped him crying.
As Brax continued, I hung on every word. “I walked over, and as she kept reading out loud, she reached into the baggie, pulled out a half of her sandwich, and handed it to me.”
“What kind of sandwich was it?” My dad gave a little chuff. Because he already knew the answer.
“Almond butter and strawberry jam,” I replied with a little shrug.
My dad flashed a knowing smile—because how many of those had he made for me in my lifetime? “That’s my girl,” he said with a wink.
I thought I was the captive audience, but when I looked at my family, they were all totally swept up in the story.
“I guess I made a face,” Brax said, “because I’d never had almond butter before. But that night, it tasted like prime rib.” As my family laughed, his gaze strayed to mine and held. “That’s how I knew Mia was not just a competent resident. She’d shown me that all night. But now I saw she was also kind.”
Our gazes locked. How did he do it? His sappy story had held my entire family spellbound and made my limbs suddenly turn to warm molasses, all the clinking silverware and murmuring fading around me as I felt that same relentless connection surge between us.
Such a simple story. But he told it in such a way that he had me believing that it was fricking love at first sight.
Geesh.
Of course, he’d left out a few details. Like how at first, he refused, but I could tell how starving he was, and so I pushed the sandwich at him as I continued reading about the little green room and the cow jumping over the moon. He took a bite and then made a terrible face that told me he literally had never tasted almond butter before, which prompted me to say, “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Yeah. You’re right,” he said, chasing it with a little container of apple juice. “Actually, it’s not bad. In fact, it tastes as good as a loaded pizza right now because I’m famished. Thank you.”
“I have to finish the story,” I told my family. To Brax, I said, “You felt bad that you ate half my sandwich. So a few hours later, you showed up with a warm sausage and egg sandwich and coffee.”
My family gave a collective aww , which made Brax look a little twitchy.
“You two are the cutest,” Dina said.
Brax was quite the storyteller. But as I returned to my mercifully pea-less plate, I sternly reminded myself that it was just a story. A simple act of taking care of each other between people who were in a kind of war zone together.
And a nice thing to tell people when the truth was way too painful.
It didn’t mean anything more.
But part of me couldn’t help wishing that it did.