Chapter 28 Julia
TWENTY-EIGHT
JULIA
“I’m here and I come bearing gifts,” Sofia shouted as she walked in my back door. My last patient had cancelled on me, so I’d headed home early, eager to see what the yellow paint would look like on the wall.
“What’d you bring?” I called, coming down the stairs to greet her.
She held up the takeaway containers from Buckman’s. “I was in the mood for burgers, onion rings, and fried zucchini with that dipping sauce of theirs, and I grabbed some ice cream from Hastings for dessert.”
As soon as she said it, my stomach growled.
“Oh that does sound good.” Buckman’s was popular as a destination because they offered ax throwing, but their burgers were surprisingly tasty.
Even Aurora’s husband, Marc Diaz, had to concede that they were excellent, and he’d worked at a Michelin star restaurant in Las Vegas.
“Oh, that does sound good. Let me wash up and we can eat first, then move stuff around after. Sound good?”
“You got it. Kitchen table?”
I nodded and went to the sink to wash off all the dust from my hands and arms. I plopped down in the chair opposite Sofia and she reached out to pull a cobweb off my hair. “Looks old. No spiders in your hair that I can see,” she said and I leaned back and patted my hair just to be sure.
We both dove into our burgers while Fay paced around us, attempting her best pleading doggy eyes to get a piece of ground beef.
Wellington chose a more passive approach and settled under the table, hoping for dropped food.
I was careful to make sure that neither dog was successful.
The burgers were heavily spiced and super juicy with whatever fat content they added to it, which meant it wasn’t good for dogs.
Probably not humans either—at least, not regularly—but right now, it was exactly what this mom and baby wanted.
I dipped a zucchini stick in the parmesan sauce and swooned as the flavor exploded on my tongue. “I need to go to Buckman’s more often. Why don’t we do that?”
“Because it’s always crowded and you don’t like socializing?” Sofia said, popping the remainder of an onion ring in her mouth.
“That’s not true. I like socializing with you.” Then I thought about it. “Okay, maybe you’re right.”
“Amy wants to organize more girls’ night outs and is thinking about centering them around Buckman’s. She’s offered to teach us all how to throw axes. In fact, she’s thinking of starting up a league,” Sofia said. I liked the sound of that.
“That sounds way more entertaining than a book club or that quilting group that meets at the Lutheran church.” I was already imagining burning off all levels of frustration by throwing axes at a target.
While I enjoyed reading, I didn’t have time to do it on any sort of schedule and while I knew how to make even surgical stitches, I had no desire to practice on fabric.
We held off on the ice cream and went upstairs to tackle the bedroom. “That’s a cute dresser. Are you sure you don’t want to keep it for the baby?”
I reached for one of the drawers, which wouldn’t quite pull out, then attempted the next one. Also stuck. “They’re all like that. Plus, as big and heavy as it is, the interior of the drawers is tiny.”
“So, you’re thinking wood pile?” Sofia asked and I looked at the dresser. I knew it was homemade—possibly my granddad or my uncle. Did I want to keep it? When Sofia attempted to move it, one of the block feet fell off. “Whoa. Okay, definitely a bigger job than I first thought.”
“Since I can’t help you bring it down the stairs with it all in one piece, unfortunately, I think it’s the wood pile for it.”
The decision made, Sofia went out to her truck. She came back with a crowbar and proceeded to take the dresser apart. I was surprised to see some of my old school papers in the drawers along with some old clothes and mouse droppings. Way too many mouse droppings.
“Looks like a mouse had babies,” I said, frowning.
“Hang on a second.” I went downstairs to my medical bag and pulled out a couple sets of disposable gloves and N-95 masks and brought them back up.
I handed a set to Sofia. “No sense in taking chances.” Once we were both suitably covered, I opened the windows, and we got back to work.
It was fully dark by the time we got the bulk of the items moved out.
From what we could tell, the dresser was the only object that had mouse occupants, but I didn’t want to take chances.
I stacked many of the boxes outside where I could look through everything at a more leisurely pace.
The dresser was now in pieces and stacked outside away from the house.
Deermice were known carriers of the hantavirus and I wasn’t taking any chances.
After, we both washed up and I changed clothes and gave Sofia a T-shirt to change into. We made ice cream sandwiches using the leftover chocolate chip cookies I’d received from a patient and kicked back in the living room with our feet up.
“So, you planning on telling me why Jake isn’t here doing all this work? Not that I mind helping out, bestie, but this seems like something he’d jump on.”
“I hurt his feelings.” I took a bite of my sandwich and chewed slowly, then continued. “He thinks that us moving in together, getting married and raising our child is a given.”
Sofia was stretched out with her feet on the ottoman in front of her chair. “For most folks, that’s usually how it goes, but in a different order.”
“Most folks would have an actual conversation about it instead of being told how things were going to play out,” I said. “Okay, that not exactly how it went, but it was damn close. Jake expressed his expectations and then was upset when I didn’t agree.”
“And you’ve told him how you felt about it?”
I nodded, taking another bite of my sandwich with a painful snap of my teeth.
“There’s more to it. Jake has this ‘plan’ in his head that he won’t share. The only time it comes out is when he’s frustrated with me and then he blurts it out as if it’s a given. It’s not a given. Not even close.”
Sofia snorted at that. “Sounds like a Thorne thing. Brian used to do that too. Took ages to train it out of him.”
I sat forward. “How did you do that?”
Sofia popped the last of her ice cream sandwich in her mouth and smirked. “I instructed everyone in the office to only do the things he said out loud instead of making assumptions about what we needed to do. If he didn’t speak up, it didn’t happen.”
I laughed at that. “That’s mighty passive aggressive, Chief Deputy Alvarez.”
“But it worked. Eventually. Took almost a month for him to figure out what was going on but I got sick of him getting irritated with the deputies because they didn’t do what he claimed they were told when he never actually said anything.”
“Huh. I don’t think that would work with Jake.
If anything, he’d probably assume my silence was agreement.
But that is funny.” I could imagine Sofia pretending to be ignorant of what Brian wanted.
She wasn’t a good actress and there was no way Brian would’ve bought it, but it still must’ve been entertaining.
The clock chimed in the kitchen and I looked at my phone.
Last night, Jake had said he would call me today, but he hadn’t.
Not even a text. I tried not to read anything into it.
He was a busy man. Maybe something came up.
Or maybe he was still upset with me. I had no idea which it was because he wouldn’t talk to me.
“You know, you could always text him,” Sofia said. I dropped my phone on the sofa before I swiped it on again.
“What makes you think I’m waiting for something from him?” My voice rose too high at the end and I winced when she laughed.
Sofia planted her feet on the floor and rose. “If I didn’t before, I certainly do now. And you could always find something to share with him if you feel weird reaching out to talk about your relationship. I don’t know… something about the ranch or maybe ask about the status of one of his horses?”
I could ask him how Queenie was doing. She was ready to foal. Or I could just wait for him to contact me first—and stew about it while I waited. Maybe I needed to sleep on it. “I’ll think about it,” was what I managed to say.
Sofia slid her socked feet into her boots and I followed her outside to see her off.
As I watched her taillights disappear up the road, I wondered if I should text him to ask about Queenie or just see how his day went.
I had the phone in my hand and a message started when I decided against it.
It was late enough that he would already be in bed and I didn’t want to rouse him unnecessarily.
Pocketing my phone, I called for the dogs to come in and went back inside. If I didn’t hear from him tomorrow, I’d reach out. Or maybe find a reason to stop by the ranch. I was being a coward and I knew that, but I wasn’t up for dealing with any more rejection. Not tonight.