Chapter 10
chapter
ten
The text sat in my drafts folder for forty-seven minutes while I second-guessed every word choice. I'd written it, deleted it, rewritten it, and deleted it again so many times that my phone probably thought I was having some kind of digital seizure.
Would you like to come over for dinner tomorrow? I could cook. Nothing fancy, just...
Delete.
Hey, want to grab dinner at my place tomorrow? I make a mean...
Delete.
I know this is forward, but would you want to come over for a home-cooked meal? I'd love to...
Dear God, that sounded like a dating app message from a serial killer.
I was sitting in the Metro General break room at 11 p.m., nursing my third cup of coffee and trying to convince myself that asking someone to dinner was not, in fact, rocket science.
Around me, the night shift moved through its familiar rhythms — Chloe was reviewing medication calculations at the next table, Carly was on the phone with Admitting about bed assignments, and somewhere in the distance, an IV pump was beeping the eternal, mechanical song of its people.
But my mind kept drifting back to yesterday afternoon. To the way Izzy had looked when she'd talked about feeling useless, the vulnerability she'd let slip through her armor. To the moment when I'd covered her hand with mine and watched something shift in her dark eyes.
To the way she'd said my name when she thanked me, like it meant something.
My phone buzzed with an incoming trauma alert, jolting me back to the present. But as I headed toward the trauma bay, I made a decision. Sometimes you just had to take the shot.
During a quiet moment around 2 a.m., I finally sent the message:
Tomorrow's your last day off this rotation, right? Would you like to come over for dinner? I actually cook — not just reheat things. Fair warning: I tend to go overboard in the kitchen when I'm trying to impress someone.
I hit send before I could lose my nerve, then immediately wanted to crawl under the nearest gurney. When I'm trying to impress someone? Could I have been more obvious?
Her response came twenty minutes later:
Izzy
You want to cook for me? That's... actually really sweet. What time?
6 p.m.? I promise not to poison you.
Izzy
Deal. But just so you know, my standards are pretty low. Last night I had cereal for dinner.
Challenge accepted.
I spent the rest of my shift planning the menu.
By 4 p.m. the next day, my apartment looked like a Food Network show had exploded in it.
I'd been cooking since I got home from my shift, running on three hours of sleep and pure nervous energy.
The beef had been braising in red wine and herbs for hours, filling the apartment with rich, savory smells.
The polenta was keeping warm on the stove, creamy and perfect, and asparagus spears lay ready for a quick roast in the oven.
And on the counter, cooling in individual ramekins, sat six perfect servings of tres leches cake.
I'd stopped at three different grocery stores to find the right ingredients, spent an hour on the phone with my mom getting her polenta technique right (again), and reorganized my living room twice.
At 5:45, I was pacing around my kitchen, checking and rechecking everything for the dozenth time. The beef was perfect, tender enough to shred with a fork. Everything was as ready as it was possible to be.
So why did I feel like I was about to perform surgery without anesthesia?
The knock at my door at exactly 6 p.m. made my heart jump into my throat.
Izzy stood in my doorway holding a bottle of wine, looking slightly uncertain in dark jeans and a soft green sweater that brought out the gold flecks in her brown eyes. Her hair was down, falling in waves around her shoulders instead of her usual severe ponytail.
"Hi," she said, offering the wine. "I wasn't sure what you were making, so I brought some Tempranillo. It goes with most things."
"Perfect," I said, stepping aside to let her in. "And thank you. You didn't have to bring anything."
She stepped into my living room, and I watched her take it all in — the plants lining the windowsills, the cookbook collection that took up an entire wall, the warm light from the salt lamps I'd scattered around the room.
Her eyes lingered on the kitchen, where steam was rising from various pots and pans.
"Jimmy," she said slowly, "what exactly did you make?"
"Braised beef," I said, trying for casual and probably missing by miles. "With polenta and asparagus. And, uhm, a surprise for later."
She stared at me for a long moment, then shook her head with something that looked like amazement. "You made all this from scratch?"
"It's not that hard once you get the hang of it," I said, feeling heat creep up my neck. "I, uh, I like to cook. Really cook. It relaxes me."
"Jimmy." Her voice was soft, almost wondering. "No one has ever made me a meal like this before."
The way she said it made my chest tight. Like this simple thing was somehow precious.
"Well," I said, "there's a first time for everything."
We ate at my small dining table by the window, the city lights twinkling beyond the glass.
I'd been worried the conversation might be awkward in the intimate setting of my apartment, but it flowed as easily as it had at the coffee shop.
Izzy told me stories about firehouse pranks and the ongoing war over condiment theft that apparently rivaled international conflicts in its complexity.
"Wait," I said, laughing so hard I nearly choked on my beer. "Someone actually resold ketchup packets from the McDonald's down the street?"
"Entrepreneurial spirit," Izzy said solemnly, then broke into a grin.
"Stopped after a call with the engine and asked them for ‘as many ketchup packets as you’re legally allowed to give me.’ Thompson made seventeen dollars before Cap shut down the operation.
The thing is, we could leave five thousand dollars in cash on the table and nobody would touch it.
But a bottle of Heinz? Gone like we had ninjas on the loose. "
"I cannot even imagine living like that," I said. "Hospital staff’ll steal your lunch, but they draw the line at actual condiments."
"Different code of ethics," she agreed. "Though honestly, after eating this, I understand the ketchup wars better. If you could cook like this at the station, people would probably chain you to the stove."
The compliment made me ridiculously happy. Watching her enjoy the food I'd made, seeing her relax into my space, felt better than any performance review or patient commendation I'd ever received.
When we finished the main course, I stood to clear the plates, suddenly nervous about dessert. I'd been second-guessing the tres leches choice all day, but it was too late to change course now.
"There's dessert," I said, carrying the plates to the kitchen. "If you want."
"You made dessert too?" Izzy called from the table. "Jimmy, you're going to spoil me."
I pulled the ramekins from the refrigerator, hands slightly shaking as I arranged them on a small tray with spoons. "It's tres leches," I said, setting the tray on the table proudly.
Izzy went very still. Her eyes moved from the perfect, cream-soaked cakes to my face, one eyebrow slowly rising.
"Tres leches," she repeated, her voice carefully neutral.
“Yeah!” I exclaimed, excitedly, “I …”
And then I saw her face.
Oh. Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit. "I — " I started, then stopped, my face burning. "It's not — I mean, I didn't make it because you're — " The words tangled up in my mouth like fishing line. "I just, I love tres leches, and I thought — "
Izzy stood up from her chair, cutting off my increasingly incoherent rambling. For a terrifying moment, I thought she was going to leave. Instead, she stepped closer, close enough that I could smell her shampoo, something clean and faintly floral.
"Jimmy," she said quietly, her eyes searching mine. "Did you make tres leches because I'm Latina?"
"No!" The word came out too loud, too desperate. "I mean, maybe unconsciously? I don't know, I just — " I ran my hands through my hair, completely flustered. "I make tres leches all the time. It's my go-to dessert when I really want to — " I stopped, realizing what I was about to say.
"When you really want to what?" she asked, stepping even closer.
"When I really want to impress someone," I admitted quietly. "And I really, really wanted to impress you."
For a moment that felt like eternity, she just looked at me. I could see her processing, weighing my words against my obvious panic, my flustered honesty against whatever assumptions she might have had.
Then, without warning, she reached up, cupped my face in her calloused hands, and kissed me.
It was soft at first, tentative, like she was testing the waters.
But when I kissed her back, something shifted.
Her hands slid into my hair, and I found myself pressing closer, my arms coming up to circle her waist. She tasted like wine and cilantro and something indefinably her, and I thought dimly that this was so much better than any fantasy I'd been trying not to have.
When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard. Izzy's cheeks were flushed, her lips slightly swollen, and she was looking at me like she was seeing something new.
"That was — " I started.
"Good," she finished, her voice husky. "That was really good."
We ate the tres leches standing in my kitchen, sharing bites from the same spoon and stealing kisses between tastes.
The cake was perfect — rich and sweet and soaked through with cream — but I barely tasted it.
I was too distracted by the way Izzy hummed appreciatively with each bite, by the way she kept looking at me like I'd just performed some kind of magic trick.
When it was time for her to leave, we lingered by my door like teenagers reluctant to end a first date. She had her jacket on, her keys in her hand, but neither of us seemed ready to say goodbye.
"This was amazing," she said finally. "The food, the company, all of it. Thank you."
"Thank you for coming," I said. "For trusting me with your last day off."
She smiled, soft and genuine, and I felt my heart do something acrobatic in my chest.
"Uhhh," I said as she turned toward the door, my brain apparently having abandoned all higher functions. "You know, we could, ahh, do that again. Kiss. That was, I mean, wow, it just — "
Before I could finish making a complete fool of myself, Izzy turned back, stepped into my space, and kissed me again. This one was slower, deeper, a promise of more to come.
"Yes," she murmured against my lips when we broke apart. "We definitely could."
And then she was gone, leaving me standing in my doorway watching her taillights fade into the distance.
I closed the door, leaned against it, and let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.
Then, because there was no one there to witness my complete loss of dignity, I pumped my fist in the air and did a little victory shuffle around my living room that would have made my college football team proud.
"Holy shit," I said to my pothos plant, which seemed to nod approvingly in the lamplight. "She kissed me! Wooo!"
Lieutenant Isabela Delgado, the most competent, intimidating, and beautiful woman I had ever met, had kissed me. In my kitchen.
I was so, so gone.