CHAPTER TWELVE
HOLLY
I wake to the sound of a shower running and a sliver of dull gray light coming through blinds I don't recognize. It takes me a second to place where I am, and then it all comes back at once. James.
Just thinking about him makes me happy.
I stretch beneath unfamiliar sheets that smell like him and reach for my phone on the nightstand. I peer at the time and blink, trying to make sense of things. It’s barely six in the morning!
Who wakes up before sunrise?
A cardiologist, apparently.
I drop my phone back on the nightstand and flop back against the mattress.
The shower shuts off, and a few minutes later James emerges with a blue towel wrapped around his lean hips, showing off his muscular chest and the silver and black whorls of chest hair that I find so sexy.
His hair is damp and brushed back from his forehead.
He moves through the room with brisk efficiency, pulling a pair of boxer briefs from his dresser and then going to the walk-in closet and emerging with a pair of dark slacks and either a white or light blue shirt.
Catching sight of me watching him, he offers a sheepish grin. “I’m sorry, I tried to be quiet.”
“You weren't loud. I think I just sleep light in places I don't know yet.” I prop myself up on one elbow, watching him drop the towel and pull on his briefs. I like how he’s so comfortable with me that he can adjust his balls and dick with no embarrassment before pulling on his pants.
“What time do you need to be at work?”
“Usually around seven. I need to leave in about fifteen minutes.”
I gasp. “You start that early?”
“The office doesn’t open until eight, but I like to be in before seven fifteen.” He shrugs on his shirt and starts doing up the buttons. “It gives me time to review charts before I see patients, grab a coffee, and be prepared for the day.”
I feel something small and unglamorous settle into my chest. Up by six, showered, dressed, and out the door by seven to be at the office reviewing charts before most people have poured their first cup of coffee.
There's nothing romantic about it. It's just a schedule, except the stakes are someone's heart.
My shop doesn’t open until ten, and while I might stay late, most days I don’t crawl out of bed until eight and grab breakfast on the way to work or call and find out if Natalie has picked up doughnuts or bagels on her way in. One of the many perks of being the owner.
“Stay as long as you want,” he says, expertly doing up a silver and red tie. “There's coffee in the cabinet above the machine, and I believe I have oatmeal in the pantry as well as fresh fruit in the fridge.”
It's a generous offer. It's also the kind of thing that makes my stomach do an odd little flip, because the idea of lounging around his condo alone, in his bed, while he's off saving someone's heart, feels strange in a way I can't quite name.
Like I'd be playing house in a house that isn't mine yet.
That yet makes heat burn in my face and gets my butt up and moving.
“I'll get going too,” I say, grabbing at my clothes that ended up all over his floor. I’m wearing his T-shirt and I ponder if I can sneak it out with me because it’s soft and worn and, more importantly, it’s his.
He pauses with his suit jacket in hand, watching me gather my things, and something flashes across his handsome face. “You don't have to rush out on my account.”
“I'm not. I'm a morning person too, just a slightly later one.” I find my shirt inside out, and though it feels a tad odd right in front of him, I strip off his shirt and put my bra on.
His eyes go to my breasts, and I like the bit of heat that brighten his blue eyes. James drags his gaze from my chest when I put my shirt on and meets my grin.
“Besides, I should probably learn how to operate your coffee machine eventually. Today's not going to be the day I figure that out alone,” I tease, feeling lighter than I have in a long time, and I owe it all to James and the easy way we’re falling into a relationship.
He smiles at that. “Fair point. It's more complicated than it should be.”
We move through his quiet condo together, him checking his briefcase and me running a wet finger with a bit of his toothpaste hastily over my teeth.
At the door, he kisses me, his hand tenderly cupping my jaw before he reluctantly pulls away, as if he wants to hold on to the moment a little longer than his schedule allows.
“I'll call you later,” he says. “Promise.”
I press my palms to his chest. “You'd better. I'm not interested in becoming the woman who wonders.”
“You won't have to wonder.” He says, and my heart clenches at the sincerity in his voice.
We part ways, him toward his practice and me toward my house to shower and change before the shop opens. Driving home with the heater blasting, I find myself smiling and looking forward to his call tonight and everything that comes next.
***
The week that follows is something I didn't expect. Not the easy, constant togetherness of a new relationship in a movie, but something choppier, made of small windows we have to actively look for.
Monday he does call, and we end up on the phone for over an hour, talking about our day and when we can see each other again.
Tuesday, I'm slammed at the shop and not the best company when I have dinner at his place that night. I actually ended up falling asleep with him on the couch with It’s a Wonderful Life playing on TV.
Wednesday, he has surgery, which I'm starting to understand is a fixed point in his week.
He warns me ahead of time, is almost apologetic about it, like he thinks I'll be disappointed that we can't talk much that day. I tell him I'll be fine, and I mean it. Mostly. I actually reach for my phone during the day to text him and then stop because he won’t see it until later. Finally, I decide it doesn’t matter when he sees it and text anyway.
Around seven he calls, and he sounds tired, but it makes his voice deeper with a slightly husky note to it that has me wishing I could crawl into bed with him.
Not for sex, but just to be held in his arms and smell his warm, sleepy scent.
Thursday, we meet at a small deli two blocks from his practice that he claims makes decent sandwiches fast. He has an hour lunch break before his next patient is scheduled.
Natalie rolled her eyes when I said I was taking a long lunch.
My brother spilled the news about James before I was fully ready to tell her, and she’s been moping over that for days.
Accusing me of holding back. And I suppose in a way I was.
James and my relationship being too new and shiny, and part of me was afraid that somehow I would jinx things if I shared too much.
But I promised her I’d fill her in on all the juicy details after lunch.
It's a small place with tiny laminate red tables and a clustered feel, but James lights up when I walk through the door, making me feel like a million bucks.
“You look like you had a good morning,” I say with a smile.
“It’s better now because I get to see you,” he says, pressing a quick kiss to my lips before we go up to the counter to order.
He always says the sweetest things.
We order and take our sandwiches to a table near the windows, and I hide a grimace at the sticky texture of the table, making a note not to let any of my skin touch it.
He unwraps his sandwich, glancing at his wide gold watch, before giving me a quick, apologetic smile. “Sorry. Old habits.”
I grab a bunch of flimsy paper napkins from the dented silver dispenser on the table. “You're allowed to check the time. I know you're on a schedule.”
“I'd rather not be, with you,” he says, and I positively melt.
This isn't romantic in the way Giovanni's was, or magical the way the Christmas market was, all twinkling lights, Christmas charm, sweet handholding, and kisses.
This is different than that. But there's something in the difference that I'm starting to understand is more important than the grand stuff. Fairy tales don’t have to be over the top to still be amazingly real.
We chat as we eat, and I'm midway into telling him about Adam's latest score of over twenty vintage blow molds when his phone buzzes against the table.
James glances at it with little urgency, the way he has every other time it's buzzed this week. Then his whole face changes.
It happens fast, faster than I would have thought possible.
One second he’s fully engaged, his eyes crinkling at the corners in that sexy way I love, and the next his expression has gone flat as he reads the message on his phone.
For the first time, I’m face to face not with the man I’m falling for, but instead I see James the serious cardiologist.
“I have to go,” he says, already standing and reaching for his coat.
My gaze goes from him to his half-eaten sandwich and back. “What's wrong?”
“It’s a patient. I need to get to the hospital.” He doesn't elaborate further than that, and I don't ask him to.
“Go,” I say immediately, because there's nothing else to say. “Go, go.”
He's halfway to the door before he turns back, just for a second, his expression apologetic. “I'm sorry. I'll call you.”
I wave that away. “You don't need to apologize. Just go.”
Nodding sharply, he leaves. The bell over the deli door jangles behind him, and I'm left alone at a sticky table with two half-eaten sandwiches and a vague sense that this is a part of him that I’ll never be able to have.
I sit there, watching through the window as James jogs to his car, his phone pressed to his ear and knowing that he’s probably somewhere else mentally already.
It's strange watching someone shift gears that fast. One moment he was mine, fully and completely, the next he belonged to someone else, a stranger whose name I'll never know, whose heart he's about to hold in his hands.
It’s not resentment. I need to be clear with myself about that, sitting there with my sandwich that I no longer want. I don't resent his job, or the person whose emergency just rearranged both our afternoons.
What I feel is something quieter and harder to name.
A small, private ache that has nothing to do with jealousy and everything to do with reality.
This is what loving James actually looks like, I realize.
Not just the intimate meals and the slow dances in his living room.
It's also this. Half a sandwich and an empty chair and the kind of loneliness that comes from loving someone whose attention can be called away at any second, for the best possible reason, and you just have to sit there and let it.
My parents never had this. Dad keeps regular hours fixing furnaces and air conditioners, home by six most nights and present for every school play, weekend sports game, and holiday.
Never once did I sit at the table wondering if my dad would have to leave mid-sentence because someone's life depended on it.
James's job isn't like that, and it took a message interrupting lunch for me to understand, really understand, what that difference might mean for a life built around him. Our kids might not have their dad there cheering them on at a soccer game, there’s a chance he might miss holidays or other important events. It’s funny how I never gave much thought to those things.
Somehow, I got caught up in the idea of a perfect relationship and forgot that in real life there is no perfect.
I throw away both our unfinished sandwiches and head back to It’s Always Something, suddenly not feeling that eager to chat with Natalie.
That night James doesn't call until almost eight, and his voice is tired in a way I haven't heard before.
“How did everything go?”
The sigh that whispers across the phone tells me before he says, “Not good, but she’s stable for now.”
My fingers curl around the phone as it digs into my ear. “Oh, James…” Words fail me, so I don’t even try.
“I’m sorry about lunch. Could we do something this weekend?”
I shift on the couch. Tomorrow’s Friday and I had hoped we could hang out at my place and maybe spend the night together. Disappointment fills me, which I shove aside. The poor man has had a rough day, if he can’t see me until the weekend, so be it.
“That sounds good.”
“Great. And Holly, thank you.”
My nose crinkles. “Thank me? For what?”
“For being understanding about today and for being you, thank you.”
I swallow back the lump of emotion in my throat. “You’re welcome.”
“Goodnight, Holly.”
“Night, James.”
Later, lying in my bed that night with Merlin curled against my hip, I think about a lot of things. Mostly James’ quiet thanks. He shouldn’t be thanking me for doing what any decent person would. Yet I also appreciate the sentiment behind it.
Life with anyone is going to be different, and a life with him will never be dull. And that’s okay. I don’t want dull. I want him and whatever loving him comes with.