18. More Than Friends
18
MORE THAN FRIENDS
T he next morning, Justine opened her eyes and looked at Garrett sleeping next to her in her bed.
She hadn’t planned that he’d spend the night, but she’d fallen asleep after she came for a second time.
Then again, she’d never come twice in one night like that. Not unless there were a few hours break in between and that was only a few times.
“Morning,” he said.
She turned her head to look at him. His eyes were open but sleepy. Other than that, nothing looked different. His hair was slightly messy but not horrible. His trimmed beard looked the same too.
“Good morning.”
“I can hear you thinking. I hope it’s not a bad thought,” he said.
“No,” she said. “Not thinking at all other than I’m sorry I fell asleep last night on you.”
“I’m not,” he said. “Maybe I wore you out in a good way.”
“Oh,” she said, snuggling under his arm. “You did.”
“You look cute with bedhead,” he said.
She could hear the humor in his voice but couldn’t see his face now that she was under his arm. But she turned and got on his chest to look at him.
“I normally put it in a ponytail, but it falls out anyway. I just don’t like it on my face.”
He pushed it back behind her ears for her.
A gentle caress more than anything else.
“I like when I can see your face,” he said. “It’s very expressive.”
“Not usually,” she said. “Must just be you.”
“I’m glad about that too. Not having any regrets?”
“No,” she said. “None at all. I don’t know what we’ve got.”
His smile dropped and she didn’t want to insult or hurt him and maybe shouldn’t have brought it up.
Just because she slept with him didn’t mean she was ready for anything serious.
“It’s fine,” he said. “We can be more than friends, exclusive, and have fun without complicating things.”
“I agree,” she said. “It’s more than friends, Garrett. I don’t sleep with guys lightly. I hope you know that.”
“I do,” he said. “Especially when you said it’d been years.”
She laughed. “I’m picky. But you know, I’m not here long.”
He put his finger to her lips. “We aren’t going to go there again,” he said. “There are too many options and no reason to even think about it at this point.”
“Agreed,” she said, moving off of him.
“I take it you’re ending the conversation?” he asked.
She didn’t want him to think she was avoiding it. She wasn’t. “I’ve got to pee. We can talk more if you want.”
She got up and moved to the bathroom, her T-shirt falling past her hips. She was naked under it. She barely remembered grabbing it to put on after she woke up the first time.
Garrett had asked if she wanted him to leave and she said she’d like him to stay but would understand if he didn’t want to.
She knew he had no change of clothes and it wasn’t planned.
She was glad he decided to get back in bed with her.
Now she did her business in the bathroom, brushed her teeth, found a spare toothbrush, and put it on the counter for him.
When she returned to her room, Garrett was up and had his jeans on but not buttoned.
“I don’t know if you have plans today.”
“Nothing,” she said. “Not sure if you do or not. There is a toothbrush on the counter for you. My first plan is to make breakfast.”
“I’m starving,” he said. “Mind if I shower?”
“Go ahead,” she said.
She grabbed a pair of underwear and shorts and pulled them on, then made her way to the kitchen. Eggs and toast sounded good and were easy enough.
The first thing she did was make a cup of coffee for herself. She was positive Garrett drank coffee, but she didn’t know what flavor he would want and it didn’t take long to make.
When he came into the kitchen, the bread was in the toaster and the scrambled eggs were almost done.
“Coffee smells good,” he said. “Is that cup for me?”
“Yes,” she said. “I wasn’t sure what flavor you liked or how you took it.”
He spun her little carousel and then started his coffee while he took some plates down. When the toast popped he pulled them out to butter them.
“We make a good team,” she said.
“We do,” he said. “Still feeling good about where things stand with us?”
“I am,” she said. “Are you going to ask me all the time? Is it because I don’t want to put a label on things?”
His head went back and forth. “No. I just know that you’ve had a lot going on in your life in the past year and I didn’t want to add to it.”
“Well,” she said. “You are adding to it but not in a bad way. And I’m not the only one that had a lot happen in the last year. I’m only getting hints from you and guessing more than anything. Don’t you think it’s time to share?”
She normally wouldn’t have done that. Put someone on the spot.
But she realized that she’d opened up so much with him and that he wasn’t doing the same.
Here he was introducing her to family members and making her feel comfortable around people and on the island, but there was a lot to him she didn’t know yet.
He let out a sigh. “What do you want to know?”
“What caused you to volunteer to be on the island for a year? You said you weren’t handling things well and that you needed to reevaluate your career. I’ve got to imagine something specific happened rather than an accumulation of events, but could be I’m wrong.”
“Sit,” he said. “I’ll tell you if you want to know. It’s not something I do. I don’t share with anyone other than my family.”
“Because they’ve been there and understand?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “But even then, it’s not everything. It’s hard to hide work stuff from my father.”
Since Richard Mills oversaw the oncology department, she had to imagine that would be hard to do.
“I think Jordan knew what that was like. She couldn’t hide the fact that our father was well-known where she was doing her residency.”
Her father wasn’t the chair of the department. He’d been asked before and declined. He didn’t enjoy overseeing people or dealing with what he called policy bull crap and administrative ass-kissing. She always found it funny since her father was a laid-back person.
Much like her.
“Then she understands it more. You know in my field the outcomes can be hard,” he said.
She nodded. “You lost someone?” she asked.
“Three people in a short period of time,” he said.
Her shoulders dropped. “Is that normal to happen?” she asked. She couldn’t even imagine.
“Not really,” he said. “But not unheard of. I had a heavy caseload and some tough patients. The first, she was older, in her seventies and that is always hard when someone that age is going through treatment. She had complications and didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry for that,” she said. “But I understand there are always risks.”
“There are,” he said. “You’d understand that with your job and medications. Two months later, I had another patient. One I’d had for three years. She’d had ovarian cancer and then got a reoccurrence. This time it was stage three and we started treatment right away, but after two rounds, she got the flu. She missed a month of chemo and in that time it metastasized to her brain. There wasn’t much we could do but buy time. She talked it over with her children and husband and decided to enjoy what time she had left not suffering from side effects from treatment. This had been going on when the first patient died. So she’d had four months to spend time with her family. I expected her death but still wasn’t prepared.”
“I don’t think anyone can prepare for it,” she said.
“No,” he said.
He ate the breakfast in front of him and she suspected he needed time to gather his thoughts.
“She reminded me of my mother. Her personality and strength. I was happy she made the most of her last four months.”
“But still sad to lose her,” she said, reaching her hand over. “I understand.”
“The last one died a month after, but I’d had his case for a bit. Twenty-three-year-old male with stage four colon cancer.”
“Wow,” she said. “Rare for that young.”
“His parents wanted to start chemo right away, but I needed to run more tests. At first, they thought it was stage three, but I wanted to cover my bases. It took another week to get a PET scan scheduled and done. That’s when we saw it spread to his lungs. I wanted a CAT scan of his brain to check and his parents were pushing for chemo immediately. They got other opinions who agreed with me, to check his brain.”
“You’d think they’d want to know before they started,” she said.
“It’s hard to pause when you want to start to treat,” he said. “Patients just want to get the disease out of them. They want to know they are doing something. The waiting game is the hardest.”
“But they did wait?” she asked.
“They did. We had the CAT scan two days after the PET scan. Once everything was in, we’d figure out a course of action.”
“It’s just two days,” she said. “I would have thought weeks.”
“Two days can seem like two weeks during that time,” he said. He sipped his coffee. “The cancer had spread to his brain.”
“That’s horrible,” she said.
“It is. Four oncologists all agreed to start radiation on his brain first. Once that was done, he’d go through chemo. There is only so much you can do to a body and it was important to attack the most important function, which was the brain.”
“Did his parents not agree?” she asked.
“They didn’t. They felt like it was only targeting one spot and chemo would target it all, but the chemo wouldn’t have targeted the brain and that was the fastest moving one controlling more bodily functions. We had to shrink it since we couldn’t operate. Everything was spelled out that he’d have brain damage or other more severe complications if we didn’t shrink that tumor first.”
“So you started radiation?” she asked.
“We did the next day. The tumor shrunk within a month and then they were able to remove it and everyone was thrilled. He had a week after that to start chemo, which he did. But a few weeks in he was having abdominal pains. We ran more scans and there were tumors in his colon again and stomach at that point.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It seems like this was one of those things you almost couldn’t get ahead of.”
“We couldn’t,” he said. “They were talking to me and other doctors and we all were on the same page.”
“But he didn’t make it,” she said.
“No. Not even a month later. There was no way to put him through chemo at that point. His parents blamed me and the other two doctors on the case. We were all sued.”
Her shoulders dropped. “That’s not your fault.”
“No, but they claimed that by waiting for the tests, then convincing them to do radiation first allowed the other tumors to grow. They were given recommendations though patients still have the final say. But I wasn’t signing off on their son to get chemo and radiation at the same time. The other two doctors weren’t either.”
“I hope the lawsuit was thrown out or did they settle? It doesn’t make it any better for you or your insurance or the liability.”
“They didn’t want to settle and thought they could go to trial, but the case was dismissed. Then they wanted to accept the hospital settlement, but it was no longer on the table.”
“Insult to injury at that point,” she said.
“In people’s grief, they do crazy things.”
“Like moving states away where they don’t know a person,” she said, forcing a smile.
“Everyone handles things their way,” he said. “But I struggled. It was a lot in a short period of time. My parents were worried about me. I was worried. I wanted to be my best for my patients and was burning out. A change of pace and environment seemed the best thing and quickest fix.”
“But it’s not a quick fix,” she argued.
“It’s not,” he said. “But I’ve been here three months and it sure the hell feels it right now.”
It was the way that he was looking at her that told her there was more to his statement than he was willing to share.
And maybe she didn’t want to know right now either.