Chapter 3 — Carina
I check on Hamlet one more time before I leave the clinic at six-thirty, even though I already checked on him twice this afternoon and he's doing exactly as well as I expected.
He blinks up at me from his cage with those amber eyes, the splint on his leg clean and secure, his whole body relaxed in a way that tells me the pain medication is doing its job.
I give him fresh water and a few pieces of the prescription food he's been eating without complaint, scratch behind his ears until he starts purring.
"You lucked out," I tell him. "Zoe's going to spoil you."
He chirps at me, soft and conversational, and I smile despite the anxiety coiling in my stomach.
Lock his cage, do a final check of the terrier and the beagle, set the alarm, and head out into the heat.
It's a three-mile drive to Roan's house. I've mapped the route twice already, which is excessive.
This is just dinner, a thank you for treating the cat, nothing more complicated than that.
Except I've been thinking about him for two days straight.
The drive takes eight minutes. His house sits at the end of a quiet street, small and well-maintained with a detached garage and a front porch that looks like it gets used.
I pull in behind his truck and sit there for a moment telling myself this is fine, I'm fine, there's no reason to be nervous.
The front door opens before I finish the thought and Zoe appears, waving with a grin that's so genuinely welcoming some of the tension eases out of my shoulders.
I get out into the thick evening heat and she meets me halfway up the driveway, already talking.
"I'm so glad you could come, Hamlet's doing okay right? I wanted to check on him but I had to work and then I have this paper due tomorrow but I'm coming by first thing in the morning, and Dad's making spaghetti which is basically the only thing he cooks but he's really good at it—"
"Zoe." Roan's voice carries from the doorway, low and even. "Let her get inside first."
She laughs and grabs my hand, pulling me toward the house. "Come on, it's cooler."
It is cooler, window units working hard. The living room is small and comfortable, furniture clearly used for years but well cared for.
Photos line the walls, Zoe at different ages, a few that look like club gatherings based on the motorcycles visible in the frames.
Roan stands in the kitchen doorway wiping his hands on a dish towel. When I meet his eyes the impact is immediate, that same visceral pull I felt in the clinic. Gray-green and steady and focused entirely on me.
"Hey," he says.
"Hi." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "Thank you for having me."
"Zoe's idea." But something in the way he's looking at me suggests he's not unhappy about it.
I follow them to the kitchen and the smell of garlic and tomatoes hits me hard enough that my stomach reminds me I skipped lunch.
Roan is at the stove stirring a pot of sauce that smells homemade, garlic bread warming in the oven, a cutting board with salad vegetables waiting on the counter.
"I can do the salad," I offer.
He glances at me over his shoulder. "Bowl's in the cabinet above the cutting board."
I wash my hands and get to work while Zoe sets the table and talks about her day. A customer who couldn't remember the title or author of a book, only that it had a blue cover and made her cry.
"Did you find it?" I ask, tearing lettuce into a wooden bowl that looks handmade.
"Eventually. Took twenty minutes and four people helping." Zoe grins, setting down the last fork. "She bought three more books while she was there."
"That's good salesmanship."
"That's Zoe being unable to let a problem go," Roan says, but there's warmth in his voice.
We sit down to eat a few minutes past seven. Zoe immediately launches into her paper while reaching for the garlic bread.
"So Professor Mitchell actually responded to my argument about Portia," she says. "I sent her my draft yesterday and she wrote three paragraphs engaging with my point about the courtroom scene subverting patriarchal authority."
Roan looks up from his plate. "The one where you compared it to the casket test?"
"Exactly." Zoe's eyes light up. "You remembered."
"You've been working on this for three weeks. Hard to forget."
"Okay, so Mitchell agreed that Portia's cross-dressing isn't just disguise, it's commentary on how legal authority is inherently gendered. But then she pushed back on my Greenblatt citation and said I should look at Orgel's work on transvestism instead."
Roan twirls spaghetti on his fork. "The scholar you said was too focused on performance theory?"
Zoe pauses mid-bite. "You actually listened to that?"
"Yeah."
"That was two weeks ago."
He shrugs. "So are you going to use Orgel?"
"I think I have to now. Mitchell made a good point about grounding the gender argument in actual theatrical practice." Zoe looks at Carina. "Sorry, this is probably boring."
"It's not," I tell her. "I didn't know cross-dressing in Shakespeare was about legal authority."
"It's about everything." Zoe gestures with her fork. "Gender, power, who gets to speak in court, who gets believed. Portia literally has to become a man to be heard."
Roan sets down his fork. "What about the other play? The one with the twins."
"Twelfth Night." Zoe grins. "That's my next section. Viola's even more interesting because she chooses the disguise, it's not forced on her like Portia's situation."
"And you're still using that Butler essay?"
"Gender Trouble? Yeah, but I'm pairing it with… wait, how do you even remember that?"
"You left it on the kitchen table last week. I looked at it."
Zoe stares at him for a moment, then looks at me. "He actually reads my citations."
"He listens when you talk," I say.
Roan reaches for more bread. "When's it due?"
"Next Friday. I'm almost done, just need to tighten the conclusion."
"You'll get it done."
The conversation shifts after that, but I watch the way Roan engages with her and think about how he's been doing this for twenty years, showing up, paying attention, remembering details that matter to her even when they're outside his world entirely.
Watching them together does something warm to my chest.
"What made you choose Bloomfield?" Zoe asks eventually. "It's kind of in the middle of nowhere."
"That was part of the appeal." I glance at Roan and find him watching me. "I was in Harrisburg for two years and the city felt too loud. Too anonymous. When Dr. Morris's practice went up for sale here, it seemed right. Smaller, more manageable."
"Do you miss it?" This from Roan, quiet but weighted.
I think about it, wanting to be honest. "Not really. I miss some of the convenience maybe, but I don't miss feeling invisible. Here feels more real."
He nods like that makes sense to him, and something in his expression suggests he understands exactly what I mean.
The conversation shifts and I tell them about Hamlet's progress, about the beagle who's currently furious with me over this morning's anal gland expression, which makes Zoe laugh hard enough she nearly chokes on her water.
By eight-thirty we're clearing the table and Roan is at the sink washing dishes while I dry them.
Zoe keeps up a steady stream of talk about the bookstore, about Mrs. Patterson and her romance novels, about a shipment that came in today.
There's an ease to how we all move around each other in the small kitchen, like the space knows how to accommodate three people even though it was built for two.
Around nine-thirty Zoe grabs her laptop from the living room. "I've got coursework. You guys don't have to leave or anything, I'll just be in my room if you need me."
Her door closes down the hallway and suddenly it's just us in his kitchen.
"Living room?" he asks.
"Yeah."
I follow him to the couch and sit down, leaving space between us. He sits at the other end, one arm stretched along the back, his body angled toward me.
For a moment neither of us says anything. The house is quiet except for the hum of the window unit and cicadas outside.
"She likes you," he says finally.
"I like her. She's smart and she's kind and you clearly did something right."
Something in his expression shifts. "I tried."
"More than tried." I turn to face him more fully. "She's confident without being arrogant, she's warm without being naive, and she trusts you completely. That doesn't happen by accident."
He's quiet for a moment, deciding something. "Her mother left when she was pregnant. Didn't tell me. I found out through someone who knew someone when Zoe was six weeks old. Drove four hours to a motel in Scranton and came back with a baby I had no idea how to take care of."
I try to imagine being twenty-two and suddenly responsible for an infant. "That must have been terrifying."
"It was." He looks at me directly. "Made a decision on that drive back. Whatever I felt about Mara leaving, about being that scared, I'd feel it once and then set it aside. Because Zoe needed a father who was present, not one stuck processing."
The honesty hits me hard. "Did it work?"
"Mostly." A pause. "Cost me some things. But she was worth it."
Twenty years of putting someone else first, of building his entire life around being exactly what his daughter needed.
I can see the result in every photo on the wall and the way Zoe talks to him without hesitation.
"What about you?" he asks. "You said you left Harrisburg. What were you leaving?"
I match his honesty. "A relationship where I slowly disappeared. He was a good guy, nothing dramatic, but I spent eighteen months making myself smaller to fit his life. I didn't notice until I couldn't recognize myself anymore."
"So you left."
"So I left. Came here, bought the practice, built something that's entirely mine." I look at him. "No compromises at someone else's expense."
He nods slowly, processing.
"The patches on your vest," I say, needing to know. "Vigil MC. What is that?"
He doesn't hesitate. "Motorcycle club. We handle security for businesses, deal with things the police don't. Some of it's legal, some isn't. There's another club, Marrow, pushing into our territory. Things have been escalating."
No softening, no excuses. Just truth.
"Is it dangerous?"
"Can be." He watches me. "Does that bother you?"
I think about it, really think. "I don't know yet. I need time to process it."
"Fair."
We sit there and I'm aware of how close he is, how much I want to close the remaining distance. Aware of how fast this is moving and how that should scare me more than it does.
But sitting here listening to him talk about Zoe, I realize something: he's not asking me to disappear.
He's telling me exactly who he is and letting me decide. That's not what happened in Harrisburg.
I glance at my phone. It's past ten.
"I should probably go. It's getting late."
He stands when I do and suddenly he's close, close enough that I can see the gray in his hair and smell motor oil and soap.
He walks me outside to my car. The night air is still warm, cicadas loud. We stop next to my driver's side door but neither of us moves to open it.
"I've been thinking about you," he says, voice low and rough. "Since the clinic."
My heart kicks hard. "I've been thinking about you too."
He takes a step closer and there's almost no space between us now. His hand comes up to brush a strand of hair back from my face, fingers warm against my temple.
"I'm going to kiss you," he says. Not asking. "If you don't tell me not to."
I don't tell him not to.
His mouth comes down on mine and the kiss is immediate and hungry, his lips firm and sure.
One hand slides into my hair and the other finds my waist, pulling me against him hard enough that I gasp.
I grip his shoulders and kiss him back, feeling the solid warmth of his body and the barely restrained strength in how he's holding me.
The kiss deepens and his hand tightens in my hair and I make a sound I don't mean to make, something between a gasp and a moan.
He responds by pulling me closer, his tongue sliding against mine, and I can feel him hard against my hip and the knowledge makes my knees weak.
We break apart breathing hard, his forehead resting against mine, his hands still in my hair and on my waist.
"You sure about this?" I ask, because I need to know.
"Yeah." No hesitation. "You?"
"Yeah."
He kisses me again and this time it's deeper, more deliberate. His hands move, one sliding down to grip my hip with enough pressure that I feel it through my jeans, fingers digging into the soft flesh there.
The other stays in my hair, tilting my head back so he can kiss me harder. I grip his shoulders and hold on, kissing him back with everything I've got.
Then we hear it. The creak of a door opening inside the house.
We separate fast, both breathing hard. Zoe's bedroom door. She's probably just going to the bathroom or getting water, but the sound breaks the moment completely.
Roan steps back and we're both aware suddenly that we're on his front porch where his daughter could walk out any second and see us.
"I should go," I say, even though I don't want to.
"Yeah." His voice is rough.
I get in my car before I can change my mind, hands trembling slightly as I start the engine.
Roan steps back and I can see him in my rearview mirror as I pull out, standing in the driveway watching me leave.
The drive home takes eight minutes and I spend all of them trying to catch my breath.
My lips are swollen, my skin too warm, and I can still feel exactly where his hands were on my body. The way he gripped my hip like he wanted to pull me even closer, the hard length of him pressed against me through our clothes.
I park in my driveway and sit there with the engine off, touching my fingers to my mouth.
Tomorrow Zoe picks up Hamlet. Which means I'll see him again.
And I have absolutely no idea what happens after that kiss except that something fundamental just shifted and there's no going back.
I finally get out and head inside, lock the door behind me and lean against it with my eyes closed and my heart still beating too hard.
I want him. He wants me.
And I think I'm willing to risk everything I came here to build to find out where this goes.