Chapter 23
I run farther than usual the next morning, needing to burn off the heat still lingering beneath my sternum from last night.
Something changed between Stevie and I. There was an awareness between us that hasn’t been before, and I know the crush that’s been growing is no longer one sided.
I could see it in her eyes, feel it in the lingering touches.
We almost crossed a boundary that would only make my goodbye harder in a few weeks.
I’ve just closed the last few steps to the back porch when my phone vibrates in the pocket of my workout shorts.
My heart hammers even quicker when I see Amy’s name on the screen.
Instead of heading inside, I slide open the call and press the phone to my ear, wipe the sweat from my brow with my forearm.
“Hey, Amy.”
She responded to my text about extending my contract saying she’d check with the hospital, but I haven’t heard anything since. The thought has been lingering in the back of my mind for a week. My time here is rapidly coming to a close, and I don’t want it too. Especially after last night.
“Jack,” she says, always straight to the point. “How are you?” Her Boston accent is thick. There’s noise in the background, someone yelling out a coffee order. She technically works from home, but I’ve never heard her anywhere but on a city street or in a busy cafe.
“Good,” I answer, chest still heaving from my run. It was brisk yesterday, but the temperature dropped overnight, and it’s frigid now, making my breath puff out in silver tendrils. “Did you get a chance to talk to the hospital?”
The sliding back door opens, and Stevie steps out, blowing into a cup of coffee.
Her hair is down, sticking out from the sweatshirt hood pulled up over her head.
My heart ratchets in my chest at the sight of her, and the memory of the look on her face last night makes my stomach ache.
I’d wanted to do anything but leave her last night, but I didn’t feel right starting something with her when I wasn’t sure what I could offer.
“Yes, and they don’t want to renew the contract,” Amy says, pulling me back to the conversation.
Stevie finally sees the phone in my hand and stops, hooking a thumb over her shoulder and lifting a brow, silently asking if I want her to go back inside.
I shake my head, and do my best to return my attention to the phone call, a heavy weight sinking in my stomach.
“Did they say why?”
I’ve never asked to extend a contract, but hospitals have asked me to stay before. I’m a good nurse, and I work hard. So when I asked to stay, I thought they’d want me to.
“Remember you were covering for a nurse on maternity leave? She’s coming back at the end of your ten weeks, and they won’t need you anymore.”
“Right,” I say. I had known about the maternity leave, of course, but hospitals almost always need more help.
“I was going to send you a text next week with some open positions, but since I have you on the phone, I’ll tell you now.
” She pauses, and slurps loudly from what I assume, based on the very little I know of her, is a mug of very hot, very bold coffee.
“Got a thirteen week ICU opening in Memphis starting the week after your contract ends. Another thirteen week ED contract in Boise three weeks after this contract. Got—”
“Hey,” I cut her off. “Would you mind emailing these over to me?”
“Sure thing. Sorry about the extension. Glad you’re having a good time there, though.”
I can’t help the way my gaze drifts to Stevie. She’s hunched over the porch rail, looking out at the woods and mountains beyond.
“Yeah, me too.” My words catch on the wind whistling through the trees. “Bye, Amy.”
“Talk soon.”
She ends the call before I can respond. I drop the phone back into my pocket as Stevie turns around, her eyes flicking over my attire.
“Bit cold for a run,” she says.
I’m wearing leggings under my shorts and a hoodie over my T-shirt, but now that I’ve slowed down, the cool air is drying the sweat on my skin and making goosebumps prick up all over it.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I tell her, and she nods in understanding.
Abandoning her coffee on the porch rail, she turns fully to face me and props her hands on the wood at her back. “So we should probably talk about last night.”
I shouldn’t be surprised at her directness—Stevie doesn’t strike me as the type to beat around the bush.
“Right,” I say, and shove my hands into the pocket of my hoodie.
“I was going to kiss you.”
I blink at her. I had known, of course, but it feels different to hear her say it so bluntly. It sets fire beneath my skin.
“I wanted you to.”
It probably isn’t the right thing to say, but I can’t bullshit her.
Her head tilts to the side in confusion. “That wasn’t the idea I got.”
A breath escapes through my nose in a forceful huff, and I push a hand through my damp hair, now icy to the touch. “I’m leaving. In three weeks. I didn’t think it was a good idea.”
Her back straightens ever so slightly. “Mmm.”
The cold is turning her cheeks and the tip of her nose red. She looks windswept. Beautiful in a rugged way. Like sunrise on the top of a mountain.
“And if you weren’t leaving?” she asks, hazel eyes holding mine.
“I am.”
She nods, like she expected that this was the answer she expected, like she never expected I would stay. It pricks something in my chest. A self-inflicted wound that hasn’t quite healed.
“That was my recruiter on the phone,” I tell her, and I’m not sure if I’m telling her because I want her to know, or because I want to wipe that look off her face. The disappointed one. “I asked if I could renew my contract, stay here longer.”
Light flares behind her eyes, hope. It burns. “How long?”
I shake my head, kick at a lifted wood beam at my feet. “Doesn’t matter. They didn’t need me to stay. The woman I replaced is coming back from maternity leave.”
When I glance back up at her, she doesn’t look hurt or sad. Just resigned, like this is the outcome she knew would find her.
“Guess it’s good you didn’t let me kiss you then. Wouldn’t want to mess things up before you go, right?”
A lump forms in my throat, thick and hard to swallow. I don’t want to mess this up. I’ve been on my own for so long, haven’t ever felt tempted to form any attachment more than what I can have for a few weeks. But Stevie…
I want more with her. She makes me want things I haven’t before.
So no, I don’t want to mess this up. But it doesn’t erase the small part of me that wishes I could have more too. That I could have her friendship and companionship and make the rest work also.
But I’m leaving, like I always do. And she’s staying, like she always has.
There’s no future beyond what we have now, and wishing for it isn’t going to change anything.
“Right,” I say.
She stares at me for a long moment, pieces of her hair catching in the wind and sticking to her cheeks. An involuntary shiver wracks her body, breaking the intensity of her gaze. She turns away, grabbing her coffee.
“I’m cold.”
She’s almost to the door, her body mere inches from mine, when I reach out, hand connecting with her arm. There are layers between us, but I swear I can feel the heat of her radiating from beneath the fabric.
“Stevie, I…” I trail off, not knowing how to finish the sentence I just started. “I don’t want to mess things up between us because I want to still be friends when I leave. I don’t want to disappear the way I usually do.”
Her eyes flick down to my hand, still on her arm, before lifting back up to mine. “I don’t want that either.”
“This,” I say, my voice soft, barely audible over the wind. “It’s important to me.”
She nods, agreeing.
“I just didn’t want you to think…”
God, words are so hard. She makes my mind a mess, everything I’ve always chased falling to pieces beneath my feet.
“Think what?” she asks. Her eyes are so soft, and looking into them feels a little like getting lost in the woods. Shades of brown and green, mesmerizing.
“That I didn’t want you.”
Because I do. God, I do.
My eyes dip to the hollow of her throat, watching it bob. They slowly lift over the curve of her chin, the plush swell of her lips, and back to her eyes, still laser focused on me.
“It’s just that you’ve become too important to me to lose,” I say when I meet her gaze.
“Then don’t kiss me, Jack.”
I won’t. No matter how badly I want to.