Ella
For three days after our awkward conversation, nothing happens with Bernard “Howie” Houser. When I pass him in the living room, he shouts out questions about shoulder muscles. I respond with accuracy. We smile.
He is awake and dressed when I emerge on work days, and drives me to the hospital in his fancy-ass car, quizzing me about body parts he knows.
He peppers his trivia questions with anecdotes like “I shredded my polar plates when I blocked a shot sophomore year of high school,” or “that was the time your brother destroyed his temporalis. Remember when he couldn’t chew? ”
Neither of us brings up the other tutoring, the sex lessons that keep me up staring at the ceiling with anxiety.
I’m off today, and using my time wisely: lying in Bernard’s bed in sweatpants and a hoodie, surrounded by textbooks, failing a practice quiz on my phone. It would go easier on a laptop, I think, but my brother said no to my request to borrow his, and I don’t have one.
My family wasn’t ever destitute, but getting Jason to the pros was a significant financial investment, and it never really occurred to my parents to save anything for me.
I didn’t want to add a computer to my loan burden when there was a perfectly good lab full of them at school. I guess that was short-sighted.
A tap on the door pulls me from the cardiovascular system and my financial pickle. Bernard pokes his head in. “Ella? Can I grab some stuff real quick?”
I glance at the clock. It’s not quite ten, but they must have had a short practice. Or maybe they have a game today. I haven’t kept up. “Yeah. Of course. Come in.”
Bernard edges the door open and pauses at the sight of me buried in textbooks. He's in jeans and a Henley with the sleeves shoved up his forearms, which are extremely muscular, a detail I absolutely do not need right now. "Studying?"
"Dying."
"That bad?"
I hold up my phone and show him the score: 54%. He winces. "The questions are asking me to identify the symptoms and treatments of different M.I.’s.”
He grabs a hoodie from the closet and leans against the doorframe. "Have you eaten?"
"I had coffee."
"That's not food. Come with me to Gianna's and fuel up. You can study there."
I rest a hand on my stomach, which growls at his mention of Gianna’s food. "Fine."
Gianna’s Meatball Joint is a fifteen-minute walk from the apartment, tucked into a block of converted row houses with a faded hand-painted sign above the door. Inside, it's warm and smells like garlic and delicious, savory food, looking all cottage-core with rustic wood and fancy old lighting.
“They’re not really open yet, but Gianna lets the Fury come whenever.
” Bernard walks in like he owns the place, which, based on how much money he probably spends here, he functionally might.
A woman about our age with dark hair piled on top of her head emerges from the kitchen and points a wooden spoon at him.
"Howie. Sit. You want the usual?"
"Please. And whatever she wants." He gestures at me. “Gianna, this is Rookie’s baby sister. Ella.”
Gianna turns her attention to me and does a full scan. Her eyes move quickly, the way another woman sizes you up when you show up with a man she knows well. "This is the baby sister?"
"Ella," I say, extending my hand.
She shakes it. Firm grip, calloused palms. “You caused quite a stir with Thing 1 and Thing 2.”
I roll my eyes, liking her description of my brother and his lifelong best friend. “Yeah, well, most of that is due to Jason being an idiot.”
"Mm-hm." She looks at Bernard with an odd expression. "Your usual plus a meatball sub for the lady. Sit down."
We take a corner table, and I spread my books out while Bernard gets us water from the metal carafe. It's quiet—too early for the lunch rush, too late for breakfast. The restaurant is empty except for a kitchen worker unstacking chairs and the distant clatter of pans.
"Okay," Bernard says, pulling my review book toward him. "Cardiac symptoms. Walk me through it."
I stare at him. "Right now?"
"You've got the book. I've got nowhere to be. Rookie's doing photos for the beef jerky people until like four." He flips to the chapter on cardiac electrophysiology and turns the book to face me. "SA node. Go."
I take a breath. "The sinoatrial node generates the impulse. It's the pacemaker. Sends the signal through the atria—"
"Which contract?"
He talks me through the whole thing, and I’m surprised when the answers flow from my mind readily. I’m not even distracted or anxious. Bernard grins. "See? You just nailed it."
I stare at him. I did just nail it. The same sequence I scrambled on my phone this morning came out clean and in order.
"It's easier when you ask me," I say, and the realization sits funny in my tummy. "On the test, the words get jumbled. The options all look the same. But when someone asks me out loud, I just ... know it."
"Then we do it out loud." He says this like it's obvious, like the solution to my lifelong testing problem is simply Bernard Houser asking the questions. "Every morning, every night. We quiz until you can do it in your sleep."
Gianna appears with two plates: a mountain of meatballs in red sauce for him, a sub overflowing with the same for me. She sets Bernard's down and raises an eyebrow. "Look at you hydrating responsibly."
"It's ten thirty, Gianna."
"That's never stopped you before." She pats his shoulder and disappears.
I frown at the space. “She really doesn’t mind if you come in here before lunch?”
Bernard has his mouth full already. He chews a bit and says, behind his fist, “She comes in early to prep catering orders and such.”
I bite into the sub and almost groan. The meatball is perfect—tender, garlicky, the sauce rich and tangy against the crusty bread. Bernard watches me eat with an expression of open satisfaction, like feeding me is a personal accomplishment.
"Okay," I say, after swallowing. "I have a question that's not about cardiac conduction."
He picks up a meatball with his fork. "Shoot."
"When do we start the other lessons?"
Bernard's fork freezes halfway to his mouth. A flush crawls up his neck—actual, visible red—and he glances toward the kitchen, then the door, then back at me. "Maybe not the best place to discuss the, uh, curriculum."
"Nobody's here, Bernard."
"Gianna has ears like a bat."
"I'm not proposing we do it on the table. I'm asking when."
He puts the fork down. The flush has reached his ears. This enormous, confident hockey player who has reportedly slept with half of Pittsburgh's fangirls is blushing at the mere mention of sex with me. I find this deeply satisfying.
"Today," he says, and his voice drops. "If you want. Rookie's out until four."
The meatball sub suddenly requires all of my attention. I take a very deliberate bite and chew slowly, aware that my own face is doing something I can't control. “That works."
We finish lunch in a state of heightened awareness. Every time our fingers brush, reaching for napkins, I feel it in my spine. He pays the check, and I don't argue because I am saving all my argumentative energy for other things.
The walk back to the apartment feels like three hours. The elevator ride is silent. He unlocks the door. The apartment is empty, quiet except for the fridge humming and a barge horn from the river.
Bernard closes the door behind us and stands in the entryway, suddenly looking less like a confident sex tutor and more like a man who has realized he agreed to teach a woman about intimacy and maybe didn't think through the logistics.
"So," he says.
"So."
"Do you want to… should we… the couch?"
"Not your bed?"
"That's your room right now. I don't want you to feel like I'm—it should be somewhere neutral. Where you're not sleeping." He rubs the back of his neck. "The couch is neutral."
I sit down on the ten-thousand-dollar leather monstrosity. It's enormous, wide enough for both of us, deep enough to lie down. I understand now why Jason spent this much on a sofa. It's the size of a small country.
Bernard perches beside me, leaving a careful gap. He angles his body toward mine, and I'm struck by how large he is this close. The breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of his thighs, the way his hands rest on his knees like he's not sure what to do with them.
"Okay," he says. "So. First thing. Tell me what you've done before."
"Done?"
"Kissing, touching, whatever. So I know where to start."
I consider lying. Inflating my experience into something less humiliating. But Ella Rujkowski didn't survive nursing clinicals by bullshitting her assessments, so I tell the truth.
"I've been kissed. Four times, by three different people. Two of them were terrible. One was at a party, and I think he was trying to reach my tonsils. The third was nice, but we were interrupted by my brother threatening to disembowel him."
Bernard closes his eyes briefly. "Of course he did."
"I've never been touched. Below the neck, I mean. Or above the knee. I've never—" I stop. Regroup. "I haven't done anything, Bernard. That's the whole point."
He doesn't flinch. He doesn't look pitying, surprised, or excited. He just nods, like I've told him my blood type. Like he’s the triage nurse and this is information he needs to do his job well.
"Can I touch you?" he asks.
"That's why we're here."
"I know. But I'm asking."
Something shifts in my veins. "Yes."
He moves closer, eliminating the gap between us. His right hand comes up, and I brace for—I don't know what. Something aggressive, maybe. Something that matches his reputation.
Instead, his fingertips brush my jaw.
Just that. The pads of his fingers, tracing the line of my jaw from my chin to the soft spot below my ear. His touch is so light I almost can't feel it, and yet my entire body responds, a wave of heat that starts where his skin meets mine and spreads downward.
"Breathe," he says quietly.