Chapter Two #2
Mom pops into my head the way she does when I feel trouble’s breath on my neck.
Some old ghost of a program grinds to life on my mental hard drive, making me wish she’d come back for me.
When I first moved here, she and Dad weren’t living too far away.
I knew Dad wouldn’t want her to reach out, but it’s a small town.
Every time I went to the grocery store, I’d watch for her face, sure I’d see her sooner or later. But I never did.
Eventually, I understood that Liz was the only family I had here. The only family I had, period.
“I think…” Liz looks out the window, answering the things I’ve left unsaid. “I think our friendship may be the only thing you truly care about. And that’s not good for you.”
Ah. I see. I roll from my butt to my knees, full of the ignominy of having leaned on her too hard. She’s got a husband, a baby on the way, a job she loves, and a hobby I don’t share. I only have her. It’s wildly uneven, and I’m embarrassed I didn’t see it until now.
“Sorry, babe. I’m putting too much pressure on you.”
“Don’t do that. I didn’t say it wasn’t good for me.
I said it wasn’t good for you . You need something, Stellar.
You have so much love and drive and heart , and nowhere to put them.
I don’t want to say gig work is killing you, because you’ll argue medical definitions and I’ll lose.
” She rolls her eyes. “But it’s bad for you, what you’re doing.
It’s like you don’t feel anything anymore. ”
Liz is the best person I know. She’s unflinchingly honest and—she’d hate that I think this—fantastic at spreadsheets. I thought she understood I can’t give myself to another job the way I gave myself to medicine and then lose another part of me when it all ends.
If I burn through another job, it needs to be one I don’t love.
“I don’t mind gig work. I give it time, it gives me money, fair tra—”
“Aaaahhhhh,” she yells, in the rudest, most unhinged interruption I’ve ever seen her make by a factor of a thousand. “This argument is not about late-stage capitalism! It’s about you! I fucking know you, Stellar. Can you listen for one damn—Oh. Oh!”
She stands up, eyes wide, touching the back of her gray leggings. “My water—”
“—broke,” I finish. “You nerd. Have you been having contractions this whole time?”
“I thought they were Braxton-Hicks. I didn’t want to overcall it again.” Her eyes fly wide. “Tobin! He’s at—”
“I’ll call him.”
“There’s no cell signal in camp,” she wails. “All they have is a two-way radio in the van.”
“Liz. I’ve got this. Go get changed; I’ll find Tobin. I’ll drive up there myself if I have to. We have time, I promise.”
She has a couple of hours, I’m pretty sure. The person who’s out of time is me. The Love Boat needs a replacement for her husband starting right now, and I promised my friend I’d do it if they couldn’t find anyone else. My ride-or-die friend, who I’d do anything for.
Even this.
“ DIZ! ” The front door slams open much sooner than it would have if Tobin had respected the speed limit.
“We’re upstairs! Baby still inside! Nobody panic,” I shout back, popping the last screw cover into place and sliding the crib against the buttery-yellow wall. Perfect. Maybe in the fall, I can moonlight as a furniture assembler while I do a hospitality management certificate.
Tobin skids through the nursery door, sweat glistening at his hairline. “Is it time to go? I think it’s time. Stellar, it’s time, right? Did we pack a bag? Oh my god, the bag!”
Liz levers herself painfully out of the chair and falls into Tobin’s arms like he’s the only person who can comfort her, even though I’ve been coaching her through contractions for twenty-five minutes.
It’s fine. Nobody was under the illusion a baby wouldn’t change our friendship.
I’m here to make sure we weather the transition.
“Do you need to lie down? Walk around? Backrub?” Tobin unthinkingly slides a hand under the back of Liz’s shirt. Although I’ve seen her fully naked and then some, I spin away at the raw intimacy of it.
I’ll put together the bedding and get out of here.
Someone lifts the mattress as I reach for it. Someone whose thick, callused knuckles lead to a broad, weathered palm and on to bluntly powerful forearms dusted with freckles.
McHuge’s startled eyes find mine. Pop; lock. An unguarded look crosses his face, like a summer cloudburst: there, then gone. I pull back, barely managing to avoid touching his hand with mine. There’s a little stutter in his arm movements, like he’d rather avoid me, too.
My fingers curl with the urge to smooth his crooked left brow, to go back in time and do a better job with finer sutures. I have good hands: small, nimble fingers, a nice touch with the freezing.
Or at least I used to.
I loved medicine for the same reason I loved whitewater: not necessarily being strong in my body, although I was, but being smart and strategic.
Knowing how to read a situation, knowing I could trust my judgment.
I learned to time the sedation so I could get a dislocated shoulder back in the joint right as the muscles relaxed.
I felt the moment when the sutures pulled just tight enough.
I look away first. Medicine and Lyle are both problems I don’t know how to solve, but my brain won’t stop turning them over and over, no matter how I will it to stop.
“What are you doing here, McHuge?” That was a bit abrupt; I make a whoops, sorry face at him. I can’t use that tone at work, not if he and I are going to be professional and cordial or whatever words he used to mean get over yourself .
He nods at Tobin. “My buddy lost his cool. Safer for me to drive.” He grabs the fitted sheet and expertly snaps it around the tiny mattress before slotting it into the crib.
I object to how sexy it is that he’s hardly paying attention while he does it.
Giving men extra credit for doing basic chores is so tired.
Mattress done, McHuge looks around, avoiding my eyes the way I should be avoiding his. “Is there a changing table?”
“Basement,” Tobin replies. “Under a few other boxes. Thanks, man.” Their brotherly camaraderie squeezes my heart to the point of pain, like a boob squished cruelly by a mammogram machine. Those two seem to be weathering the baby thing just fine.
McHuge’s voice drifts back as he heads downstairs. “Babe. Kitchen.” On the stairs, dog claws click reluctantly away.
I steel myself and turn to Tobin. “Liz’s hospital bag is packed and at your bedroom door. I’ll talk to McHuge about the job.”
“Oh, no. Stellar, no.” Liz surfaces from deep inside her husband’s embrace. “You don’t have to do that for me. Not necessary.”
Tobin meets my eyes over his pregnant wife’s head. Please , he mouths, when she’s not looking. He’s not the type to ask for favors, but he’s pretty convincing when he does.
“No, you were right. I thought about it while you were counting to ten over and over. It’ll be good. I’m excited.” My fist pump could be more convincing, but like Scully and Mulder, apparently Liz and Tobin want to believe.
Liz lets go of her husband and holds out her arms to me. “Thank you thank you thank you. I’m so happy for you. And it means everything that Tobin’s business is in good hands.” I have to lean way over her belly to hug her. She’s soft with pregnancy, warm like a sister in my arms.
“Take my truck for the summer. You’ll need it for hauling the boat trailer.
We have the baby seat in the Prius, anyway.
” Tobin smiles beatifically, visions of safely secured infants dancing in his head as he shoulders the bag stuffed with Liz’s e-reader and a couple of sets of pajamas I chose for their stain-hiding dark colors.
“McHuge and I will sort everything out. You two focus on having a baby.”
“You’re the best.” Liz blows a kiss over her shoulder as Tobin escorts her to the door.
“Try to remember that feeling when you’re naming my new nibling.” I wrinkle my nose. “On second thought, forget it. Give the kid a decent name.”
It’s quiet once they’re gone. I arrange an unbearably soft sleep sack across the mattress, waiting for McHuge to come back.
This job doesn’t have to be the place I put my heart, no matter what Liz says.
I could live at base camp, eat there, sublet my place, and save my entire salary.
I’ll stay professional with McHuge and stay away from being a doctor in anything but name.
The part of my life I lived in the outdoors—lost when I couldn’t afford the gear, the driving, the time off work—I can take back.
At the end of the summer, I’ll have a financial cushion big enough to protect the things I love.
And maybe I can bargain with Lyle for something more permanent.
McHuge eases through the nursery door with a changing table under one arm and the topper under the other, like it’s nothing.
Even beyond his sheer size, he fills a room.
Not by being loud or seeking attention; he has presence .
He had it onstage at Liz’s improv showcase last summer.
I was shitty to him, actually, almost heckling him.
Fully on my “I must save us from ourselves” bullshit.
We have a lot of problems to get past, but me being unwilling to apologize for my mistakes isn’t one of them. Besides, it’s not like I have to work hard to stay away from him anymore. He can do his half of that job.
“I’m sorry I ghosted you, Ly—McHuge. You were nothing but respectful, like you said. It was me, not you.”
Sure, I failed at long-term relationships and then he ruined hookups for me, and was I irrationally, unfairly mad about that? Yeah. Yeah, I was, but that wasn’t his fault.
“I had some stuff going on, but that’s an explanation, not an excuse. I can be professional if we’re going to work together.”
I hope like hell that’s the truth, because the one time I was alone in a room with him, I forgot myself completely. I let things get unbalanced. I didn’t keep myself safe. And when I realized what I’d done, I freaked out so hard I haven’t slept with anybody since.
Why couldn’t I have stuck with my usual type—weedy, unimposing nerds wearing androgynous glasses and not dancing to the songs everybody else liked?
Why, after so many friendly, forgettable hookups, is he the one who refuses to be ignored?
Usually I keep a vague memory—an impression of facial bones, a movement of hair.
Sometimes a first name. Rarely a last. But him?
I remember it all, and I’m fully aware of how dangerous that makes him.
When I can be trusted to make good choices, I can allow myself to get back out there. If I deny myself nice things, like Liz said, I have my reasons.
McHuge puts the table down at my blunt declaration, his crooked eyebrow rising. “So… you’re taking the job?”
“Hear me out first.” I take a bracing breath. “I will do everything in my power to make your company succeed. I can work hard. Like every-hour-of-the-day hard. But I’m not giving or nice the way you are. And you should know I left Grey Tusk General under less-than-ideal circumstances.”
He sobers up at this. “Were you fired?”
“No.”
“Were you right?”
“Yes.” I notice he doesn’t ask if I was kind.
“Well then.” He shrugs as if he can make the whole mess go away just like that.
“You shouldn’t hand over your trust so easily, McHuge. There are good reasons you should look for someone else.”
“But I want you,” he says simply, and my heart lurches hard enough that I have to look down. His voice is a slow eddy, calm and welcoming; I only imagined it held a rush of current.
“You need someone with an MD and whitewater experience in time for next week’s launch. I need stability. At the end of the summer, I want a chance to become an owner. Stock options for five percent of the Love Boat.”
“Ten percent,” he counters, without a second’s hesitation.
“Ten?!” His unexpected generosity makes me faintly nauseous. “Don’t you have to consult with lawyers? Or Tobin?”
“He’s on paternity leave. I have his proxy vote. You know he’d give you anything you asked for.”
“I asked for five.”
“I’d have given you fifteen.”
“You’re terrible at business,” I mutter. “No more freebies after I come on board.”
“Okay then. Welcome aboard, Stellar J.” He extends his hand, then seems to realize what he called me. A subtle flush backlights his cheeks beneath the freckles.
I take it as a good sign for our future working relationship that we shake firmly and let the moment pass.