TWENTY-EIGHT
JORDIE
Today marks two weeks since the almost-kiss that’s been living rent-free in my head, rearranging the furniture and repainting the walls. Three weeks of analyzing, obsessing, and wondering if Callum even remembered it. Registered it.
My therapist from years ago, who wore chunky jewelry and exclusively spoke in metaphors, would’ve had a field day with this.
She thought she’d solved me like a particularly tricky Sudoku puzzle.
Being told I had a “fear of attachment” felt less therapeutic and more like podcasting my red flags back to me.
“You don’t let people in,” she’d said. “You self-sabotage and anticipate abandonment to avoid being surprised by it.”
Cool. So now, I’m emotionally clairvoyant and bad at dating. Love that for me.
Anyway, I ghosted her after three sessions, so . . . point Jordie.
“Hey, Jordie,” Nurse Jenny greets. “We’re running a bit behind. Would you like some juice and biscuits while you wait?”
“I’m good. Thanks,” I say, plastering on a polite smile while my stomach does a slow roll.
Usually yum, snacks. But today? The thought of a crumb makes me want to hurl.
Thanks, pill-induced nausea.
I shift in the faux-leather chair. My thighs peel off the material with an audible shluck. There’s a book on my lap that I’ve just been staring at. The cover stares back, judging me for not cracking it open. Some woman in a corset, standing in a windswept field, gazing mournfully into the distance.
Unfortunately, even doomed heroines in bonnets can’t compete with my new full-time hobby: overthinking.
Maybe it’s just me, rewinding every nanosecond, looking for proof of something that was probably never there. Maybe for him, it was nothing. A blink-and-move-on moment.
I mean, he’s been completely normal. No weird pauses. No lingering stares. No casual, maybe-on-purpose brushes of skin.
Just Callum being Callum—calm, steady, perfectly fine.
While I’m over here drafting thesis-length essays on what it means every time he so much as clears his throat.
Which probably means it meant nothing.
To distract myself, I drag Common Sense out of hiding and start listing all the reasons Callum and I are impossible:
Jordie, he’s your friend.
He just got out of a long-term relationship.
His parents want grandkids. STAT.
You’re not Chinese.
You can’t have kids.
You have enough baggage to sink the Titanic.
I scrub a hand down my face hard enough to erase a layer of skin—then freeze.
You know that stupid thing people say? Say someone’s name three times and they appear.
I didn’t even say his name. I just thought about him. Really hard. And now, there he is.
Callum. Every inch of him composed, maddeningly perfect.
Laptop tucked under his arm, and scrubs rumpled just enough to look effortlessly charming, like the man has never known a bad angle in his life.
There’s a looseness to him—easy, comfortable—that shouldn’t be making my stomach flip traitorously.
Keep it together, Jordie, Common Sense shouts.
One second, his face is all serious edges and unreadable, but then his eyes find mine, and dammit, his whole face lights up and smiles.
“Ugh,” I mutter, sinking lower as he strolls over.
Callum drags a chair beside me. “Don’t ‘ugh’ me.”
I shoot him a flat look. “Texting you about my iron infusion was a courtesy, not an invitation to drop everything and show up. Don’t you have actual patients?”
“I delegated.” He shrugs, flips open his laptop, and settles in as if he’s got nowhere else he’d rather be.
“Callum, it’s an iron top-up. You don’t need to be here. And, for the love of God, don’t fight anyone. I actually like the people here.”
He grins, unbothered. “Hey, the receptionists love me. Helga gave me her apple muffin last week.”
“Because she was done with it and didn’t want to walk to the bin.” I roll my eyes. “You’re basically the clinic’s pet stray. Showing up looking all handsome and hungry. How could Helga resist?”
“Pity muffin or not, it was free. And for the record,” he says, voice dropping into that register that I want to crawl under and live in for the rest of my natural life, “I want to be there for you. For the big stuff and the small stuff.”
And because deflecting is my superpower, I roll my eyes and say, “I can handle things by myself.”
“I know that.” His voice is quiet but certain, like it’s not up for debate.
It knocks something loose in my chest.
“You’re one of the most capable people I know,” he adds, softer. “Never doubted that for a second.”
Before I can feel my cheeks go traitorously red, Nurse Jenny breezes in with a tray. “Hey, Jordie. Liam’s just finishing up. He’ll be over in five to get your IV started.”
Relief washes through me. Bless Liam and his magical vein-finding skills.
Liam and I met back in undergrad during a surgical placement. We bonded over stealing TimTams from the doctors’ lounge and our mutual hatred of waking up before sunrise. We’ve been friends ever since.
Jenny catches my expression and grins. “Figured you’d prefer him. You’re a tough stick.”
“Yeah, well. Liam’s the vein whisperer,” I mutter.
She heads off just as I glance toward the nurse’s station, just in time to catch Liam leaning against the desk, beach curls and perpetual surfer-boy vibes, flashing me a sheepish wave. He mouths, Sorry, and holds up five fingers to signal he’ll be over soon.
Next to me, Callum snorts, his gaze following mine toward Liam.
“Is that why you come here?” His voice drops low, teasing. “The blond with the hands?”
I blink. “What?”
“Because he knows how to stick you?”
“I’m a difficult cannulation,” I splutter. “Liam gets me first go.”
“Oh,” Callum says lightly, like I haven’t just told him I have a favorite man for penetrating me with sharp objects. “Does he now?”
Callum shuts his laptop and stands, rolling his sleeves in a way that makes my stomach flip for reasons I definitely don’t want to acknowledge. He strolls over to the IV tray, eyeing it with the confidence of a man who’s about to make a point.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
My eyes narrow as he picked up a cannula with a look that says he’s absolutely going through with this.
“Sticking you—” he winks, “—the right way.”
Fuck. Me. Dead.
He grins. The snap of gloves makes my pulse perform a cartwheel and land in a split. Suddenly, I’m painfully aware that my bra is too tight, the chair is too warm, and I am not emotionally equipped for forearm porn and medical kink in the same fiscal quarter.
“Callum. Put. The tourniquet. Down,” I hiss through clenched teeth.
But he’s already wrapping it around my arm with clinical precision and deeply un-clinical eye contact. I should slap his hand away. Should not be this turned on by light vascular compression.
“Liam’s on his way,” I protest.
“Good. He can watch,” Callum says, his smirk deepening as he taps his fingers lightly against my arm, coaxing the vein to pop. The gentle, rhythmic pressure is somehow both methodical and distractingly intimate. “Maybe even take notes.”
Callum’s fingers brush over my arm as he swabs the area with antiseptic, the coolness sharp against my skin in contrast to his warmth.
“Relax,” he says, his thumb rubbing slow, hypnotic circles over the inside of my elbow. “For me.”
For me.
I open my mouth with absolutely no idea what I’m trying to say, but Callum’s already moving. Needle in. Flashback. Catheter advanced. Saline flushed. Dressing smoothed down with a firm press.
Done.
I feel weirdly floaty, like the saline went straight to my brain instead of the IV.
Behind him, Liam appears, brows lifted.
“Oh.” His gaze flicks to my arm. “Cannula’s done?”
“All done.” Callum steps back, peeling his gloves off with smug, surgical satisfaction.
He leans down, close enough I forget how to breathe. “Next time, Jordie, don’t let anyone stick you unless they know precisely what they’re doing.”
His phone buzzes. He glances once. Smiles. Winks. “Gotta go. Patient.”
With that, he straightens, takes his laptop, and walks off, leaving me with a wildly beating heart, an infuriatingly perfect cannula, and absolutely no chance of convincing myself that was just friendly concern.
Common Sense doesn’t even show up this time.
Bitch left the building.