CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
“Right! My sisters,” Jack says, leaning back. “I have three of them, and they’d eat you alive but in the nicest way.” He grins at the memory. “Emma—my middle sister—actually had a shot at making it on the Black Ferns.”
“The Black Ferns?”
“New Zealand women’s national rugby team. Absolute legends. She broke her arm in a scrimmage but walked around with it broken for a week just so she wouldn’t miss the tryout.” He shakes his head. “Mum nearly had a coronary when she found out.”
“Did she make the team?”
“Probably would have, if the medics hadn’t spotted the fracture during physicals.
Although I don’t think they held that against her.
She coaches youth rugby now. Says it’s less painful.
” He takes a sip of wine. “My youngest sister, Lily, is finishing her PhD in marine biology—living your dream, actually. And the oldest, Charlotte, she runs the business side of things back home with my dad.”
“And you became a paramedic.”
“Black sheep of the family.” His smile’s self-deprecating. “Though Lily backs me up. Says at least I’m doing something useful instead of ‘perpetuating the global network of capital.’”
I laugh. “She sounds fun.”
“She’s a terror. You’d love her.” He pauses. “Hmm. Think American coffee’s basically dishwater—present company’s red-eyes excluded. Oh, and I make a mean pavlova.”
“Pavlova?”
“Meringue dessert. National treasure back home. I’ll make you one sometime.”
The casual future tense makes my stomach flip.
“Your turn,” he says. “Secret talents?”
“I could put an IV in the back of a rock if I had to. Uhm. I can quote ‘The Princess Bride’ entirely. Once I delivered a baby in a casino bathroom stall.”
“Story there?”
“Lady thought it was heartburn from the buffet. Turned out to be labor. Security helped me carry her out while she was still attached to her newborn by the umbilical cord.”
“Brilliant.” He’s laughing, really laughing. “What else?”
“I read romance novels voraciously. The smuttier, the better. Have a secret Instagram for plant photos. I have to buy the 50% off flowers at Lowe’s; can’t keep any of them alive, but I do it anyway.
Oh, and I might have a tiny crush on the new paramedic who’s been calling on the radio and keeps bringing me coffee. ”
The words are out before I can stop them. Wine on an empty stomach—rookie mistake.
“Tiny?” His voice drops half an octave.
“Microscopic.”
“That’s why you announced I’d asked you out in front of half the ER?”
“Pure self-defense.”
“Right.” He leans forward slightly. “And the accent comment?”
“Temporary insanity.”
“Which makes this the second occurrence.”
I throw my napkin at him. He catches it, grinning.
“For what it’s worth,” he says, handing it back, “I transferred to 402 because of you.”
I freeze. “What?”
“Not in a creepy way. Just…Station 5 was too quiet. Not enough challenges. Not enough…opportunities.”
“Opportunities?”
“To bring you coffee. Hear your voice. Watch you orchestrate controlled chaos like you’re conducting a symphony.”
“Jack…”
“I know. Workplace dynamics. Recent divorce. Single mum. Complications everywhere.” He reaches across the table, touches my hand lightly. “But maybe complicated’s worth it?”
I turn my hand over, let our fingers tangle briefly. “Maybe it is.”
The food arrives, breaking the moment. But something’s shifted. This isn’t pretend anymore.
Maybe it never was.
We eat, we talk, we laugh. He tells me about a sheep farmer who thought he was having a heart attack but had actually been kicked by a ram in a very sensitive area.
“Wait, wait,” I’m crying with laughter. “He called 911 for that?”
“111 in New Zealand, but yeah. Thought his chest pain was cardiac. Turns out the ram got him in the wedding tackle and the pain radiated up.” Jack’s accent gets thicker when he’s storytelling. “Poor bloke was mortified when we worked it out.”
“What gave it away?”
“The hoof-shaped bruise on his nethers.” He’s laughing too now. “He made us promise not to tell his wife. Apparently, she’d warned him about that particular ram.”
I tell him about the time Madison tried to set me up with her soccer coach, not realizing he was married to the assistant coach—who was also a man.
“She was so embarrassed. Kept apologizing to both of them for weeks.”
“Smart kid, though. Good instincts about you needing to date.”
“She’s too smart. Tonight she basically told me to stop overthinking and just feel things. Used Chappell Roan lyrics as a therapy session.”
“The youth of today,” he says solemnly. “Wise beyond their years.”
“She likes you, by the way. Or at least the idea of you.”
His eyes light up. “Yeah?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late. Fifteen-year-old approval is the gold standard.”
The waiter clears our plates, offers dessert. We order tiramisu to share, more wine. The restaurant’s emptying around us.
“Rodriguez is going to win that bet,” I say.
“Good. He’ll be insufferable otherwise.”
“This is nice,” I say, surprised by my own honesty. “I forgot what this felt like.”
“What?”
“Just…talking to someone. Not about patients or schedules or custody arrangements. Just…talking.”
His thumb brushes over my knuckles. “We can do more of this. If you want.”
“I’d like that.”
The tiramisu arrives. We share it, trading bites and stories. He teaches me how to swear in Māori (“But only for emergencies,” he warns), and I teach him the proper way to handle Tasha (“Agree with her, then do whatever you were going to do anyway”).
“Jack?” I say as the waiter brings our check. “This doesn’t have to be complicated.”
“No?”
“No. It can just be…this. Whatever this is.”
“And what is this?”
I think about Madison’s words, about feelings and letting things be real.
“I don’t know yet,” I admit. “But I want to find out.”
He smiles, that slow, warm thing that made me notice his accent in the first place. “Me too.”
We close the place down. He walks me to my car, hands in his pockets like he’s keeping them from reaching for me. The night air is cool, and I shiver slightly in my dress.
“Cold?” He’s already shrugging out of his jacket.
“I’m fine—”
But he’s draping it over my shoulders, and it smells like him, and I’m definitely not fine in the best possible way.
“This was…” I start.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “It was.”
“Same time next week?”
“Tomorrow, if you want. I’m on call ‘till three, but as long as…” He shrugs.
“I’ve got Madison tomorrow. Soccer game.”
“Sunday?”
“Sunday works.”
He steps closer, and I think he’s going to kiss me. Want him to so badly. But he just reaches up, tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Goodnight, Sophia.”
“Night, Jack.”
I drive home in a daze, wearing his jacket, face warm where his fingers brushed. My phone’s buzzing with texts—Maria, Nathan, probably half the ER—but I ignore them all.
Madison’s right. Some things are worth feeling, even if they’re terrifying.
Especially then.
I pull into my driveway, sit in the dark for a moment. Tomorrow I’ll have to face the gossip, the knowing looks, the complications.
But tonight?
Tonight I went on a date with a kind man who makes me laugh. Who brings me coffee. Who transferred to a busier station just for more chances to see me. Who orders excellent wine and tells stories that make me forget I’m supposed to be careful.
Who looks at me like I’m more than just someone’s ex-wife, someone’s mother, someone’s nurse.
Like I’m just Sophia.
And that’s terrifying.
And perfect.
And real.