Chapter Twenty-One Everleigh
Chapter Twenty-One
Everleigh
As I finish dictating notes into my phone, there’s a knock at my office door.
“Come in,” I call, dragging my feet off the desk and sitting up straight as Jamie pokes her head inside.
“Oh.” I smile. “Hi.”
“Steph said you were done for the day. Do you have a minute?”
I nod. “Absolutely. Is this about Will?”
Jamie closes the door. “Uh, no. Why? Is something up with Will?”
“He popped in earlier. No big deal.”
Except, we kissed!
I swallow my excitement and clear my throat so I don’t say those words aloud. “Have a seat.” I nod at the chair.
“Thanks. I wanted to let you know that I’m looking for temporary work, but I don’t want to travel. So if you ever need help, or if any of your nurses have vacations planned, I’d love to fill in.”
“Sure. That would be great. Why have you decided to stay in town? I thought you loved the travel nurse gig.”
“I do, but my circumstances have changed.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“It’s why they pay me the big bucks.”
Jamie curls her hair behind her ears and rolls her eyes. “True. Well, I’m pregnant, but we’re not telling anyone yet.”
I grip the side of my chair and smile.
Jamie focuses on my hands for a second. “You have to keep it a secret, but you don’t have to hold in your reaction.”
“Yes!” I jump out of my chair. “Congratulations. I’m so happy for you two.”
She stands, and I hug her.
“Thank you.”
“Does Fitz know? Maren? Am I the first to know?”
Jamie giggles. “Fitz knows. That’s it.”
I release her, trying to control myself.
Me!
She’s telling me before Maren or Will. I think I’ve arrived.
“We should celebrate. Can I take you to dinner?”
“Oh, no,” Jamie stumbles over her words. “That’s unnecessary.” She bats a hand at me and then straightens her cream, puffy-sleeved blouse.
I lace my fingers behind my back. “Fitz probably wants to see you.”
“He’s in Idaho.”
“Then I’m taking you to dinner. That’s what friends do. Right?”
She eyes me before offering a slow nod. “I suppose.”
I slide my laptop into my tote and then loop my arm around hers to head to dinner.
We decide to meet at a farm-to-table eatery in a nineteenth-century building on West Main Street. The server fills our water glasses and gives us a few minutes to look over the menu.
“Why did Will stop by to see you today?” Jamie asks as we study the menus.
“Are you asking me as Will’s friend or mine?” I peek over my menu, and Jamie does the same.
“Does it matter?”
I slowly nod.
She closes her menu and sets it on the table. “If I ask him, what will he tell me?”
“Will’s unpredictable, which is unfortunate.” I refocus on the menu. “But I imagine he’d tell you I hired someone to clean his house, and that particular someone woke him up. So, instead of calling or texting, he made a trip to visit me in person.”
Jamie hums before nodding. “I see. So he was mad?”
“At first.”
“How did you calm him down?”
“I’m a psychiatrist. How do you think I calmed him down?
” I narrow my eyes because I’m an exceptional doctor with a slightly inflated ego.
But, like all doctors, I’m a terrible patient who deflects and often relies on passive-aggressive behavior.
The psychiatrist in me would say it’s my age, the part of emotional intelligence that can’t be rushed like one’s general cognitive ability.
“You drugged him?”
I snort. “If only he were that compliant.”
Jamie giggles. “So what did you do?”
“He would tell you I dismissed his concerns when I offered a better solution.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.” I smirk.
“I think Maren is intimidated by you,” Jamie says. “I used to be too. I mean, you’re an actual genius, not like Fitz giving me orgasms by looking at me the right way.”
“Did you get pregnant from a glance across a crowded room?” It’s a giddy feeling to talk with someone close to my age about boys. I missed this part of growing up.
“It was a photo that another smoke jumper took of him carrying his gear to the pickup spot after containing a fire. Rugged and dirty.” She winks before sipping her water.
“I remember meeting a sexy firefighter when I was younger.”
Jamie’s smile falters, and I’m reminded that she’s Will’s friend more than mine.
“Can I put this into perspective?” I ask.
“What’s that?”
“Will and I. I was one month from turning eighteen when we met my second year of medical school. I never lied about my age, but no, I didn’t tell him I was seventeen.
And I don’t know what he’s told you, but it wasn’t a single night of intoxication and lust. It was more.
There was an emotional connection before we had sex.
I got food poisoning the night of the rehearsal dinner, and he took me home, stopping by the store on the way to get every remedy imaginable. ” I grin, and so does Jamie.
“Will made it his personal mission to have me ready to walk down the aisle on time without Victoria, the bride, knowing how close I’d come to leaving her short one bridesmaid.
He could have walked away. I begged him to.
He witnessed me at my worst before he knew if I was good at sex.
Really, before either of us knew.” I chuckle.
“It wasn’t”—I shake my head—“nothing. It wasn’t everything either, at least not to him.
But it was something.” I inhale a deep breath and slide my fingers under my legs, feeling vulnerable and desperate for someone to see it from my point of view.
“I fell first. I fell hard. And when Will found out about my age, he ran too fast for me to catch him. So then I did what any young woman in my shoes would have done.”
“What’s that?”
“I obsessed over him for more than a decade.”
Jamie laughs.
With a shy grin, I rest my crossed arms on the edge of the table, waiting for her to look at me again. “When you came to Missoula and worked for me, I knew you wanted to make friends and just fit in.”
She nods once.
“That’s all I’ve wanted my whole life.”
“Then, as your friend, I have to give you some good advice.” She glances at her phone before sliding it into her tote. “Let Will go. No more obsessing. He’ll crush you because he’s still a boy who can’t understand the fragility of a young woman’s heart falling in love for the first time.”
I don’t react. She doesn’t know I kissed that boy earlier today, and my heart can’t let him go.