Someone knocked on my door. Lieutenant Dan jumped up and started barking.
I was in my plant room journaling. It was almost nine p.m. Probably Jewel. My other two sisters had already been here in the last twenty-four hours.
I sighed, set my pen into the pages, and shut the notebook. I got up and opened the door to…Briana?
She had two suitcases, a cooler, a duffel, and an insulated shoulder bag. “Hey—”
“I’m moving in,” she said. “But just for a few months.” My grin ripped across my face. Instant happiness.
She came in carrying the duffel and the cooler, an excited Lieutenant Dan hopping around her feet.
“What’s in the cooler?” I asked.
“More Salvadorian food than you and I could ever eat. And it’s going to keep coming.”
I beamed as I took her luggage straight to my bedroom closet. I cleared out a space for her on the rack and consolidated a few drawers so she could have them.
I couldn’t even describe how happy I was to have her here. She would be the last person I saw before I went to bed and the first person I saw when I woke up.
I pictured my bathroom, steamy after her shower, smelling like her perfume and her shampoo. Her things scattered through my house. A sweater on the back of a chair. Her shoes by the door. Her lipstick on my cups. These little insignificant things that felt so huge and meaningful.
I came back down the hallway as she came out of the kitchen. “I managed to get it all to fit in the freezer,” she said.
She looked around the living room with hands on her hips. “I think it’ll fit here.”
“What will fit here?” “The air mattress.”
She began pulling a crumpled rubber wad and a black pump out of her duffel bag. My smile faded. I thought she would sleep in my room. In my bed. With me.
“You don’t have to sleep on the floor,” I said. “We can share my bed. It’s big enough.”
“No. I think it’s more appropriate if we don’t share a room.” “But we’ve done it before. And that bed was way smaller—” “It’s just better, Jacob.”
There was something final in her tone. She plugged in the pump and started blowing up the mattress while I watched, deflated.
Even when I was getting more, it was still not enough. It still wasn’t real. I stood there hoping the mattress wouldn’t fit. It did.
When she was done, she sat on the bed and gave it a little bounce.
I frowned at her. “Well, what are we going to do if someone knocks on the door?”
She shrugged. “I’ll just shove it in the plant room.” “And you think you can do this fast enough?”
“Sure.”
Then, almost on cue, someone knocked on the door. She looked at me and her eyes got wide. Then she bolted to her feet and grabbed the mattress.
She lifted it sideways. “Help me!” she whispered.
I crossed my arms. “Don’t you think you should be prepared to execute this plan on your own? I might not always be available. What if I was in the shower?”
“You’re not in the shower!” She was shuffling sideways, holding the clunky mattress against her legs.
“Well, we have to plan for the worst-case scenario, don’t we?” She knocked over a lamp. “Jacob!”
I was grinning. “Nope.”
She made a guttural shrieking noise and tipped over a planter. It fell sideways and dirt spilled onto the hardwood.
I started cracking up.
She squeezed down the hallway, knocking picture frames onto the floor the whole way to the plant room. It was so funny I didn’t even care she was leaving a path of destruction in her wake.
A moment later a door slammed, and she came back looking flustered. She stopped in front of me breathing hard, her ponytail crooked, and she jabbed a finger at my chest. “You and me? We are about to have our first fight.”
It was all I could do to try and keep my face straight. Someone knocked again.
She gave me a narrow-eyed glare and stomped to the door and opened it. It was Jewel.
“Hey! What a nice surprise!” Briana said, a little too brightly. “Come in!”
My sister stepped inside and paused to take in the scene. A lamp on the floor, frames all over the hallway, plant on its side, Briana’s hair a mess. I came up behind her and slipped an arm around her waist.
Jewel looked back at us. “Uh…what the hell are you guys doing in here?
Your house is trashed.”
Briana smoothed her hair down. “We were having sex. Things got a little wild.”
“You should see what she did to the bed,” I said. Briana snorted.
Jewel nodded slowly. “Okaaaay. Well, good. Gwen says you guys look sexually frustrated.”
Briana and I blanched in unison.
“Here’s the melon baller I borrowed. I’m gonna go now.” And she left. I turned to Briana after the door clicked closed.
I cleared my throat. “I’m not sexually frustrated,” I lied. “Well, I am,” she scoffed.
I felt heat rising up my neck. There was such an easy solution…
She crossed her arms. “I’m not talking to you for five minutes. I am very mad at you.”
“Am I getting the glitter?”
She sucked in air. “Thin ice, Maddox.”
My lip twitched and she tried not to smile, but she couldn’t help it.
She went to my room, presumably to unpack her bags into my closet. I grinned after her.
An hour later I was at the kitchen table with her, eating a plate of the food she brought. It was the best meal I’d had in as long as I could remember. Chicken thighs in a brothy sauce. Her mom was an excellent cook. “You said there’s going to be more of this?”
She pulled her knee up under her chin. “Jacob, double down on your deep-freezer space.”
I poked at my food a little. “I’m sorry you have to be here while your mom’s in town.”
“I don’t mind being here.”
I raised my eyes to her. “You don’t?”
“No. I totally don’t. It’ll be so fun. And we can carpool to work.” “We can finish watching Schitt’s Creek,” I said.
“And we can walk Lieutenant Dan together and do the sofa-shopping thing—this will be so good for Instagram. Also, I want you to know that I’m going to give you your space. If you need to disappear into the plant room or whatever, I totally understand.”
I doubted there would be much of that. I didn’t want to disappear when she was around. I wanted to be wherever she was.
I gave her a key, sheets, and a blanket and pillows for her bed. I set up the coffeepot like I always did for the next morning—only I made twice what I normally did, and even this small thing made me smile.
We’d be together all the time, in the same place. The idea of it made me feel elated.
I never thought I’d want that. I could never imagine wanting someone all the time. And even this wasn’t enough, because she was in the other room at night and not with me.
From this point on, and for the first time in my life, I slept with the door open.
For the next week we fell into a routine, and I was the happiest I’d ever been.
We bought a sofa. It wouldn’t be delivered for another week, but we drove the old armchairs up to the cabin anyway and spent the night. We went swimming off the dock and she made me practice the lift from Dirty Dancing with her, which meant I got to touch her, even though nobody was there to see it. Made my whole day. Then we dried off and walked to the restaurant and had dinner. She didn’t bring up the story I told her about me talking to her in the rain there. So she didn’t remember. It was just as well.
We came back after eating and sat in the armchairs in front of the fire talking until we couldn’t keep our eyes open.
Amy always said the cabin was boring because there weren’t any bars within walking distance or enough rooms for friends to stay with us. When I told Briana that, she’d looked at me confused and said, “How could it be boring when you’re here?”
I loved every minute we spent together. Every single minute.
Briana and I were back at work today. We had dinner with her mom and brother at my parents’ house tonight after we got off.
I stood across the ER, by the door of a patient room, watching Briana at the nurses’ station. She was sitting with Jocelyn, charting. Zander came over and stood next to me. “What are you doing?”
“Watching Briana. I sent her flowers. I’m waiting for them to get here.” “What’d you send her flowers for?”
I smiled. “She’s mad at me.” “For what?”
“She asked if I’d eat her if she were a gummy bear. I said yes.”
He guffawed and Briana looked up from her computer and narrowed her eyes at me. She gave me a thumbs-down and I laughed.
Zander eyed me. “This thing is still fake, right?” he said, his voice low. My smile fell the smallest bit. “Yes. It’s still fake.”
“Are you sure?”
I blew out a breath. “I asked her out a few weeks ago. She said no.”
“She said no?” He looked back at her. She glanced at me and shook her head, trying not to smile. “Well, are you gonna ask her again?”
“No. It’s not like my offer expired. If she changed her mind, she’d tell me. She doesn’t like me like that.”
He peered over at me. “Do you like her like that?” I was quiet for a beat. “Yeah. I do.”
I saw the flowers drifting down the hall and backed up a little into the doorway. The moment Briana looked over and realized they were for her was my shot of serotonin for the day. Her beautiful face lit up and she took the card from the stick and opened the envelope. I watched her read it and laugh. The card said,
Dearest Briana,
My deepest apologies. I clearly did not understand the assignment.
—J
She looked up and searched the room for me and she beamed at me when she saw me, and my heart was full.
I would give her this every day. I’d spend the rest of my life looking for ways to make her smile at me like that. I lived for it.
When she came over, everyone was watching us, as usual. I knew she’d put on a show. We couldn’t touch too much at work. PDA wasn’t permitted. So what we did here was act like we wanted to touch, but the rules wouldn’t allow it. She’d stand extra close to me, looking up at me like if we just
weren’t at work, she’d kiss me. I loved that the best. When she did that, it felt like she loved me back. I let myself pretend.
She stopped an inch shy from being able to hug me. “Zander,” she said, nodding at him. Then she crossed her arms and turned to me. “Thank you for the flowers, Dr. Maddox.”
“So you forgive me, then?” I grinned.
She shrugged playfully and looked away from me. “How about if I buy you dinner Saturday?” I asked. Her eyes slid back to mine. “I want Chinese food.” “Okay.”
“I get to place the order and you have to go get it.” “Sounds fair.”
She arched an eyebrow. “I’m going to order half the menu.” “Of course.”
We were leaning into each other, smiling.
“Dios mío, get a room,” Hector said, walking up.
We laughed a little and moved apart, but we didn’t break eye contact. We were so good at this.
It was hard to believe one of us was in love and the other one was just good at pretending.
“Hey, you got a patient asking for you in room three,” Hector said to Briana.
Briana gave me one last flirty look. “Duty calls,” she said, jogging backward. “I’ll see you at lunch.”
I watched her, grinning like an idiot, until she disappeared beyond the sliding glass doors of room three.
“And you’re sure it’s fake…” Zander said. My smile fell.
“I’m sure.” For her, anyway.
We were just friends. This would all end in a few weeks after the wedding. And my heart broke every single day thinking about it.
The wedding was in four weeks. Benny’s kidney transplant was in five. I figured we’d probably keep up appearances for a few weeks after that. Then that would be it.
That would be all.
I went back to work.
Hector came back over ten minutes later while I was reading a chart. “Hey, some pendejo’s making a move on your girl.”
I looked up. “What?”
“Yeah, he’s all over there like, ‘Give me your number, let’s catch up.’” I stared at him. “Did she give him her number?”
“Yeah. Guess she knows him or something? I’m tellin’ you, you better get over there. That guy’s all over her and she’s into it. And he’s hot too. I mean, not as hot as you, but, like, pretty damn close.”
For a long moment, I looked at the door of the room she was in. Then I set down the chart and forced myself not to run.
