He returned and set a plate on the armrest. The chicken cordon bleu Gabe had made looked and smelled fantastic, but I suddenly wasn’t sure if I could keep anything down. Oh, this was going to be a fun week.
Shahid watched me for a moment. Then he set his plate aside and looked me in the eye. “Can I ask you something personal?”
I shrugged. Why the hell did my shoulders hurt? I was on my period, not recovering from a goddamned rock climb. “Sure.”
He eyed me. “Have your periods always been like this?”
“Since I was thirteen. It’s why I went on the pill in the first place.”
His eyebrows rose. “They’ve always been this bad?”
I nodded.
“Has anyone ever tried to figure out why?”
“My doctor said some girls have more pain than others.”
He pursed his lips. “There comes a point when pain is a sign that something’s wrong.”
I searched his eyes for any sign of alarm, but he had a hell of a poker face. “Do you think something is wrong?”
“It’s not my area of expertise,” he said softly. “But speaking as a medical professional, I would really recommend getting checked out. You know, to make sure there isn’t anything going on.”
“Fair enough.” I adjusted the heating pad and winced as every muscle protested. “Maybe I should go see my doctor anyway. If I’m going to have a baby, it might not hurt to be proactive. Make sure everything’s up to date and I’m healthy.”
Shahid nodded. “Good idea.”
“Okay. Now can we please stop talking about my period?”
He laughed and squeezed my shoulder. “Sorry. It’s hard to turn off the medical professional sometimes.”
“He’s not joking,” Gabe muttered.
“Right.” Shahid threw him a side-eye. “This from the man who uses his teacher voice on the freeway.”
“I do not!”
“Yes you do!” I laughed even though it hurt.
Gabe’s cheeks colored.
“It’s okay.” I waved my hand. “I do it too.”
“Damn right you do,” he grumbled.
Shahid laughed. “So, do you guys want to watch a movie or something tonight?”
“A movie sounds great.” I slid my papers back into my briefcase and then balanced my plate on my knee.
“I’m in.” Gabe picked up the remote. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.”
“No comedy, please. Laughing hurts.”
“Well, we could watch a Sandler movie.” Shahid shrugged. “It’s a comedy, but it isn’t funny, so you won’t laugh.”
And of course, that made me laugh. “Asshole,” I muttered.
“Sorry.”
“Sure you are.”
“Okay, so no comedy,” Gabe said. “Anyone in the mood for horror?” He scrolled up the alphabet.
As he neared “C”, I glared at him. “I’m warning you. If you put on Carrie—”
Shahid choked on his drink.
“You deserved that.”
“She’s right,” Gabe said.
“Hey!”
“Just saying.” He shrugged and kept scrolling. “Oh, how about something stupid. Critters?”
“Hell yes, Critters,” I said.
“I’m in,” Shahid said.
“Critters, it is.” Gabe selected it, and as the movie loaded, we got comfortable on the couch. As comfortable as I could anyway. God bless the guys, though—they were extra careful not to jar me as they settled in.
We made small talk while we ate, and once they’d taken the dishes into the kitchen and we were lounging—sort of—on the couch, Gabe hit Play on the movie.
As the opening credits started, it occurred to me that both guys been nothing but sweet and gentle this whole time. Most guys I’d been with saw my time of the month as an inconvenience for them. Something gross that wasn’t to be discussed, and something annoying that interfered with our sex life. Not Gabe and Shahid. Granted, these two could still sleep with each other if I was out of commission, so it wouldn’t hurt their sex life all that much. Still, they’d reacted with concern and sympathy more than anything. No annoyance. No rolling their eyes and acting like I was just being a wimp. In fact, Shahid was concerned enough to make me nervous—I definitely needed to put in a call to my doctor.
I adjusted the heating pad.
Shahid lifted his arm a little and looked at me. “Comfortable?”
“Mmhmm.”
He kissed my temple, then rested his arm on my shoulders again, and I leaned against him.
And as the movie started, I couldn’t help wondering for the millionth time…
Why aren’t any straight single guys like you two?
* * * * *
The next day, I was still feeling like shit, so I called in sick. Thank God for substitute teachers, and Gabe said he’d handle tonight’s cross-country meet. I suspected I’d be back to work tomorrow, but the team might have to do without me for a few days.
Since Shahid was off and I wasn’t going anywhere, he came over to my place, and, like an angel from heaven, he came bearing gifts. Chocolate. A six-pack. Gabe’s heating pad, which was so much better than mine.
“You’re awesome,” I said.
He smiled. “Well, I figured if you’re going to suffer on our behalf, I should at least try to help.”
“Much appreciated.” I loosened the wrapper on one of the chocolates. “So daytime TV sucks, but I’ve got almost as many movies as you guys do.”
“Oh, you don’t have to tell me about daytime TV.” He groaned as he sat beside me on the couch. “There’s always a soap opera or something on in our waiting area.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Ugh.”
“Yeah.”
I held the heating pad against my stomach. “Sorry I won’t be the best of company.”
He smiled and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Don’t worry about it. I am on call, though.” He set his phone on the armrest. “So if I have to leave suddenly, it’s nothing personal.”
“Not a problem.” I leaned against him and closed my eyes. The heating pad was quickly warming up, offering sweet, sweet relief. It didn’t take away all the pain, because Satan had commandeered my reproductive system for the week, but it helped, and I would take whatever I could get.
“Comfortable?” Shahid asked.
“Surprisingly, yes.”
He kissed the top of my head. “Good.”
It was surprising, not just how much the heating pad was helping, but how comfortable I was with Shahid like this. Being physically intimate, even in a completely platonic way, felt so natural and normal, I wondered how it had taken us so long to get here. It was like getting naked in bed together had blown away our comfort zones, and suddenly, here we were, cuddling up like it made perfect sense.
“You, um, want to watch something?” I gestured at the remote, which was just out of my reach.
“This is fine. The TV will probably put me to sleep.”
“Yeah, me too.” Not that I minded. Falling asleep against Shahid was hardly unappealing.
But then he broke the silence. “So, I’m curious. Assuming everything works the way we’re planning, how do you think your family will feel?”
I shrugged. “My mom might raise an eyebrow, but as long as there’s a baby on the way, and as long as she can see that baby sometimes, she’ll be fine with it. The worst part will probably be explaining that, no, I won’t be bringing the baby home for the holidays.”
Shahid was quiet for a moment. “Would you want to?”
I pulled away enough that I could meet his gaze, and gritted my teeth against the fresh wave of nauseating aches beneath the heating pad. “The whole idea is for me to carry a baby for the two of you. So, presumably, he’d be with you
and Gabe.”
“Presumably.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his lightly callused fingers brushing my cheek. “But this isn’t like we’re adopting from someone at the agency. This is a whole different ballgame.” His brow pinched slightly as he cupped my face. “You’re part of our lives, not someone who wants occasional visitation.”
I swallowed, resting my hand on his wrist. “I’m not really in a position to have joint custody or anything like that. I mean, I’m still sort of figuring out who I am after Tim.”
His lips tightened briefly, as if he were about to snarl something about my ex-husband, but he must’ve let it go. Taking my hand and resting them between us, he said, “We can make whatever arrangement works for everyone. And yes, that means holidays are negotiable.”
“Well, we can cross that bridge when we get there.” I smiled. “But thank you. For including me.”
“Of course.” He squeezed my hand. “You’re going above and beyond for us. We—” Shahid’s phone buzzed. “Seriously?” He grabbed it off the armrest, looked at the screen and tensed. “I have to go. Emergency at—”
“Go. Shoo.” I nudged him with my elbow. “You don’t have to explain.”
He rose, and as he took his keys out of his pocket, he said, “Do you want me to come back afterward?”
Yes, please.
I just smiled. “If you want to. I’m not going anywhere.”
He smiled back and then tipped my chin up and kissed me lightly. “I’ll text you when I’m done.”
“I’ll be here.”
One more kiss and then he was gone. I closed my eyes as I listened to Shahid jog down the walk and out to his car. All the while, my lips still tingled from his parting kiss. Like curling up with him on the couch, it seemed so normal now. As if it made perfect sense for us to blur the lines between the friendly hugs we’d always shared, and kissing and touching as if we were more than friends.
Which begged the question—what would happen after the baby came along? Obviously the sex would stop. But what about the rest? Was this all just an offshoot of all the sexual activity? Or…
I stared up at the ceiling. I hoped it wasn’t just an offshoot. When the time came, I could give up the sex.
But I wasn’t so sure I wanted to let go of the rest.
Chapter Twenty
Shahid
It was after five when I left the hospital. I was tempted to text Kendra and bow out for the evening, but after I’d gone home and gone through my salat, I decided I didn’t really feel like being alone. And since Gabe was at a cross-country meet and wouldn’t be home until late, I hoped Kendra’s door was still open.
Finally done, I wrote. Still up for company?
She replied, Absolutely.
That was enough to make me crack a smile. After a few stressful hours at work, she’d be a welcome change of pace, even if she wasn’t feeling well.
On the way, I stopped to pick up some KFC. Maybe not the healthiest thing in the universe, but grease and salt sounded spectacular right then, and Kendra didn’t object.
KFC = perfect. Door’s open when you get here.
So, with a bag of horrible food hanging from my wrist and a couple of sodas precariously balanced in one of those stupid limp cardboard carriers, I let myself into her house.
She was still on the couch, the heating pad against her abdomen.
“Hey.” I toed the door shut behind me. “How are you feeling?”
She tilted her head. “Something tells me I feel better than you do right now.”
I shrugged away a shudder. “Occupational hazard. You want me to grab some plates, or just use these?” I lifted my arm a bit to indicate the containers in the bag.
“Those are fine.” She shrugged and gingerly changed position. As I laid out the food on the coffee table, she threw back another pain reliever, washing it down with the Coke I’d brought her.
We ate in silence. I was starving—I hadn’t eaten since before I was called in—and Kendra was apparently in the same state. Had she eaten today? She was obviously still not feeling well, and food hadn’t been all that appealing since yesterday, but at least she was eating something now.
After we’d finished as much as we were going to eat, I took the wrappers and leftovers into the kitchen. Then I came back and joined her on the sofa.
Kendra touched my knee. “You okay? You’ve been quiet since you came back.” Her brow pinched. “Something at work?”
“Yeah, it…” I shook my head. “If they have to call us in, it’s usually something pretty bad. Today was pretty bad.”
“You want to talk about it?”
I slowly released my breath.
“You are insanely tense,” she said. “I can see it from here.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Turn around.” She gestured toward the armrest beside me. “Maybe I can help.”
Well, I wasn’t going to object to that, so I turned, pulling my knee up on the cushion. She moved around behind me, and slid her hands over my shoulders. At first, her touch was light, just little circles with barely any contact through my shirt. Then she pressed harder. Dug in.
I closed my eyes and exhaled.
Her hands were magic. She kneaded muscles that I knew were tight, and muscles I barely knew existed.
I turned my head slightly. “Are you sure this is comfortable? When you’re in that much pain?”
“Drugs are working right now.” She ran her fingers up and down my neck. “Might as well take advantage of it while I can.”
“But if you’re—”
“Shahid. Relax. I know my limits.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. Maybe she knew her limits, but I doubted she knew exactly what I was up against when I went into work. Most people didn’t, which was a good thing.
I wrung my hands in my lap. “The thing is, we usually know what’s coming, but we don’t know what’s coming. We might know if it’s gunshot wounds, a car accident, injuries from a house fire.” I blew out a breath. “But that only tells you so much. A car accident with fatalities and multiple injuries can be anything.”
“I can’t even imagine.”
You don’t want to.
Eyes closed, I let my head fall forward, and she worked at my neck. It was strange, trying to find the words to describe how I sometimes felt at my job, or on my way home, or what I saw when I dreamed. It wasn’t something I usually talked about.
I exhaled slowly. “We had people coming in after a wreck once, and I happened to hear that it was out on the same highway I use for my commute. And not twenty minutes before that call came in…” I shuddered, still feeling that chill as acutely as I had in the moment. “Gabe had been at the hospital having dinner with me.”
Kendra’s fingers stopped for a split second. “So it could’ve been him.”
I nodded, forcing back the bile rising in my throat. “Every once in a while, you do see someone you know.” I bit down on the added comment about seeing the kids of someone I knew—that was something I didn’t mention to Gabe, and I wasn’t going to mention it to her. “And those times, I don’t know which is worse—when I have to work on that person, or when I have to work on someone else while that person is in another room.”
“My God.”
Exhaling slowly, I rolled my shoulders beneath her hands. “I’m sorry.” I rubbed my eyes. “This is something I try not to unload on people because—”
“You should unload it, sweetie.”
“But that means unloading it onto someone else who has to carry it, you know?”
“Yeah, but carrying it secondhand is a lot easier than bottling it up firsthand.”
“You’re probably right. I just don’t always want to inflict the details on someone else. Like, if it’s that hard for me to carry, why do that to another person?�
��
“Because then you can carry it together.”
“True.” I sat back against the couch, and she repositioned herself beside me with the heating pad across her midsection. “It’s no wonder half the EMTs have drinking problems.”
“I can imagine.” She took my hand, and hers was warm from being on the heating pad. “It takes an incredibly strong person to do what you do, but that doesn’t mean you can’t vent to us lesser mortals once in a while.”
I laughed quietly. “Lesser mortals? Hardly.”
“Well, I wouldn’t last five minutes in your line of work.”
“You might be surprised.” I freed my hand and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “Though I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t last in a room full of teenagers.”
Kendra gave a soft laugh. “Fair enough.” Her expression shifted, and she looked at me with nothing but utter seriousness in her eyes. “If you ever want to talk about this stuff, all you have to do is ask. I promise.”
I kissed her forehead. “Thank you.”
* * * * *
After almost a week, Kendra was finally feeling better, and a few days after that, I had a night off for a change.
When she came over, it was still early yet, so dinner remained in the refrigerator, ready to be cooked later on. For now, the three of us hung out in the living room, catching up after a long week at all of our jobs. While I stuck with a Coke, they opened a bottle of wine.
“To midterms being over.” Gabe raised his glass.
“Cheers.” She clinked hers against his, and they both took deep swallows.
I laughed. “Imagine how much the students are celebrating.”
“Hopefully not with wine,” Gabe said.
“I don’t think any of our kids can afford wine this good.” She picked up the bottle. “Where did you guys get this?”
Gabe shook his head. “I don’t even remember. We have a few bottles from various places, but hell if I remember where they each came from. Most of them anyway.”
I set my Coke can down. “You should open that bottle your sister gave me.”
Kendra stared at me. “You’re not serious.” Before I could respond, she put up her hand. “Wait. No. I’ve met her. I believe it. But…why?”
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