Clean Breaks

by Ruby Lang

  Winston sounded relieved to be getting off so easily. “Always such a do-gooder, Jake. Hang on, let me look for it.”

  There was some muffled banging, the sound of drawers opening and closing. The rustle of paper.

  “You don’t have your sister’s number on your phone?”

  A pause.

  “I got it. We just don’t talk that much. For that matter, she doesn’t really talk to my parents that much either. So much for the dutiful daughter they thought they’d have.”

  “Winston, you’re acting like a jackass.”

  Another pause. “Yeah.”

  “Hey,” Jake said, “you’re a grown boy now. You have an amazing apartment and life and all that stuff. Whatever issues you have with your sister are in the past. You’d be torn apart if something happened to her.”

  He heard Winston take a breath. “You’re right. It’s in the past. I’m over it.”

  They exchanged some more dudes and bros. Had Winston been there, there would undoubtedly have been some backslapping and burping.

  “Listen, Jake,” Winston said before he hung up. “I know it gets rough and maybe even lonely out there. I’ve been at it a long time. But you just gotta jump back in, okay? Enjoy yourself, but be careful. Don’t get hung up on my sister just because you think you’re some sort of white knight. Girls with reputations like my sister’s aren’t the kinds you should date.”

  Jake tried to keep the irritation out of his voice. “Don’t be sexist, Winston. Sarah didn’t do anything wrong. Besides, we’ve all changed a lot since high school.”

  “Some more than others. Whatever. We’re all good. It’s cool.”

  Jake hung up.

  He looked around his empty apartment. He wasn’t the same guy he was all those years ago—hell, he wasn’t the same guy he was four months ago. And maybe Winston was right about one thing—he should think about jumping back in. But first, he was going to check on Sarah.

  Chapter Two

  Sarah had vowed not to waste one more minute of her life, and yet, here she was about to give Jake Li an hour of her precious time.

  But because she was Sarah Soon, she had a plan: Her phone would go off in one hour and seventeen minutes, she’d frown at it, and then she’d announce that she had to go to the hospital. It wasn’t usually her style to fake a call. Painfully honest was her motto in life—sometimes the emphasis was on the pain, but she was almost always honest.

  Plus, her new motto was, Try new things. She’d had a brush with mortality, and she loved lists. It was a perfect combination of old and new. But that meant she had to now think of things she would normally not do and . . .actually do them.

  Stupid motto.

  So she’d gone water skiing. She’d eaten a funnel cake (okay, half) and ridden on a roller coaster. (The last two items would have worked out better if she hadn’t performed them within an hour of each other.) She’d done t’ai chi ch’uan in a park. She’d read War and Peace. She was going to try to bike the Big Eastside Trail Loop—as soon as she got more comfortable cycling. She figured getting along with her brother’s best friend and leaving with no hard feelings would certainly qualify as a novel experience.

  Regret wasn’t the word for what he churned up in her—she didn’t have anything to regret, after all. But it was hard to leave the past behind, and Jake knew a past her.

  Also, there was the possibility that every single thing would end up being reported to her brother, her parents, and maybe even Jake’s father. If she refused to hang out with him, they would find that out, too. Not that she cared what they thought.

  Maybe it would have been better if she’d just refused.

  Then again, Jake hadn’t looked like himself. He was harder and . . . edgier—and she wasn’t just talking about his sharp cheekbones. He was definitely a lot more than he’d been as a teenager. He’d always had a great face—eyes that smiled even when he was serious, a contrast with thick, expressive brows. But now that smile had an intensity that hadn’t been there before, and it was breathtaking. And then he had all that long, lean muscle over his lanky frame.

  She stilled her thoughts. She was not mentally shucking Jake’s shirt and pulling down his trousers to contemplate the muscled grooves of his thighs, was she? No.

  She shook her head. She had to eat, and she’d gotten to pick her favorite sushi place. At least she could ignore him in favor of her beloved miso soup and a brown rice salmon avocado roll. Her entire hour wouldn’t be a waste of any of the precious minutes she had left of life. Hence the timer and the faked medical call. Carpe diem after a brush with death and all that.

  She wasn’t ever in the delivery room anymore. The truth was that she’d cut back on her obstetric practice after her diagnosis. She planned to resume that part of her practice when she came up to full speed again—when she regained that energy she used to have. But she still wasn’t feeling it.

  No, that wasn’t even true. She was feeling too much of everything, and she needed life to slow down a little bit so that she could stop being overwhelmed.

  She slid into her booth at the restaurant and closed her eyes.

  “Don’t tell me I’ve put you to sleep already,” she heard.

  She started.

  “Geez,” she said. “Are you actually a spy?”

  “No, just an ordinary, unassuming school social worker.”

  She blinked. Ugh. It had not been her imagination. He really had grown into his features—no, he looked good.

  Automatically, she ran her eyes over his button-down, which stretched over boldly sketched shoulders. Ooh, and his sleeves were rolled up, highlighting a masculine stretch of forearm, tendons, and muscles. She couldn’t help herself. She peered under the table. Despite the shadow, she noted his long legs in a pair of worn jeans.

  “Are you checking me out?”

  “Force of habit,” she said.

  The jig was up, so she tilted her head for a better look. “Bodies are fascinating. I love seeing how everything sort of . . . hangs together.”

  She wasn’t sure if he was flattered or horrified. She wasn’t exactly looking at his face right now. Knowing Jake—and knowing men—probably a little of both. Would it be too forward of her to ask him to give a little kick—nothing fancy—so that she could watch his thigh muscles flex? That would be a treat.

  “Runner?” she murmured.

  “Erm, yes.”

  He sounded hoarse, which made her glance up. She shook her head to clear it. She wasn’t here to tease him. She didn’t plan on flirting anymore—not for a while. And the truth was, she hadn’t wanted to for the last half year—not until now. She wasn’t even really sure why she was doing this to Jake. Jake Li! A boy she’d grown up with! Her brother’s best friend! He was practically a sibling. Except he wasn’t. And now her scrutiny was making him uncomfortable.

  She didn’t mind making him uncomfortable.

  But maybe he wasn’t quite ill at ease, because he seemed to regard her with—oh, that could not be a flare of heat, a little tension in his fine jaw. A clenched hand. A spark from Jake Li.

  And from her. She hadn’t had felt that thick, warm pulse from down below in a long, long time.

  Sure, she was in the clear now. She was alive, and all of her parts were finally functioning smoothly again. When she’d first gotten her diagnosis, she’d been scared and her sexual appetite had fled entirely. And that had been fine. She had other things to worry about. She assumed desire and lust would come back if—after! she corrected herself—she recovered. Sex after a significant illness would be joyous and wonderful and all that jazz, she reasoned with herself. It would be great. It would be like reclaiming her life. She looked forward to the time when she anticipated having sex again. But the desire hadn’t come back—or at least she hadn’t caught any glimpse of the least lick of heat with anyone.

  Until she’d seen Jake again. That was truly disturbing to her sixteen-year-old self.

  She signaled the waitress, not caring if
Jake was ready to order. This wasn’t a date. She wasn’t dating. She was giving herself a recovery break. And this was an old annoying not-friend catching up. Despite the fact that her whole body tingled with awareness, she was not going to flirt with Jake.

  “I’ll have the salmon avocado special with the miso soup,” Sarah said.

  “I’ll have the same,” Jake said.

  The waitress nodded and left, and Sarah regretted ordering so quickly. Now there was nothing between them but a scarred wooden table and an inexplicable tension that seemed to be centered in Sarah’s limbs, in her pelvis, in her core.

  “So, social worker. What is that? I always figured you’d go and do something more overtly heroic. You know, helping kids in the Outback who’ve been kidnapped by poachers—”

  “Uh, Sarah, isn’t that the plot of The Rescuers Down Under?”

  “Or saving spotty puppies from deranged furriers.”

  “That’s 101 Dalmatians. I saw both those movies with you and Winston.”

  She flashed a smile. Okay, maybe she was going to flirt a little.

  But Jake narrowed his eyes while obviously trying to suppress his grin. “A fucking Disney movie is what you thought I would do with my life?”

  “Jacob Li, did you just say fucking? I’m telling!”

  “Who are you going to tell?”

  A giggle—a giggle!—escaped her. “Um. God?”

  Surprisingly, he laughed, too. “Is that the kind of thing I said when I was a kid?”

  They were both still snickering when he leaned back in his chair and the muscles of his chest bunched, stretching his shirt. Yum. No—yuck! This was Jake. He was not the person who should be making her gut feel tight. And they were talking about fucking. The word, not the act, but now that was in her head and flooding her body, too.

  They shared a long look. He cleared his throat. “Anyway, what’s more noble than being a doctor and delivering babies?”

  Sarah shrugged. But it was kind of true. She took a calming sip of water. “I am pretty goddamn awesome,” she agreed, and oddly enough, instead of rolling his eyes, Jake seemed to smile at her words.

  “Tell me about it.”

  She paused. “It’s both the best and worst time for a person. So much pain and so much joy all within minutes and seconds. Plus, it’s so messy.”

  “I’m surprised that you love that it’s messy.”

  “I do. I love that no two birth experiences are ever the same. There’s a place for neatness in the rest of my life, and disorder in this part.”

  She paused, sadness that what she’d just described hadn’t been a part of her life recently hitting her unexpectedly. “It’s not really just about that work, though. I also love being there for women and girls. I love being the voice of reason—reassuring them about birth control and abortion, answering all the questions I used to have about sex and what’s normal. I’m happy to be that informed, assuring presence. That’s mostly what I do right now.”

  And dammit, it was important. She glowered defiantly at Jake, who picked up on her sudden shift in mood. “You’re talking like I’d disapprove.”

  “Winston hates everything his brash, slutty sister does. I’d think you’d have the same opinion.”

  He seemed ready to answer, but the waitress who came bearing two black and red bowls saved her.

  Sarah stared down at the swirls of miso soup. “So, social worker. I can see it. Although, I guess I also thought you’d end up as an astronomer. When you weren’t with Winston or rescuing dogs and all that, you were always in your backyard staring through a telescope—maybe wishing to be as far away from Laketon as you could get. Or I thought maybe you’d end up like your dad. Guess I was wrong on all counts.”

  “I didn’t think you’d noticed. But you’re changing the subject. I don’t disapprove. I’m worried about you. Are you feeling okay? Is your health . . .?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “What about my health, Jake?”

  It was the way he asked it that almost made her snap. That mixture of concern and some assumed knowledge of her inner workings. Pity, maybe. And it was the fact that she felt a little vulnerable to him—him, of all the people in this damn world. “What did you hear?”

  He hesitated. “Winston said you’d had some kind of surgery.”

  She gripped the edge of the table because the room seemed to spin. “So what, this is a pity date—or whatever? Come here to offer your smug saintly blessings to the poor sick girl?”

  She was suddenly so angry. “Guess what? I’m fine. There is no trace of cancer in me.”

  “Cancer! Sarah—I didn’t know.”

  She found that she was shaking. She did not tremble—even when she’d gotten her diagnosis she hadn’t cried once. But now, seeing the concern of someone she’d known for a long time—but who didn’t know her—made her irrationally angry. “I fucked that melanoma up. We found it and annihilated it, Jake. I do not need your sad eyes or your worry.”

  “It’s not pity.”

  “Or admiration of how brave I am. I don’t want that. Your sympathy right now is too little too late, Jake.”

  He sat back, still calm, his face still kind.

  “Sarah—”

  “Don’t try to pretend that you really care about anything that happens to me, Jake. Or that you’ll be there for me.”

  “Sarah, we’ve known each other forever. Of course I care.”

  “You haven’t always. Remember near the end of senior year, when I got caught with my shirt off at that house party? With that jerk, Steve Dixon? Almost everyone turned on me—my family, my teammates. I went from upright citizen Sarah to foreign temptress in the space of a minute, and I was—and am—neither of those things. Boys catcalled me in the halls. You saw them do it, Jake. You said nothing, but you saw it—and I expected more from you.”

  Sarah steadied her breath. “You’d known me all your life. And even you—heroic rescuer of children and puppies and all that—even you didn’t defend me. I’ve always thought that maybe you thought I deserved it. Everyone else did.”

  The last words tumbled out hotly, surprising both of them.

  “I don’t think you deserved it. I never did. I’m sorry.” He seemed stricken and sincere.

  After a moment, Sarah continued. “The guy’s mother freaked out, and suddenly I had a new reputation. It didn’t matter that I was born in Laketon, they saw me grow up, I volunteered alongside so many of them. At school, I was nearly stripped of being valedictorian, and your father—your father tried to shame me for bringing bad rep to the Asian community. Most of the other kids in our grade had done similar things, but I wasn’t allowed my perfectly normal teen behavior.”

  Jake shook his head, and Sarah didn’t know if he was trying to remember or to deny her words. She didn’t care. “That’s the problem with being a so-called model minority, isn’t it? One measly strike and you’re out—even your own people don’t want to be tainted by you. But at least your dad wasn’t as bad as my parents. I don’t think my mother spoke to me again until I got into med school. I left home the day after high school graduation.”

  “I didn’t know that’s what happened. I never imagined they’d do something so drastic.”

  “They weren’t like your dad, Jake. He’s a minister, but he was a lot more lenient with you than my parents were with Winston and me.”

  “I’m just putting it all together now. I remember how your parents were,” Jake said, slowly. “That’s why Winston’s such a hard-ass, too.”

  “Yeah well, it didn’t help that I was never the compliant daughter they wanted. For years after that mess, they didn’t call me to check up on me—I was the one to keep them informed. It didn’t matter that I’d won scholarships. It didn’t matter one bit how much I’d done, how hard I’d worked. I had been a good kid. But my parents were effectively gone from my life. I was almost completely isolated and alone, and I was a teenager. That was the worst blow of all.”

  Jake was quie
t. Then he looked right into her eyes. “Sarah, I’m sorry about your parents and that I wasn’t a better friend. I should have at least said something to the boys who yelled at you. I—I didn’t know how to speak up and I didn’t have the whole story, but that’s not really an excuse. I should have figured it out.”

  She wasn’t upset—it had all happened so long ago. But her voice was still unsteady. “Until this point, that was the worst thing to ever happen to me. And I learned from it. I learned that I wasn’t in the wrong—it was that everyone failed me. And now, a worse thing happened and I survived that, too. I don’t want your sympathy, and I don’t want your guilt.”

  Jake’s voice was steady and clear. “You’re absolutely right.”

  It was unexpected. It was so strange that he was sitting there taking in her gaze, both determined and sad. She had always thought he would be on Winston’s side—that he’d been as horrified and dismayed with her as everyone else in her family. She grouped him with them—in that way, at least. She had been prepared to be defiant. But he wasn’t fighting her.

  Jake shook his head. “It’s funny, but sometimes I have a lot of difficulty reconciling my conservative upbringing with what I see and do now. It’s almost like I’m two separate people. I’m one of the few adults at the school who isn’t white, and I’m really conscious of that. And you’re right, I failed you. I just hope I’m not failing these kids I work with.”

  She couldn’t help herself. “Stop—after Winston left, it’s not like we were close. You couldn’t have known. It feels like you were a part of it, but I shouldn’t expect—I’m blaming you for everything when it wasn’t just you. I shouldn’t take this out on you.”

  He put his hand over hers. “I’m still sorry, Sarah.”

  She didn’t know that she was going to accept his apology. Then again, he was the only person who’d ever said to her he was sorry about it. “You were a kid, too.”