The conversation with Quinn last night is never far from my head either. Her words replay again and again, like clues that are out of order or missing some key piece.
There’s some purpose to all this.
It’s like we can’t avoid getting pregnant no matter what we do.
You’re willing to believe in time travel but not that some kind of super fertility accompanies it?
Regardless of how many times I think about it, though, it doesn’t come together. She’s been with Jeff for years and managed not to get pregnant. What is it about us?
Jace is waiting when I return to my office. “Lunch?” he asks, in a way that sounds more like a demand. I guess he’s heard about Quinn too. He’s one of my oldest friends and it’s going to all come out sooner or later, but there’s no way he’s going to be okay with me dating a patient. Especially a dying one.
We go up the road from the hospital to a sandwich shop we used to frequent when we were in med school. The place is as packed as it ever was. “I’m starting to remember why we stopped coming here,” I tell him after a woman with a stroller runs over my foot.
He frowns. “I figured this is a conversation that should be held outside the hospital.” I hear condemnation in those words. Jace is not a guy who’s grave all that often, but he sure as shit is right now.
He waits until we’re sliding into a booth before he shakes his head and looks directly at me. “Okay let’s hear it.”
I lean my head back against the seat with a sigh. “Sounds like you already have.”
“What I’ve heard is that you were cheating on Meg with a dying patient,” Jace says. “I’m hoping your version makes you look a little better.”
Fuck. Meg is making sure everyone hears the absolute worst version of this story. I should have expected it, but it’s still a blow. “I broke up with Meg before anything happened.”
“Yeah,” he says, arching a brow, “it wasn’t the timing of it that bothered me. Are you really fucking a terminal patient? Seriously?”
My eyes close. The lie is necessary, even with Jace. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. We dated in college and lost touch until she came to the hospital.”
“Dude,” Jace groans. “It still looks bad. You should have transferred the case. She’s dying and you’re her doctor, which makes you a port in the storm. It’s fucking wrong to sleep with her even if she’s willing.”
I blow out a breath. He’s not saying anything I haven’t said to myself a thousand times. The guilt I thought I’d moved past comes tearing back. “I didn’t transfer her because I don’t trust anyone else to take care of her. And I know what you’re saying and all I can tell you is that this is different.” If I could utter the term soul mate without sounding like a complete pussy I would. Unfortunately, that’s not possible.
“Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say you’re her everything and she’s yours and this was written in the fucking stars. The girl’s still going to die, Nick. You’re putting your professional reputation in serious jeopardy for a relationship that can’t go anywhere.”
My anger is probably more at the situation than him, but it’s a struggle to rein it in. “I don’t need a lecture. And if you learned Julie was dying would you just take off?”
“Of course not,” says Jace, “but Julie’s my wife. This is some girl from college you forgot about.”
“I never forgot about her. Not really,” I tell him. “And it’s different with her. Night and day.” I wish I could explain what it’s like—that it feels like a compulsion, that I feel out of control around her in ways I never have before—but it wouldn’t exactly help my case.
“Of course it’s fucking different. Sex with someone new is always going to be more exciting, but that doesn’t mean you’re meant to be with her.”
My shoulders sag at the introduction of yet another sore subject. “I haven’t even slept with her yet.”
Jace’s eyes widen. “You’re risking your career for someone you’re not even sleeping with? Dude…really?”
“Which one is it?” I snap. “Is your problem with the fact that we’re together at all, or is it that I’m not sleeping with her?”
He sighs. “Neither. Both. Look, before this goes any further I just hope you really give it some thought. She’s relying on you to save her life, so you may be really into this girl, but you need to ask yourself why she’s really with you.”
* * *
Ask yourself why she’s really with you.
I gnaw on that phrase the whole way back to my office. It’s not that I actually doubt Quinn is with me for the right reasons. Our connection was there long before she needed to worry about the tumor. But if there’s really some greater purpose to our union, why me? She has a super power, even if she doesn’t use it. But I’m a normal guy. Why would nature or God or whoever is orchestrating this need me involved too? If her purpose is to change the world or stop some terrible evil from happening, shouldn’t it be fucking Superman by her side? She definitely needs someone who can do more than diagnose neurological disorders and swim a fast 400. But it is me, and I feel certain there must be a reason for that. I’ve just got no clue what it is.
“Reilly,” barks a voice. I turn to find Ed Philbin, the head of the department, coming up behind me quickly. “We need to have a chat.”
I thought I had a few weeks to get this figured out. Apparently not.
“Hey Ed,” I say, turning toward him reluctantly. “What’s up?”
“There’ve been some rumors going around,” he begins and my stomach sinks. “Heard you’re single now.”
My tongue pokes at the inside of my cheek. I’m not sure if he’s leading up to my relationship with Quinn or hoping I’ll cop to it myself. I shrug. “Not exactly. I just started seeing someone. Why do you ask?”
His gaze is steady. It could be his gaze is always steady, or it could be he’s trying to hint that he knows more about the situation than he’s letting on. “We have our rec league basketball playoffs Friday. Could use your help.” Ed’s asked me about this more times than I can count, I suppose because I’m four inches taller than anyone on the team. But this time it feels different—it feels a bit like a quid pro quo: you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. I’ll come help them out, and he won’t look too closely at the rumors.
Which means I really don’t have a choice.
4
QUINN
I rise, trying to put Caroline’s ridiculous doubts from last night out of my head. She left a note this morning that she was “plotting” to get me laid on tonight’s date with Nick. Her goal is over-ambitious, obviously, but I’d settle for a kiss that doesn’t end in an apology.
I walk down the street to get a bagel. Maybe there are some imperfect things in my life at the moment, but I’m out and about on a Wednesday morning without a single responsibility and it’s hard not to feel pretty good. Nick texts as I walk, making my heart take another small leap. The mere sight of his name stirs something giddy and ebullient in my chest. I’ve heard other girls describe this phenomenon, but it’s a first for me. All he’s said is good morning and I want to break into a song and dance number right here on P Street. Maybe he’s freaked out about the pregnancy thing but he’s still texting me. It’s got to mean something.
Nick: Any dreams last night?
Me: I’m not sure it’s something I should be putting in a text while you’re at work.
Nick: Okay, I absolutely need to know right now. Were we naked?
Me: It would take all the fun out of it if I told you that.
Nick: I had some dreams too. I have no problem telling you we were naked. We’ll compare notes tonight.
Not the response of a guy who isn’t interested. I’m smiling as I walk into the lobby, so unaware of anything but my own happiness that I don’t even notice Jeff until he’s standing right in front of my face.
He’s unshaven, wearing jeans and a T-shirt instead of work clothes. I’ve been letting his calls g
o to voicemail, so I suppose I owe him a discussion of some kind—I just really don’t want one.
His face is tight, a vein throbbing in his temple. “Can we talk?” He glances toward the front desk. “In private?”
A week ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated to be alone with him. But I don’t know the person who stands in front of me, looking like he wants to put his fist through the wall. I don’t know the guy who called so many times he filled up my voicemail twice. And I haven’t mentioned it to Nick, but this is also the guy whose messages have grown increasingly furious. He’s said things on my voicemail I never dreamed I’d hear him say. I know people can behave badly when they’re wounded, but listening to those messages makes me feel like I never really knew him at all. “We’re good here.”
His jaw drops. “You were ready to marry me four days ago and now I’m some kind of deviant you can’t be alone with?”
In the last voicemail he left, he called me a lying bitch. I’m not feeling any guilt about refusing to be alone with him. “I never said that. But given how you’ve been acting, I’d prefer to discuss this in a place where I have the option to walk away.”
He blows out a breath and folds his arms across his chest. “How I’ve been acting?” he demands. “Are you fucking serious right now? You dumped me at the airport after more than six years together and won’t even pick up the phone.”
“Think about what you’ve said on my voicemail. Can you blame me?”
“I just want an answer. I just want to know how you go from being perfectly happy with someone you’re about to marry to miserable overnight?”
I raise my eyes to his, and though I’m stunned by how badly he’s reacted to our break-up, I still wince at what I’m about to say next. “That’s just it, though. We weren’t perfectly happy.”
He narrows his eyes. “Don’t you dare say we because you don’t get to speak for me. I was fine.”
I sigh. Jeff always was a bit oblivious about things, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he’s oblivious here too. “You learned I had a fatal illness, and you continued on with your job like nothing had changed.” It’s strange to me now that I didn’t see how wrong it all was, but that was before I knew what it was like to be with the right person. The one you can’t live without. It’s so clear to me now how different Jeff should have been, because I see how Nick would have been in his shoes. “I’m not faulting you for it. But the point is this: when the person you are supposed to love above all others tells you news like that, you stop worrying about whether the suppliers in Ithaca are going to meet their shipping deadlines.”
“So that’s what this is? You’re punishing me for leaving? For trying to support us both?”
I feel the tiniest spark of irritation at trying to support us both, as if I didn’t work too, but I force myself to let it go. “I’m saying that if you felt the right way about me, you would not have been willing to leave. Knowing I’m dying…it’s just put a lot of things in perspective. And we’re one of those things.”
“Your father begged me to take care of you,” Jeff says. “You know that? When he was dying he begged me to make sure you were safe. And I know he spoke to you too. It was his final wish. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Will the guilt over that ever go away? Until it does I just have to pretend it isn’t there. “The two of us together is nothing he’d have wished for before he got sick. So no, I’m not going to let that be the thing I base my future on.”
His whole body softens as he changes tack. He reaches out to grasp my arms and it’s a struggle not to shrug him off. “Can we go to dinner tonight, hon? Just to talk. We can go to Zatinya. You always wanted to try it.”
The suggestion makes me long to roll my eyes. I begged him to go there for six years, but suddenly he’s someone who cares about what I want? “No,” I reply. “I don’t want to go to dinner. You aren’t going to change my mind. Please just let this go.”
“Never,” he says. “I made your father a promise. And I intend to see it through.”
My stomach drops. Now that it’s over, I just want to be done with him, and the look on his face tells me I won’t be for a good long time.
* * *
That afternoon, Caroline and Trevor walk in carrying garment bags. “We’re here to play fairy godmother,” says Caroline.
“Unless you think he’s gay,” says Trevor. “In which case, you can play fairy godmother to me. Literal fairy godmother.”
Caroline slings the hanger of her bag over the closet door. “Shut up, Trevor,” she says. “You know he’s not gay.”
He hands her his garment bag and pulls a blind down to keep the bright afternoon sun out of his face. “Maybe it wasn’t lust like we thought. She’s beautiful. Maybe he’s just fascinated by her the way I am with that Renoir at the National Gallery of Art. I could stare at it for hours but I don’t want to put my dick in it.”
“You’re making me feel worse,” I tell him.
He sits beside me and pats my leg. “You know I’m just kidding. I promise he wants to put his dick in you.”
I laugh and rest my head on his shoulder. “That’s sweet. Thank you.”
He gets out his phone and I hear the ping of a text arrive on my phone and Caroline’s a moment later. “I’m sending you both the deets on my date tonight, by the way. He looks like a criminal.”
“Which is your type,” I add.
“Yes. But it also means he’s slightly more likely to kill me after sex than Nick is likely to kill you after sex,” he replies. “Perhaps because you’re less likely to have sex in the first place. Anyway, if I don’t turn up at work tomorrow, avenge my death.”
I lean back on the other end of the couch. “You do realize we’re the most ill-equipped people ever to avenge you if something goes wrong?” I ask. “I’ve never hit anyone in my life. And Caroline talks a good game but she’d mostly be worried about protecting her designer shoes if there were an altercation.” Caroline ignores this, unzipping the garment bags with a reverence normally reserved for the Mona Lisa and religious artifacts.
“You’re right about Caroline,” he agrees. “But you’ve got hidden scrappiness. Like Jennifer Garner in Peppermint. One day you’re just plain old Quinn and then some senator will kill me to cover up our affair and it brings out your inner badass. Next thing you know you’re walking down the street with a loaded shotgun.”
“So just to be clear, you’re saying that when you are killed, you want me to engage in maybe a year of martial arts and weapons training, and then go kill a US senator?”
“Okay,” says Caroline, clapping her hands to get our attention. “Enough irrelevant chitchat. Trevor is likely to die on one of these dates and neither of us plan to lift a finger because it’s his fault for choosing criminals.” She looks at the outfits she’s pulled out and hands me a jumpsuit. “Try this first. It’s perfect.”
I gnaw on my lip, taking it in. It’s sweet that she wants to help but I’m a pretty conservative girl, nude sunbathing aside. And this is not a conservative jumpsuit. The whole back is bare, and I’m not sure it wouldn’t give a complete view of my breasts in profile either. “It looks, um, revealing. It’s basically an apron.”
Her eyes roll. “Maybe the problem isn’t him after all, Virgin Mary. Go try it on.”
I stick my tongue out at her but take the jumpsuit, my hand brushing over the heavy, luxurious fabric almost against my will. It looks expensive. It even feels expensive. I go into the bathroom and slip it on. It shows as much skin as I thought. And yet, as always, I feel glamorous in a way I never do when I dress myself.
“Stop overthinking it and come out here!” Caroline shouts.
Warily I emerge. “It shows too much side boob. And I won’t be able to wear a bra with it.”
“Isn’t that the point?” asks Trevor.
“I want him to want to see my boobs,” I argue. “I’m not trying to expose myself to him against his will.”
“We’ll use
double-sided tape on the outside to make sure there’s no nipple reveal, but let’s let him have a tiny hint of side boob,” says Caroline. “Men go nuts for that. It reminds them of being horny teenagers desperate to see a hint of cleavage.”
Once I’m dressed, the two of them take over my hair and makeup, and when it’s all done, they’ve given me red lips and what appears to be naturally glowing, bronzed skin. “If he can resist you looking like that,” says Trevor, “then I really am going to take a shot at him.”
* * *
I’m still so unnerved by Jeff’s visit that I make up an excuse to meet Nick out rather than having him pick me up. I Uber to the address he gave me, experiencing a moment of shock when I discover it’s a hotel before someone points toward the bar on its roof. I take the elevator up way too many floors and emerge to a panoramic view of D.C., along with an even better view—Nick standing in a ray of sunlight, looking slightly too godlike to be real. He’s in a white button-down and jeans, a head taller than any other guy here, not noticing that half the wait staff is looking him up and down like something they plan to divide and consume in its entirety.
He glances in my direction as I begin to walk toward him, and when I see that look in his eyes—surprise, followed quickly by joy and something far more carnal—I forget all my earlier angst. This is Nick. We’ve somehow come together no matter how many times we were separated. He’s not going to let a little thing like excessive fertility get in our way.
“Hi,” I say, sounding a little breathless. I go on my toes to kiss his cheek, and he pulls me close, wrapping his entire arm around my back, his mouth to my ear.
“You’re killing me,” he groans. “You know that, right?”
Intersect: The Parallel Duet, Book 2 Page 3
