wild woman, don’t get the blues

The automatic doors hiss shut behind you, and the cold hits you like a punch to the chest. Winter in Pittsburgh is no joke; there’s already ice on the sidewalk, forcing you to walk slowly. 

You don’t text anyone to say you’re off work. There’s no one to call. Your phone doesn’t even ring, and there’s been no messages except a single text from your sister. A brief “Happy Thanksgiving” and nothing else. 

It’s nicer that way, you think, though it still stings. It’s been two years since you spoke to your family, two years since your father spit in your face and told you to live with the decision you made. 

So you did. You found shelter in the break room, a strange sense of family with the other nurses, happiness when dealing with little old ladies in the waiting room who just wanted someone to talk to. The pain usually turns into a dull ache when you volunteer for late nights or holidays, so the nurses with kids can go home, but all that goes away when you step outside. 

It’s not far from your house, but you keep your phone in one hand and pepper spray in the other anyways. Eleven minutes if you walk fast, fifteen if you walk slow. 

You’re not even twenty feet from the hospital when your phone buzzes, causing your heart to lurch in your chest. Your fingers are already numb from the cold when you lift it up; the screen brightens, revealing a single text message. 

Jack: Where are you?

You: walking home. i’m fine, jack

Jack: I didn’t ask if you were fine. 

You stop on the sidewalk for a second, twitching your fingers so they don’t go cold again before you type. It’s rare that he texts you: Jack is normally the kind of guy to call, and if you don’t pick up, he won’t bother leaving a voicemail. 

You: i'm walking home. haven’t eaten since breakfast. saved a toe. that answer your question?

He doesn’t text back immediately. It’s not completely unlike him, but it still irks you. You almost put your phone away, figuring he got pulled into something, but something stops you. 

Your finger taps on the screen once, then twice, before you lift the phone to your ear. It rings twice before he answers. 

“Hey,” you say, louder than you mean to. 

“You saved a toe?” His voice is a little low and husky, as though he’s careful of someone overhearing. 

“Reattachment's not my department. I just kept the guy from bleeding out on Santos's shoes." You keep walking, slower now, ice crunching under your boots. "How was Robby's?”

“Fine. I’m still here.” A pause. You can hear something in the background. A door, maybe? “You didn’t eat.”

It’s not a question, so you don’t answer it like one. “I’m a big girl, Jack.”

Another pause. His silence is almost aggravating, until you remember who exactly it is you’re talking to. Jack Abbot’s not a man of many words. 

The silence is almost unbearable, and before you can talk yourself out of it, you hear yourself say “can you come over?’

You expect a joke. Some version of it's eleven at night or don't you have an early shift? (You don’t.)  Instead there's just a breath, and then: "Yeah. Course."

"You don't have to–"

"I know I don't have to." His voice settles into that low, certain register. The one that means the conversation's over and he's already moving. "Give me thirty. Gotta tell Robby I'm heading out."

•··········•··········•

He shows up exactly twenty-eight minutes after you hung up, thirteen minutes after you got home, with a bottle of red wine tucked under his arm. There’s a grocery bag in his left hand that looks suspiciously like the ingredients to make a grilled cheese. 

“You didn’t have to bring anything.” You hold the door open for him, allowing him to shuffle inside. He takes his shoes off first like a gentleman, his prosthetic gently clacking against the floor as he goes into your kitchen. 

“You said you hadn’t eaten yet. And wine doesn’t count as a meal.” He sets the bag on the counter before turning around, resting his back against the marble, as though he’s inhabited the space a thousand times despite the fact he’s only been to your place three times. “Where’s your corkscrew?”

You hide your grin, biting the inside of your cheeks. “Second drawer to your left.”

You watch him move around your house with an ease that shouldn’t feel as comforting as it does, like he’s already decided this is where he wants to be. Jack doesn’t ask about your family, doesn’t ask well, don’t you miss Thanksgiving? Like everyone else. 

Jack just pours two glasses of wine, sets one in front of you, and lets you talk when you’re ready to. He doesn’t push. He never does. It’s one of those things you didn’t think you needed until you started doing it. 

By the time the grilled cheese hits the pan, you're on the counter across from him, glass in hand, watching him flip the sandwich with more focus than the task probably requires.

"You're bad at this," you say.

"I'm excellent at this."

"You've burned it."

"That's char. Char is a flavor."

You laugh before you can stop yourself. It’s easy to forget how funny Jack is; that dry, sardonic humor is one of the reasons you gravitated towards him, but that all disappears when he’s with a patient, his brows knit in concentration as though he’s unable to do anything else. 

It's later, after the wine's gone and the plates are in the sink, that the space between you on the couch closes. He reaches over, tucks a strand of hair behind your ear, thumb grazing your jaw.

"You good?" Quiet. Not the checking-your-vitals kind of quiet, but the softer kind. 

You nod, and that's answer enough for both of you.

He doesn’t leave until his shift starts the next night. You wake up first, the cold Pittsburgh light coming through the blinds. Jack’s arm is wrapped around your waist, holding you against his chest. You lie there for a moment, wishing that you could go back to sleep and ignore the rest of the world.

But it’s hard to close your eyes when he’s sleeping next to you. A strand of hair falls in his face, his cheeks slightly puffed out as he breathes. He’s a heavy sleeper; a skill that’s been re-acquired after years in the military. 

He wakes up eventually, eyelids fluttering open. “You’re staring,” he mumbles, burying his face in the pillow. 

“I’m thinking,” you retort. 

“About what?”

You only shake your head, looking out the window away from him. You don’t say that this is the first Thanksgiving in years. You didn’t feel a horrible pain after seeing your aunts post on Facebook about how good the sides were. 

He seems to know anyway, the way he knows most things you don’t say out loud. He doesn’t push it. Just pulls you back against him, hands grabbing the hem of your old t-shirt so he can take it off again like he’s got nowhere else to be. 

Which, for the next fourteen hours, he doesn’t. 

You spend the day doing nothing that matters: drinking coffee, reading the paper, watching terrible daytime TV. He fixes the bathroom door that’s falling off the hinge without you having to ask, like it’s something he planned on doing anyways. You don’t talk about his shift tonight, until the light fades to orange and he checks his phone and sighs. 

"I gotta get ready."

"I know."

He pulls his shirt on in your doorway, watching you watch him. "Hey," he says, and waits until you look up. "You call, I come. Doesn't matter what shift I'm on, doesn't matter what time it is. You call, I'm there."

"Jack-"

"I mean it." He says it plain, no joke behind it this time. "That's just how it works now."

You believe him. That's the part that scares you most.

•··········•··········•