Page 3 of Falling for my First Crush

“Yeah,” Gemma says. “I just saw her walk out the door a bit ago.”

I’m about to ask her something when the door to one of the offices opens, and a man walks out whom I would recognize anywhere. Joe Lawrence. My mouth dries up, and any thoughts I had flee. My heart speeds up.

“Are you okay?” Gemma notices my reaction and asks with concern in her voice.

I nod, recovering my brain power. “Yeah, sorry,” I say. “Just saw someone I haven’t seen in years.”

Gemma glances in the direction that I’m looking. “Oh, yeah, Joe. He’s volunteering here. If I didn’t already have a boyfriend, I would definitely ask him out. Yum. Listen, I have to go. I’ll see you later.”

She leaves, and I consider what I should do. She’s right. Joe has always been attractive, but his years away from Cranberry Creek have definitely made him a yum. His dark hair is on the shorter side, and he has a shadow of stubble. He’s muscular and toned in all the right places. I’m so distracted trying to decide how to approach him, that he beats me to it and comes over to me instead, a huge smile on his face.

“Jackie Moretti? Do my eyes deceive me? I haven’t seen you in years,” he says, his voice much deeper than I remember.

“Yep, it’s me,” I squeak, wishing I could melt into the ground.

Two

JOE

I’m surprised to see Jackie Moretti here, of all places. “I haven’t seen you in years,” I say.

Jackie nods, her head bobbing up and down rhythmically. She seems nervous, which is odd. Growing up, we were the best of friends. She was my ‘kid sister’ that I looked out for and confided in all the time. True, I’ve been away from Cranberry Creek for years now, but that shouldn’t matter. When you have a friendship like we had, you can pick up right where you left off. Or at least that’s the lie I’ve been telling myself since I went away.

“That is true,” she says.

“We should catch up sometime,” I say, a little too eagerly.

“We could go down to the cafeteria and… get some coffee,” she says, hesitantly. She seems startled at the suggestion, even though she’s the one who made it. “I mean, if you have time. I was supposed to hang out and catch up with Sabina, so I already blocked off the time. Sorry, I’m rambling.”

“No, yeah, it’s fine,” I say, hoping to put her at ease. “We should totally go down now. Are you still meeting up with Sabina? How’s she doing?”

“Uh… no, she ended up making other plans. She’s doing… okay. Here, follow me and we can go grab that coffee,” she says.

I follow behind her, as we make our way to the elevators. Even though Jackie seems nervous to be around me, there’s also something self-assured in the way she walks, like she belongs here. It occurs to me that maybe she does.

“Hey,” I say. “Do you work here?”

Jackie glances over her shoulder at me, and nods. “Yep,” she says. “I’m mainly an OB nurse on the maternity floor, but I also float wherever I’m needed. The hospital is pretty short-staffed these days.”

“That’s too bad,” I say. “About being short-staffed. I think it’s great that you became a nurse.”

“Uh, yeah… thanks,” she says.

The air is still jolted with awkwardness. I know it’s my fault. But I’m believing it will eventually go back to the way it used to be; back during the good ol’ days.

We get on the elevator, and an awkward silence fills the void between us again. I keep sneaking glances over at her, and I can’t help but notice how pretty Jackie has become. I mean, she was always a cute kid, and I can still see some of that in her, like in the way she keeps tucking her chin length dark hair behind her ears. She did that all the time when she was a kid. But I can also see what a beauty she has become as an adult. She has a trim figure, and her face is still heart shaped; her most striking feature, though, is her chocolate brown doe eyes, which always had a way of disarming me, and pulling me in. They were wise, honest eyes, that exuded warmth and trust at the same time. I honestly could never really lie to Jackie if she was looking at me with those soulful eyes.

Jackie leads the way to the cashier when we get down to the hospital cafeteria. I’m surprised to see it so busy at this time of day. There are people milling about at tables, and the line is actually pretty long.

“Seems like there’s a lot going on around here today,” I say.

Again, I get a look from Jackie that I can’t read, but seems to border on amused. “It’s a shift change,” she says. “Most people are just getting off or getting ready to start their shift, so… food.”

I nod. "It’s the same way at the firehouse. Food is massively important to all of us. We just don’t have a swanky cafeteria where the food is served to us. There are a few guys on every shift who do most of the cooking.”

We order our coffees, and when we get to cashier to pay, I fumble my wallet out before Jackie has a chance to reach for hers. “I’ve got this,” I say, handing my card to the cashier. “It’s the least I can do…since we haven’t seen each other in so long.”

“Oh, thanks,” Jackie says, like she isn’t quite sure she wants to be accepting anything from me.

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