Page 79 of Finding Jack
“What happened next is that he took that gulp as a yes and he was dead right and then he kissed me.” She flopped back in her chair and closed her eyes, a small smile playing around her puffy lips.
“And?”
“And you’re an idiot for breaking up with him.”
“Hashtag no regrets.”
She opened her eyes and straightened in her seat. “I heard you say that you don’t care, and now I’m looking at you, and you truly don’t seem like you care.”
“Because I don’t care. I mean, I care that you had a nice time rolling in the hay.”
“I didn’t roll in the hay. Shut up.”
“Seriously. It’s all good. If he’s a good fit for you, then you have my blessing.”
“Thanks,” she said softly. “I wouldn’t feel okay about this if I didn’t.”
“But you do, so how do you feel?”
“I feel good.” She touched her lips, almost subconsciously, and I smothered a smile. She dropped her hand. “And also like I’m tired of talking about me. What did you do tonight?”
“Well…I talked to Jack.”
“You called him? Yes!”
“Actually, no. He texted and wanted to FaceTime.”
“Ooh, about what? Tell me everything.”
“Not much to tell. We have ground rules now. We’re just going to be friends, but this time there are no dumb restrictions on conversation. Except we agreed that neither of us wants to hear much about each other’s dates. Other than that, we can have all the small talk we want. And real talk.”
“Are you planning to date people?”
“If something comes up, I guess. But I haven’t checked my app in a while. Maybe if I get bored or something.” A funny expression flickered across her face. I couldn’t quite decipher it. “What?”
“Did Jack say he wasn’t going to talk about the people he dates either?”
“Yeah.”
“He doesn’t date anyone.”
“Is that what Sean says? Do they see each other often enough for Sean to know?” I knew it sounded like I was arguing that Jack was probably dating regularly. But I wanted Ranée to prove me wrong.
She gave me a long look, like she wasn’t fooled at all. “Sean works at the clinic as a nurse sometimes on his days off from doing guide stuff. He’s in there at least once a week. They talk. He says Jack doesn’t date. Not many options there, I guess, and if there were, he still doesn’t think Jack would be into it.”
“So he’s living not just as a hermit but as a celibate hermit in his mountain cabin?”
She shrugged. “Basically. Sean has been worried about him for a while.”
“Sean seems really into Jack’s business.”
“If it were me, wouldn’t you be? Or was that someone else who texted my stable partner tonight?”
“Point taken.”
She shrugged. “It’s an interesting friendship. He says he and Jack lost enough patients together that it was like being in the trenches or something. I think they had a particularly bad case and lost a patient, and Sean quit. Pediatrics was too intense for him. I think he’ll eventually get bored of playing mountain man and go back to nursing. That’s why he likes helping Jack at the clinic. He says the patients are a lot more fixable.”
A small pit opened in my stomach thinking about what it meant that pediatric cancer patients hadn’t been as fixable. My mind didn’t even want to wander down that path. I couldn’t imagine what it had been like for Sean and Jack to live in that world, fighting losing battles day after day.
