He closed his eyes and an hour later, which felt like two seconds, the door opened. The sweat-soaked body of the woman who carried his heart like a torch walked to the kitchen and filled a large glass with icy water from the refrigerator door. She didn’t acknowledge him. He couldn’t blame her. Some strange and completely irrational part of his mind wanted her to be pissed at him. Jessica could never be ordinary and he accepted that—a sick part of him even loved that about her—but just for one moment he wanted the Jessica that showed she had a jealous side.
“I don’t want you to be a martyr.”
She turned with narrowed eyes, wiping her mouth along the back of her hand. “You assume I’m suffering somehow?”
Moving his empty bottle like a pendulum, he clenched his teeth but the words still came out. “My ex-fiancée is dying and you tell me to go see her.”
Jessica set her empty glass on the counter. “She’s not necessarily dying.”
“It doesn’t matter. That’s not the point.”
“O-kay … so tell me what is the point?”
Luke slammed the bottle onto the coffee table then tugged at his hair. “The point is you should be concerned that my going to see Fran could stir up emotions from my past. That … that seeing her in such a helpless state could cause me to leave you to be by her side because I might think she needs me more than you do.”
“Whoa … how many beers have you had?”
He didn’t answer, choosing instead to stare at the floor, breathless with anger. Anger about what? He wasn’t sure.
“Jesus, Luke. I was jealous of slutty Lickey, and then your lunch date in Tahoe before I knew it was with your sister. But that was when I didn’t know how you felt about me. That was before you promised that someday you’d beg me to marry you. That was before you asked me and Jones to move in with you. If something has changed, then now would be a good time to confess. Otherwise, I’m not going to be jealous of your ex-fiancée, who may or may not be dying, unless you keep saying shit about seeing her and it stirring up emotions that would make you leave me.”
“I’m not leaving you.” It was the truth, but he still couldn’t look at her. Jessica’s sharp perception would’ve seeped through his vulnerability until everything came crashing down.
“Go see her, Luke.”
*
After sobering up, Luke apologized to Jessica for his reaction to the morning’s events. It came as no surprise that she forgave him. In spite of her past, which included killing someone with a knife, Luke knew she was the better person. If she were him, she would have already packed her bags and been on a plane to Scottsdale.
Instead, after a week of an awkward existence as roommates, the kind that didn’t have sex and gave each other polite smiles in passing, they packed up the essentials and Jones, then drove to Tahoe to spend the weekend with Luke’s family. It may have been a cowardly move, but he decided they needed a change in scenery to bring Jessica out of her withdrawn state. Of course he didn’t let her drive, but she didn’t ask either. However, the death-look, that he’d come to know all too well, stuck to her face the entire way there. At one point when they stopped to let Jones do his thing, he almost handed her the keys. Almost.
“Tell me why you’re mad.”
Jessica coughed a throaty chuckle. “We’re twenty minutes from your parents’ place and you want to have a conversation based on your assumption that I’m mad?”
“Are you not?”
“No. I’m not mad.”
An interesting thing about medical school and specializing in psychiatry was the lack of information about the intricate workings of the female mind. Unfortunately, he proved to be his biggest obstacle. The change in their relationship stemmed from the Fran revelation. It made no sense why she would really want him to go visit Fran, but with each passing day filled with her withdrawn attitude and kissing Jones more than him, it became quite clear that’s exactly what she expected him to do.
“Then why haven’t we …” Sex. He wanted to know why they hadn’t had sex. No amount of education, plaques on the wall, or professional accolades could completely hide the man behind the doctor.
“Why haven’t we …?”
“Exercised.”
Dr. Jones went MIA whenever Luke tried to have a conversation that involved their relationship.
“Exercised? Well, I don’t know why we haven’t exercised, but I’ve been doing it every day while you’ve been stuck at your office ‘catching up on dictation’ until after dinner most nights. Jude’s been quite happy that I’ve been available to spar almost every night.”
Luke had been at his office with legitimate work to do, but nothing that he couldn’t have done at home. Dr. Jones would have made the brilliant assessment that Luke had been avoiding not only Jessica but Fran and his past too. The woman beside him possessed too much intelligence to dismiss the reaction he had to the news of Fran.