“Tell them all she’s resting,” Jake says, worry pinching at the corners of his eyes.
“I don’t think he’s going to let her lift a finger for the next six months,” Garrett says as we head down the corridor.
I agree. “That bed rest might stretch into the postpartum period, and frankly, that sounds delighful.”
Garrett looks at me sideways. “Yeah? So if we ever…”
“Bite your tongue. I mean, yes, we can have kids. But you can’t pull that bossy shit with me.”
He laughs. “Two things can be true, babe. You’re the bossy one in our relationship, and I’ll still be laying down the rest law if anything ever happens to you in pregnancy. And now I know who to call if I need another doc to lecture you.” He jerks his thumb back in the direction of where Schmidt is working. “That guy.”
“Wow, you went from jealous to conspiring with the guy in less than twenty-four hours!”
He tugs me close. “I’m confident that you’re all mine. No need to be jealous when I can still feel you clenching around me.”
I bury my face in his chest, blushing like mad.
But I’m smiling so hard my cheeks hurt, too.
The sun is shining for the drive back to Pine Harbour. The snow that fell last night glitters like crystals in all directions, a totally different vibe from when we first arrived, but the roads are clear.
“How attached are you to Ottawa?” I finally blurt out. “Like this rugby team you joined…what sort of a commitment did you make?”
“Is that what you’ve been churning about over there?” He shifts his hand on the steering wheel so he can reach across the console and squeeze the back of my neck. “It’s a rec league thing. I’m sure I can find a team anywhere else. Why, are you thinking of moving to Australia or the UK?”
“I was thinking a little closer to home. Not forever. I know you don’t love it here, but the pace of work would be better for me. I don’t even know if they’d want me, not really, but I’m pretty good at horning my way into things, and if worst came to worst, I could pick up shifts at a walk-in clinic or sign up for a family medicine re-training, or?—”
“Whoa, okay, slow down. You’ve jumped way past where I was thinking you were going.”
I scrub my hands over my face. “I don’t want to be a big city hospitalist.”
“That’s great.”
“Well, it’s…something. Those are like, ninety percent of the jobs. And I have a mountain of student debt.”
“I’m pretty sure even small town family docs make enough to eventually pay that back.”
“I don’t know if I want to manage a practice of my own, though, either. And I know how that sounds.”
“How do you think that sounds?”
“Like I’m spoiled and I don’t want to do the hard work of being a grown up.”
“You want to lean into your strengths and not get weighed down by stuff that stresses you out,” he gently corrects. “Plus, you miss the tree farm. Honestly, I was fully expecting you to say you wanted to quit medicine and take over from your parents so they could retire.”
I gape at him. “What?”
He shrugs. “I’d have gone along with that, too.”
“No.”
“Yes.” He nods for good measure. “If you would be genuinely happy doing that, I’d be in, one hundred percent. I can fix cars and be in the army just about anywhere in the country. And if you wanted to go to Australia, I’d give it all up to be a rugby-playing house husband.”
“I don’t want to take over the tree farm. All of my fears about running my own practice would be tenfold worse trying to run my own farm.” I take a deep breath. “Oh. That’s probably where my fear comes from, isn’t it?”
“Probably. I read somewhere that deep down, we’re just our younger selves, constantly trying to process the world around us through the lens of what was going on around us when we were forming our permanent memories. Like, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve years old.”
“You read that? I’m impressed.”
