“And if you need anything nonmedical,” Sean adds quickly, as if he senses the edge of my hurt and wants to blunt it, “practical stuff—rides, connecting you with a social worker for resources—let me know.”
“Or me,” Declan adds. “No strings.”
My eyes sting without permission. “No strings,” I echo.
Declan’s phone buzzes. He ignores it. He’s watching my face like it’s a chart and he’s training himself not to reach for the stethoscope he’s not allowed to wear around me anymore.
“We should go,” Sean says, standing. He waits for Declan like he can’t leave until they both do.
Declan sits, his shoulders slumped, his eyes darting from the table to me. Finally, he murmurs, “You really don’t know if one of us is the father?”
The lump in my throat presses harder, and I shake my head. I don’t know why I have an instinct to lie. Maybe it’s to test their goodness and intentions, to find out how far their kindnessstretches, some tortured remnant of my childhood, waiting for my dad to come home and finding out he’s left us all for a new family…
But I do. I lie to them and let them think there are other men in the running. “I’m sorry, no.”
Declan nods, not looking at me. When his eyes finally meet mine, I see tears clinging to his long, ginger lashes. He nods again, smiling through it, and stands. “Okay. Take care, Willow Abel.”
“Thank you,” I say, and mean it. For the recusal, for the plan, for the attempt at care through distance.
When I walk back to the car, Cheyenne is waiting in the driver’s seat. Dylan messes with the knobs in the car until he sees me, and he straightens and starts to get out. I shake my head as I open the back door, saying, “I’m not immobile yet.”
Dylan twists in his seat to look back at me. “Just trying to be respectful.”
“Respectful? God, are you going to start calling me ma’am?”
He scoffs at my unappreciation for his manners. “I might. Would you like that, ma’am?”
“No, Dylan, I would not.”
“So, how were the lads? Did they juggle apples? Pour tea on their heads? I never know with Irish people.”
“They’re doctors, not leprechauns,” I mutter, looking out the window.
Cheyenne takes one look at my face in the rearview mirror and softens. “You okay?”
“I will be,” I say, meaning it and not.
“Tell us everything,” she says, her fingers tight around her fuzzy pink steering wheel. “Use small words and large hand gestures…for Dylan.”
“Yeah, for me,” Dylan says good-naturedly.
So, I do. I tell them about the recusal and the ethics disclosure and the fact that I’m now adjacent to a team of physicians who set a boundary and then honored it in front of me instead of asking me to carry it alone. I tell them about the lemon wedge and Sean’s remembering and Declan’s reflexes and Rowan’s proclamation followed by his exit.
Dylan whistles low. “I guess collecting men like Pokémon wasn’t a good idea, after all.”
“If only someone had said so at the time,” Cheyenne says sarcastically, grinning.
“If you want, you can just tell me what to do from now on, and I’ll do it,” I tell her, tapping her shoulder from the back seat.
“My rules are simple. Just avoid getting together with a certified litter of men who also happen to know each other.”
“Alitter?” I squeak.
Dylan pats my foot. “Chey, baby, you can’t call men a litter.”
“Fine,” she says, unrepentant. “A set? A sampler platter?”
“Better,” Dylan says, then turns to me. “Sampler platter aside, I like that they’re doing the professional thing. That tells me they take their work seriously, not just their…you know.” He gestures vaguely at the air in front of his jeans. “Charm.”
