I roll my eyes through a smile and select a pint of salted caramel ice cream while Rowan retrieves a pair of spoons from a drawer.
“You’re having ice cream, too?” I ask.
“Figured you wouldn’t want to eat alone.”
I nod and turn to push myself up onto the countertop, and he hands me a spoon.
“You didn’t have to do this, you know,” I tell him after I dig in.
He shrugs and rests his hip against the counter before he opens up another pint of ice cream with a nut-free label. “This is the kind of stuff friends do for one another, right?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say thoughtfully. “I’m sorry about all that crap I said earlier, though. If I’d have known?—”
“Don’t be sorry,” he cuts me off to say. Then he leans in to look me in the eyes as he adds, “I can handle you, you know.”
I don’t know if he’s referring to the physical affection I joked about a while back or my hormonal mood swings, but I’m still left squirming and trying to hide the way his statement makes me shiver.
“Besides,” he continues after a while. “I’m always looking for a good excuse to hang out with you.”
I frown at that. “Are you working in Camellia tomorrow?”
“Yeah, so I’d have made the drive either way.” He takes another bite before he goes on. “I’ll actually be working out here more often from now on, at least a couple days per week.”
“Oh.”
“Tenley and Dr. Simms asked me to help by picking up a few extra maternity patients in addition to my high-risk cases,” he explains shyly.
“That’s great. I mean, if you’re good with seeing their regular patients and all. I imagine you won’t make as much money or get to pick and choose your caseload, though.”
“That stuff doesn’t bother me,” he remarks, so I drop it. “Anything else new with you?”
I sigh. “I saw my ex today.”
“Really?” he asks hesitantly. “Is that part of the reason …”
“No … and yes. It’s not like I miss him or anything. But he had his stepdaughter with him, and well, you can probably figure out the rest.”
He flashes me a rueful smile. “I’m sorry. That had to be hard for you.”
“I guess it could have been worse. Doesn’t look like his new girlfriend is pregnant yet,” I say with a shrug.
He digs around in his ice cream for a while before he speaks again. “Did you ever find out why you couldn’t conceive?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I had surgery to clean up some endometriosis about a year ago, but it didn’t seem to help. And I couldn’t convince Jeremy to run any tests on himself.”
“Sometimes it just doesn’t happen, even without a good explanation,” he says softly, but it does nothing to temper my resentment.
“I never could understand how God could allow people who didn’t want kids to keep having them and not give them to someone like me. I mean, I’m far from perfect, but how is this fair?” I demand, my tone bitter. “I’m sorry if you don’t like the way that sounds.”
“No, you’re right. It isn’t fair,” he replies, his voice still even. “And I won’t pretend to have some theological explanation for why God allows bad things to happen to good people. All we can do is trust that those who suffer in this life will be rewarded in the next.”
I let out a shaky exhale. “Why would He want us to suffer, though?”
“I don’t think God wants us to suffer, and I’m not even sure He’s letting it happen for our own good. Maybe it’s just the consequences of sin in the world in general, after thousands of years of free will. Like, the mistakes I make today might affect someone elsein the future. I don’t know. Maybe we’re just not meant to understand.”
“How can you do that, though? How do you just accept something you don’t understand?”
He shrugs. “It’s kind of the whole point of having faith, isn’t it?
