Tell me something about you that would surprise me.
In college I won a hot dog eating contest at a fraternity.
I hit send and immediately freeze.Oh no… Fuck, Blake, that sounds like you’re Queen of the Xi Chi Pi Psi annual gangbang.
I stare at the screen, watching as his dots repeatedly appear and disappear like he’s typing a dissertation about all the reasons he isn’t going to be able to make our dinner tomorrow night.
I groan.
ACTUAL hot dogs.
You are barely five feet and a hundred pounds… and you want me to believe you out-ate a bunch of full-grown men
I was hungry. Your turn…
I slip my phone into my pocket as I head down the hall, heart thumping a little harder than necessary.
BUZZ.
I duck into an empty charting room and pull it back out.
My mom used to let me skip school and sneak me into baseball games when I was a kid. She loved the Cubs, but we couldn’t always afford it. She’d bring homemade sandwiches and swear me to secrecy. She died when I was nineteen, but I still can’t go to a stadium without thinking of her.
My chest tightens. That was not the response I expected. Not that I really know what I was expecting. I sink into the chair, suddenly very aware that I’m smiling softly at my phone like an idiot.That huge wall of a man is a giant softy.
She sounds like she was fun.
She was. Best rule-breaker I ever knew.
I swallow, thumb hovering.
Thank you for telling me that.
The reply comes slower this time.
Your turn again, Doc.
The shift keeps moving, text messages flying betweenus as patients blur together. In a brief moment of quiet, I lean against the wall and pull out my phone again.
What do you do when you’re not John McClane’ing around the world?
JAGGER
First of all, excellent reference.
I work in private security. Risk assessment, protection details. Boring when it’s boring, chaos when it’s not.
So… constant explosions and crawling through air vents.
Only on Tuesdays.
I laugh quietly.
Where are you based?
Chicago.
I pause.
