“I’m serious. Look at you. Cooking, cleaning, caring for the people around you like it’s a natural thing to do.”
“I’m not that domestic.”
“You just fixed my car, with all fix-the-leak, patch-the-roof, save-the-day energy.” I bump my hip against his, a playful nudge I used to do a lot of times before but somehow now feels like it burns through my jeans. “Face it, you’re a nurturer. It’s embarrassing how good you are at it.”
George stills for a while. Something dark flashes across his face before he recovers. His eyes drop to the exact spot where my hip just hit his, then drift lower.
“Shut up,” he says finally, looking up, and that’s when he realizes I’ve been watching him the whole time.
Neither of us moves.
I know he was just staring at my ass, he knows I caught him, and neither of us says a word.
“Onions are done,” I mutter. Lamest line ever.
“Good. Put them in.”
Ten minutes later, we’re at his small kitchen table with bowls of chicken pozole. Our knees bump under the table. I take a bite and it’s so good I actually groan out loud. It’s mortifying, but I can’t help it. The stuff is fucking incredible.
“Good?” George asks, watching me like he’s trying not to smile.
“So good,” I say, already going back in for another bite. “Marry me. I want this every day.”
“No. You only want me for my cooking.”
“And your mechanical skills.” I grin at him across the table, still chewing in a way that would horrify my mother. “And your truck.”
George lets out a loud coughing sound, striking his chest with his good fist, face going red.
“Slow down,” I say, pushing a glass of water toward him. “I’m not going to fucking eat it all.”
He drinks, coughs again, and squints at me with watering eyes. “Did you just say cock?”
“TRUCK.” I nearly send broth across the table. “I said truck. Jesus Christ, George, I said truck.” I grab the kitchen towel and press it to my face while he gets himself together.
We’re looking at each other across the table, his eyes steady on mine, and the moment stretches past where it should end. I can see the scar through his left brow from here, the line of his beardalong his jaw, the way he’s gone completely still. I don’t look away. I don’t want to.
George looks down first. “Eat your food before it gets cold.”
“Yes, sir,” I say, automatically.
His eyes come back to mine fast.
We finish the pozole in silence that has too much in it.
I’ve been on since seven this morning. Three traumas, one cardiac arrest we somehow dragged back from the brink, and a steady rotation of respiratory cases that all decided today was the day.
My feet feel fused to the inside of my shoes. My shoulders ache from twelve straight hours of leaning over beds, gurneys, and people actively trying to die on me.
By the time the shift from hell finally spits me out, I spend a full minute in the locker room staring at my phone and seriously considering texting George.
Thinking of texting him with nothing dramatic, something lame like a meme, a complaint, or a “you alive?” kind of text. Anything that gets me out of my own head for five minutes.
I decide against it.
That road feels a little too direct tonight, and I’m tired enough to know I won’t steer it responsibly once I’m on it.
“Don’t even think about disappearing,” Charlie says from across the locker room, already halfway changed. “You’re coming out.”
