“What’s wrong?” His hand curled around my wrist again, stopping me.
“Nothing,” I said, my tone a little harsher than necessary. “I need to leave. I’m already late.”
“Hey.” Dropping my wrist, he covered my cheek with his palm, and my lips started to tremble. I was one of those who couldn’t handle kindness when I was already teetering on the edge, and the gentle tone of his voice was the worst thing he could’ve offered to me in that moment.
“Are you gonna die?” His question was too much of a contradiction with the tone of his voice and his warm hand resting on my cheek, which was why I couldn’t find my words for a moment.
I blinked at him. “What?” I stuttered, shocked out of my tears.
“I asked if you’re going to die.” He pulled his hand away from me and dropped it to his side. “Is it something like cancer?” he continued. “Did the doctor say anything like that? Is it not treatable? If that’s the case, let’s sit down and cry together and break things.”
I just kept blinking up at him, drawing a blank as to how to respond. A few seconds later, I just burst into laughter. I was aware that it probably looked like I was losing it in front of him, but it couldn’t have been further from the truth. Jack actually must have thought I had indeed lost it, because the line between his brows got deeper by the second.
“Something funny?”
“Oh, the things you say to me, Jack Hawthorne.” I sighed, wiping tears of laughter from under my eyes. “I think this might be why I found myself in front of your building, because I probably knew you wouldn’t cuddle me and allow self-pity. If I’d called any of my friends or gone straight to the coffee shop, I would have just felt sorry for myself the entire day.”
When his expression didn’t lighten up, I decided to go ahead and answer his question.
“No, I don’t think I’m going to die. I hope not, at least. He didn’t say it was anything that bad—if I have what he thinks I have, that is. There is always the possibility of ending up having surgery and dying on the table, but then again he might have skipped that part because I don’t think it’d be a very positive thing to tell a patient.”
Jack tilted his head and gave me an impressively exasperated look. “How about we don’t jump to any conclusions yet? We don’t know whether it is CSF or something else. Let’s see the ENT specialist tomorrow and then start to worry about tests and scans and surgeries.”
I nodded and took a deep, deep breath, having gotten a better handle on my emotions thanks to his brand of tough love. “I’m not good with doctors,” I told him, repeating my earlier confession. “I’m not good with stuff like this.”
“I really couldn’t tell.” His beautiful and gentle smile was the last straw for me, and the tears just started to roll down my face.
He must’ve misunderstood my tears, because he rushed to explain. “You have to stop crying. I can’t take it. We’ll deal with it together, if it comes to it, but we’re not going to worry about it before we know what it is exactly. It doesn’t make sense to do so. Agreed?”
“Now you smile at me?” I blurted out, ignoring his support. His face was already blurring as my eyes started to fill with tears, but I managed to hit him on his chest once, lightly. “Now?” I didn’t even realize my voice was rising, but I felt his entire demeanor change as he kept my hand against his chest and pulled me in closer, which only made things worse.
I rested my forehead against his chest, near his heart, and tried to get myself together. When his deeply masculine scent started to mess with me, I grabbed the lapel of his jacket in my fist and pulled back so I could look up at him.
“This is the worst timing, Jack. If it really is brain, spinal cord fluid leak, or whatever the hell it is, he said I’d need to have surgery. I’m afraid of needles! Needles, for God’s sake. Surgery? And that close to my brain or spinal cord?” I took a breath and continued. “I know this is going to sound extremely vain and I hate myself for it, but does this mean they’re gonna cut my hair off? Go in through my skull? How would it even work? I was going to google it on my way over here, but I couldn’t even manage that.”
Both his hands went up to my cheeks this time as he cleared my rapidly falling tears with his thumbs. “We’re not gonna do that.” He leaned down so he could be eye level with me. “We’re not gonna start worrying before we know what’s going on. I told you this already and you’re not hearing me.”
“I just know it’s CSF.” I stared into his eyes. “With my luck, I know it is.” To have something to hold on to or maybe because I wanted to keep him connected to me as long as I could, I lifted my hands and placed them over Jack’s wrists. “I don’t want this, Jack. I have the coffee shop. After years of dreaming, I have it, and I can’t close it if I have to have surgery. We just opened.”
He took a step closer and I released my hold on his wrists. “Who is talking about closing? You have employees—they can take care of it. If not, we’ll hire someone else to help. Are you even listening to what I’m saying? We don’t know what’s going on yet, Rose. Let’s see what they say tomorrow and we’ll start thinking about the coffee shop then.”
My breath hitched as I managed a small nod with his hands on my cheeks. I must’ve looked like a mess, and I knew I felt like one. I tried my best to stop being stupid and listen to him, but my heart was clenching and I was starting to have trouble breathing. I forced myself to take a deep breath as Jack tilted my head back so he could look into my eyes.
“You’re not alone in this. I’m right here, Rose. We’ll figure it out together. We have each other now.”
Cue more tears, because this Jack was too close to the dream Jack. As a result, I couldn’t help but lean forward and rest my forehead on his chest again. His hands fell from my face even as I burrowed closer, deeper into him. Both my arms were flat against his chest yet his arms stayed limp at his sides. I didn’t say anything, just stood there and breathed in his scent, and for a good long while, at that. As my breathing slowly returned to normal, he didn’t say anything either.
I closed my eyes tight. If he didn’t wrap his arms around me in the next few seconds, I’d have to pull back and walk away from him, otherwise it was going to be too awkward. Then I felt his arms embrace me.
“I’m right here, Rose,” he whispered, his rough voice washing over me like a caress that fired something up inside me. “I might not be what you wanted or needed, but you got me anyway. I’m right here.”
There was a tightness in my chest when I answered him. “You said that, in the beginning, said you weren’t good at this kind of stuff. You’re doing wonderful, Jack.” I managed to push myself even closer to him as his arms tightened around me.
Maybe I would start to be greedy with this man.
I didn’t know how long we stood like that, right in the middle of his office, but when there was a soft knock on the door, I reluctantly stepped back and tried my best to wipe under my eyes. I could only imagine what I must look like. I glanced at my fingers and held back a groan when I saw the black smudges of what was left of my mascara.