Chapter Text
There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that.
—from the Ghazals of Hafez (1325-1390)
Baran was never one to simply go with the flow where her personal life was concerned. But the transition to her new role at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center loosened her life from a lot of its moorings.
Of course, Baran was no stranger to chaos or uncertainty. The years she spent in Kabul with Médecins Sans Frontières and later at the Atatürk Children's Hospital taught her to focus on the glimmers of goodness in the all-encompassing darkness of night. Even in 2020, when the madness of the world came crashing through the doors of the maternity ward in Dasht-e-Barshi, she found a way to hold on to hope.
She didn’t mind the VA, but she found herself weary of the place and in search of new challenges, so when a headhunter reached out to her about an interim position in the Emergency Department at PTMC, she jumped at the opportunity.
Baran went in with a plan to manage the volume of patients and cases and traumas in the ED: patient passports, AI charting tools, and an extra attending on each shift, among other improvements. But in the end, none of those things did much to mitigate the bone-crushing exhaustion she felt at the end of each twelve- to fifteen-hour shift.
Then she and Jack Abbot started whatever this was, and the burden of the ED and its peculiar madness became a little bit easier to bear. Her ex-husband had Daryush just one week plus one weekend a month, so she and Jack sometimes went ten days or more without sharing a bed, but the arrangement was steady and predictable in a way she found oddly comforting.
As the weeks wore on, Baran watched her life fall into a rhythm that, while thoroughly unexpected, felt more or less sustainable. She wasn’t ready for this thing between her and Jack to be more than what it was, a gratifying friends with benefits arrangement, and she sensed that he felt the same way. He still wore his dark tungsten wedding band, and she still wasn’t ready for him to meet her son. They enjoyed an easy intimacy, both at work and outside of it, but a gauzy veil remained between the parts of their lives they were willing to share and the parts that, at least for now, neither was willing to reveal.
It became quickly apparent that Jack and Robby shared a very close bond, and she knew he was deeply invested in the progress of his friend’s sabbatical journey. She observed him checking his phone between patients at the hub desk and she suspected that Jack was trying to reach his friend, but she held her silence, never asking what he was doing or whose message he was so urgently waiting for. It was obvious that the mantle of worry weighed heavy on him, which in turn made her worry, not only for Robby but also for the way his absence affected Jack.
Her suspicions were proven right one Friday night after a long shift when Jack’s phone buzzed against the nightstand as they were getting ready to turn in. He was standing at the sink, brushing his teeth, when the device rattled against the top of the bedside table a second time. Spitting the foam into the sink, he quickly rinsed it down the drain and wiped his mouth, then walked back into the bedroom, meeting Baran’s eyes as he snatched his phone off the nightstand. He sat down on the bed and propped his crutches against the nightstand. Slipping on his reading glasses, he read the alert and a slow smile spread across his lips.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
Baran sat up in bed, her dark, slender brows furrowed as he tapped at his phone with his thumb. “What is it?”
“He’s coming home.”
She didn’t need to ask who he was. Robby had been living rent-free in both of their heads since he left the hospital after his last shift. The last she heard, he was in Gunnison, Colorado. Though Jack was reticent to speak openly of his concerns, she knew he had been particularly worried about Robby for the last several days.
“Where is he?” she asked gently, watching as Jack’s thick index finger traced something on the phone screen.
Jack swung his legs into the bed, slipping between the sheets and sliding towards her. He pulled up the text message, bracing the phone between his thumb and pinky, reading it again before handing it to her.
Just finished a Jewish meditation retreat in Simi Valley. Five days of mindfulness meditation, yoga, singing ningunim, and long walks in the hills. Starting the ride home tomorrow. Should be back in the Burgh within a week, give or take a day or two. Love you, brother.
Jack peered over her shoulder and reread the message. “I don’t know what ningunim is, but the rest sounds good.”
“It does.” She passed the phone back. “I’m happy for him.” She bit back a smile at the image of Robby, all six feet one inches of him with those long arms and legs, sitting cross-legged on a meditation cushion for hours at a time.
“I know,” Jack said with a laugh. “It doesn’t sound like the Robby you know, or even the one that I’ve known the last few years. I was wondering what he was up to in Simi Valley. I had my suspicions. My hopes, you know, but when he stopped responding to my texts, I got worried.”
Jack pulled up a map of southern California, where a blinking dot marked “Robby” showed him in the Simi Hills near the Brandeis-Bardin Campus of the American Jewish University. Neither rang a bell, though Baran had spent most of her childhood in the Los Angeles area. Simi Valley and suburban Ventura County might as well have been another planet, many light-years from Tehrangeles and Westwood Boulevard.
Baran used her thumb and forefinger to zoom in on the location of the blinking dot, briefly visualizing a nearly invisible tether, like a monofilament fishing line, linking Jack and Robby over the thousands of miles that separated them. She closed her eyes and shrugged away the thought.
Her last encounter with Robby ended in a shouting match in North 7 and his angry ultimatum that she self-report her breakthrough seizures. The memory of their clash still made her mouth taste of bile. Two months walking in his oversized shoes brought her to admit that Robby had valid reasons for concern, even if he had been, as Jack put it, “a total dick about it.”
It felt strange sometimes, how Robby’s shadow felt ever-present, hanging over her not only in the ED but whenever she was with Jack. Robby and Jack had been part of each other’s lives for so long that it seemed they were woven together. Robby occupied a tremendous amount of Jack's mental real estate, far more so than she would have expected when she let herself fall into whatever this was between her and Jack. The only place that Robby’s ghostly presence didn’t lurk between them was when they were in bed. Except here they were, in bed, talking about him.
Fuck.
Baran didn’t exactly resent Robby’s presence, or omnipresence, in Jack’s life, but she struggled to understand it. What were these men to each other? Now that Robby was homeward bound, she felt conflicted: on the one hand, relieved to know he was safe and coming back, and yet disappointed, knowing that the time she had to figure out the nature of this thing with Jack was quickly running out.
“Has Robby been sharing his location with you the whole time?” she asked, tilting her head as she examined the map again.
Jack’s cheek twitched and a crooked smile deepened the dimple on the left side of his mouth. “Reluctantly, but yes.”
He set the phone face down on his thigh and turned to her, searching her face for a long moment.
“He gave me a ton of shit about it when I asked him to share his location info on his phone, the night before he left.” Jack shrugged and shook his head, his brow creasing in that way she found curiously attractive and deeply annoying, all at once. “He was pretty indignant about it. Accused me of being Big Brother, of not trusting him. Which, I guess at some level, I didn’t. I almost threatened to put a GPS tracker on his bike.”
“Wouldn’t that be illegal?”
He grunted, and the phone buzzed again. “Probably.”
Jack opened the incoming message and clicked the photo, and another smile broke across his face as he passed her the phone again. The photo was obviously posed, with Robby sitting under a tree, barefoot, wearing jeans and a faded, rumpled T-shirt, with his arm braced across one knee while the other leg extended into the foreground of the photo. His beard had grown out considerably during his travels, obscuring the shape of his jaw, but the biggest change was the glint in his dark brown eyes, something which was increasingly elusive during the day Baran spent working with him on July 4th.
She studied the photograph, trying to reconcile the man pictured with the one who had loomed in front of the door as they shouted at each other. “Although we didn’t part on great terms, I’m really glad he took some time to…” She wasn’t arrogant enough to presume she knew what Robby needed. “I am glad he was able to take some time for himself,” she said quietly, handing the phone back again.
Jack stared at the image for a few seconds before composing a quick response, and Baran noted how the tension had melted from his shoulders as the weeks of worry she had sensed in him finally evaporated away. The shift in his demeanor was immediate and profound. He hesitated, rereading the message before sending it, then plugged the phone into the charging cable and set it face down on the nightstand.
He turned to her, his hazel eyes soft as he slid his hand under the sheet and caressed the edge of her hip. “He knows, you know,” he said.
“That you’ve been obsessively tracking his movements?”
Jack cocked his head and rolled his eyes dramatically. “He knows about that, too. As soon as I saw him cross the border into California on I-10, east of Blythe, I sent him a playlist of California-related songs—you know, Mamas and the Papas, Eagles, Beach Boys, 2Pac, Joni Mitchell, Led Zeppelin.” He smirked, then leaned in close, fanning his broad hand across the curve of her waist. “But I also told him about us.”
“What did you tell him?” Baran felt a little faint when the heel of Jack’s warm hand pressed firmly against her hip, his fingers skimming over the edge of her navel. “About us, I mean.”
His hand stilled its sly explorations as he bowed his head, brushing his nose against her cheek as he kissed the edge of her jaw. “I told him the truth,” he said quietly. “That we’d gotten together, and that you’d spent the night at my place a few times.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed, but did not turn away from him. “Is that all this is to you?” Her heart raced as she wondered whether she really wanted to hear the answer.
“No,” Jack kissed her jaw again, sucking gently on her skin for a fraction of a second before pulling away. “But that’s the only part I felt comfortable telling him over the phone.”
She sensed he was holding something back, but she wasn’t sure what it was. “I don’t know what this is, Jack.” As soon as she said it, she realized it wasn't clear which this she was asking about: the nature of her relationship with him, or his with Robby? "You know, between us."
He stilled again, and she felt his breath, warm and even, tickle the sensitive skin on the side of her neck. “I don’t know either,” he said, his head still slightly bowed as his eyes peered up at her from beneath his knitted brow. “Even if we don’t know how to categorize this, it doesn't make it less worthy.” He plucked at her skin with his lips, murmuring as she shivered. “Or less real.”
Deep down, she knew he was right. There was something to this thing between them, something good and valid and worth protecting, but she wasn’t sure what to call it. They weren’t dating, exactly, but this felt more substantial than just casual sex. They were intimate in a way that transcended the physical. Their connection had taken root in that undefined space between, and while she struggled to understand the scope of their relationship, it was so good, and so curiously grounding, she didn’t want to let it go either.
She rolled over onto her back and let her legs fall apart, drawing a sharp breath as he quickly crawled between them, pinning her under his weight as he arched his body over hers.
Eight days later, on a quiet Sunday in late September, the delicate equilibrium between them was put to the test.
Baran awoke in Jack’s bed, but the sweat-creased sheets were cool and his warm body nowhere to be found. There was nothing unusual about that. Jack tended to sleep fitfully, and he always described his sleep in cycles, not in hours. The move back to days after years of working nights had been a challenge, and if he could manage three or four cycles in a night, he considered it a win.
She shoved the covers off and swung her legs over the side of the bed, taking a moment to get her bearings before getting up to pee. When she came back in from the bathroom, she heard the murmur of voices, low and careful, drifting in from the living room. It would have been alarming had she not expected it at some point. She reached into her overnight tote, retrieved a fresh pair of Woxers and a tank top with a built-in bra, and quickly pulled them on. A cool front had moved in the day before, and while Jack had turned the heat up for her, Baran still felt a chill, so she reached for the old Case Western hoodie and threaded her arms into it, zipping it up halfway and stepping out into the living room.
The voices stilled when she opened the bedroom door, the wffft sound of the wood against the carpet reminding her of an airlock as she looked up to find Jack and Robby on the sofa. A slow, warm smile spread across Jack’s face as he took in the sight of her and glanced over at Robby, whose face went slack. They sat apart, each occupying one end of the sofa, bracing one arm over the cushioned back while they leaned in, their faces closer than their hips as they both gazed back at her.
Baran lingered by the door for a long moment, studying them. “Good morning,” she said softly, her voice barely loud enough to be heard on the other side of the room.
“Hey.” Jack waved his hand and beckoned her to approach.
She hesitated for a moment, then walked over, briefly considering sitting between his legs, but decided against it, and instead took her seat in the plush leather armchair next to him. Jack leaned over and reached for her hand, squeezing it gently before bringing it to his lips and kissing her knuckles and then her thumb, a gesture so tender she blushed.
Baran placed her hand on the armrest, still clasped in Jack’s, as she looked up and met Robby’s eyes.
His crow’s feet seemed less pronounced than she had remembered them. His nearly black irises flickered with an amused curiosity that reminded her of the early hours of that day with him, the first half of that shift when they were sizing each other up, gently poking, testing one another’s limits. That playful shimmer had quickly burned off as the shift wore on, until all she saw reflected in them was anger, sadness, and fear. There was still a sadness in those eyes now, but it was tempered somehow, and she took comfort in that as she smiled back at him.
“You look well,” she told him, and she meant it. The shaggy hair and beard from the Simi Valley photo were gone, replaced by freshly trimmed whiskers, a cleanly-shaven neck, and a snug scissor fade that she guessed was but a couple of days old. “It seems the time off has been good for you.”
“Thanks, Baran.”
His voice was thick, as if he were unused to using it, and he cleared his throat, his gaze snapping up to meet Jack’s. Jack raised his chin, eyeing Robby expectantly but giving nothing away. She had seen Jack use this expression with the residents, giving them space to find their own way to the outcome they sought.
“I, ummm…”
Robby sighed, his Adam’s apple dipping low in his throat as he turned to look Baran in the eye for a moment before averting his gaze again. “I’m sorry for the way we left things.” He stared at his lap, drawing a deep breath as if bracing himself. “I should’ve been a better listener. You came to me of your own accord and disclosed your condition in good faith, and I should’ve heard you out, you know, when we talked about the path forward. You met me on one of my worst days, and I know it’s not an excuse at all, but…”
He rolled his lips together in a firm line, and they vanished between his beard and mustache as he closed his eyes, shook his head and sighed. Baran watched him and was reminded of someone working their way through the Twelve Steps, making amends to the people they’d hurt in the course of their addictive spiral.
“I wanted to come here and apologize in person,” Robby said, scratching his nail over a worn spot along the inseam of his jeans. “I’m not quite ready to come back to work yet, but I wanted to see you both. To thank you for covering for me while I’ve been out, and for giving me a chance to…”
His voice trailed off again, and he drew a deep breath and stared into his lap for a few moments, rubbing his hand over the back of his head a couple of times as if soothing himself.
“To find a way to make my own peace, you know, with the way the world works. To accept the things I can’t change.”
Jack made a sound in his throat, a tiny grunt of acknowledgment as he squeezed Baran’s hand again. “We get it, brother. If there’s any two people in the world who understand, it’s us.”
His hand was large and warm, and she took comfort in the way his thick fingers curled around her palm. It reminded her of how his broad, muscular body felt against hers the night before, eclipsing her with his mass and strength as he rose up into her, again and again until she shattered beneath him.
Baran nodded, trying to banish the heat in her cheeks through sheer force of will. “I think we’re all trying to figure that part out—how to make peace with the suffering in the world.”
“Dukkha,” Robby whispered. Seeing the confusion on Jack and Baran’s faces, he smiled faintly and clarified. “It’s the Sanskrit term for suffering or unease.”
Jack chuckled and let go of her hand, reaching for his crutches. “Brother, if you’re going to start talking to me about Sanskrit terminology and Buddhist philosophy, I’m gonna need more coffee.” He slipped his forearms through the cuffs and stood up with a grunt. “Anyone else want any? I just made a fresh pot.”
“Yes,” Baran said, jumping to her feet. “I’ll help.” She glanced over her shoulder and smiled as Robby watched Jack walk into the kitchen. There was a fondness in his quiet gaze that made her belly flutter. “Would you like a cup, Robby?”
Robby blinked, momentarily startled by the question. “Yeah, that’d be great.”
Leaning into his right crutch, Jack reached up with his left hand to open the cupboard above the coffeemaker and carefully retrieved an oversized stoneware mug with a metallic bluish-green glaze. “That one’s Robby’s,” Jack told her, pulling out two other mugs, one with a faded ACEP18 logo and the other a yellow one covered with cartoonish bees with the word “Manchester” emblazoned just below the brim.
Baran opened the refrigerator and pulled out the carton of milk, holding it up and waggling it in the air to catch Robby's attention. He dismissed the offer with a wave of his hand.
“You should try it without milk first,” Robby told her as he leaned over the kitchen island. “I picked up these beans at a Haitian grocery in Atlanta. It’s a medium roast, but it tastes more like a blonde roast. This stuff’s so smooth you might not even need milk.”
Jack snickered and poured the last mug, leaving enough room for milk as he slid the mug across the counter towards Baran. “He’s not wrong.”
She brought the mug to her nose, taking a good whiff of the rich, complex aroma. Remembering an offhand comment Jack had made the night before, she grabbed her mug and Robby’s, then walked back into the living room.
“I had forgotten that you worked with Médecins Sans Frontières in Haiti,” she said, prompting him as he pushed away from the island and accepted the warm mug with both hands.
“I did.” He closed his eyes and sighed contentedly as he took the first sip. “From November 2012 until June of 2013. I worked at the hospital in Tabarre, in the Port-au-Prince Arrondissement. Dr. Adamson let me take a leave of absence from the ED. It was an amazing experience. Tough, and humbling, but incredible.”
She could hear his ease with French in the way he pronounced the word arrondissement. “Est-ce que tu parles français?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye. She missed this—testing him, seeing how much of the iceberg of his knowledge and experience lay underneath the water.
Robby took another sip and set his mug on the coffee table as he sat down and stretched out his long legs in the space between the table and the sofa. “Oui, je parle un peu français.”
He gave her a long once-over, his mouth twitching as his eyes fell on the logo of his alma mater and the hint of décolletage between the gaping zipper. She felt the heavy weight of his gaze as she took a sip.
“Tu aimes le café haïtien?”
“Mais oui,” she replied with a smile, walking back to the kitchen to grab Jack’s mug, which he had already refilled. “C’est très bon.” She glanced down at the hoodie and smiled. “Merci de m'avoir prêté ton sweat-shirt.”
Robby shrugged. “It looks better on you than it does on me,” he replied. “You know, Jack speaks a little French, too.”
There was a proud warmth in Robby’s voice that made her pause as she took the mug from Jack’s hands.
“Je sais,” she replied, kissing Jack on the cheek and patting him on the butt as he swung his crutches forward and made his way back to the sofa.
“Yeah, well.” Jack positioned himself at a comfortable angle before wriggling his right arm free of the cuff of his crutch. “Most of my occupational use of French involved shooting the shit with Canadian medics at the combat support hospital, but oui, je parle un peu français. But I can talk dirty in French if I need to.”
Baran nearly spit out her coffee.
Robby’s eyes lit up with mirth. “You should put that on your CV, brother. Or at least in your speaker bio next time you present a paper at ACEP.”
“You think?” Jack lowered himself onto the sofa and leaned his crutches against the end table. “Nah. I’d say my slutty days at ACEP are behind me.”
Robby grunted at that but said nothing as he reached for his coffee and hid a smirk behind the brim of his mug.
“What?” Jack swung his bad leg onto the sofa and leaned back against the cushioned arm.
“I didn’t say anything,” Robby replied, taking a sip of coffee and holding the liquid between his teeth and the inside of his lip for a second before swallowing.
Baran sat cross-legged in the squishy side chair and sipped her coffee as the two men talked, mindful of her presence but comfortably unimpeded by it. They had an easy rapport born of years of friendship and friendly rivalry, so the banter between them resembled a game of backyard badminton, each teasing remark floating in the air between them for a second or two before the other caught it and hurled it back with a laugh and a playful smack. She was glad that the two of them had such an intimate bond. They understood each other in a way that she supposed no one else did. She hung back and observed them in silence, like a voyeur.
When Robby finally stood up and reached for his coat, she got up, too, retreating to the far side of the kitchen island as Jack grabbed his crutches and followed him to the door. She watched them, swirling the last of her second cup of café haïtien around the bottom of her mug as Robby lingered in the foyer, his long fingers draped over the doorknob as they spoke in the same hushed tones as they had been using when she woke that morning.
Jack leaned firmly into his right crutch and brought his left hand to Robby’s face, and it was clear that this reunion was powerfully reassuring for them both. Robby’s dark eyes shimmered with emotion as he angled his head, curling into Jack’s touch, and for a moment, she wondered if they were going to kiss. They stood that way for a few seconds, with Jack’s broad hand cupping Robby’s jaw, stroking the edge of his beard with the side of his thumb before Robby pulled him into a hug and murmured something into the side of Jack’s neck.
“I love you, too, brother,” she heard Jack say, stroking his hand down the side of Robby’s face as he pulled away. “You got this, alright?”
Robby nodded, the movement almost childlike as he drew a deep breath and sighed sharply.
“Call me tomorrow, okay?”
Kneading the inside of his lip as he glanced over his shoulder and met Baran’s eyes, Robby drew another steadying breath and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll call you after.”
“Okay.” Jack cupped his hand around the back of Robby’s neck and kissed his forehead.
Robby clapped the edge of Jack’s bicep and opened the door. He acknowledged Baran with a forefinger to his brow, then stepped out, the door closing loudly behind him.
Baran stared at the door and suddenly felt floaty and detached, slightly untethered by what she had just seen. At first, she wondered if this was a pre-ictal aura, the harbinger of another seizure, but as the seconds passed, nothing happened. Jack’s crutches made a tchk, tchk sound against the terracotta tile and she turned to find him standing next to the stove, holding up the coffee pot with a querying arch of his rosy gray brows.
“You okay?” he asked her, hesitating briefly before pouring himself another cup.
“Yeah, umm.”
Unsettled by the raw intimacy she had just witnessed, Baran stared at the closed door as if she could see through it and catch another glimpse of Robby. The tenderness of Jack’s hand cupping Robby’s jaw and the final kiss on his forehead made her wonder at the nature of the bond between the two, and by extension, the character of whatever it was she shared with Jack.
“Hey.”
Jack walked over to her and rested his chin on the curve of her shoulder. His breath warmed the side of her neck as he stepped closer, pressing the broad thigh of his good leg against the cleft of her ass, his body heat quickly bleeding through the thin fabric of her tencel shorts. Closing her eyes, she turned her head so she could feel the brush of his soft curls against her cheek. He turned, kissing her neck below her ear, eliciting a quiet sigh.
“You love him, don’t you?”
The question had barely passed her lips when she heard him swallow.
“Yes.”
She knew that. Not only had she heard the two of them exchange I love you’s, but she had just witnessed them touching one another with a deep and abiding intimacy she had only seen between lovers.
“When was the last time you two—?”
Baran didn’t finish her question, but she knew from the sharp breath Jack drew that he knew what she was asking.
“The morning he left,” Jack said, his voice a rough rasp as she finally turned to face him.
Of course, Baran had been taught from a young age to avoid the sin of ghibah, but in the human fishbowl of the Emergency Department, one can’t help but overhear things. Robby’s affair with Hastings was the worst-kept secret in the ED, but after nearly three months, she had not heard anyone say a peep about Jack and Robby being more than just buddies.
“And Hastings?”
Jack’s eyes darkened and his jaw tensed, and he shook his head. “Just fooling around, or so he told me. I told him he deserved better.”
Baran struggled to wrap her head around the difference between the deep, yet undefined intimacy she shared with Jack and Robby’s fling with Hastings. The fact that Jack had just confessed to a sexual encounter with Robby the morning he departed for his sabbatical left Baran wondering if whatever she and Jack had been building was merely another layer in the complicated web of affections Jack shared with others, none of them amounting to more than what felt good in the moment.
“Hey,” he whispered, reaching for her jaw with the same hand that had caressed Robby’s just minutes earlier. “Don’t do that, Baran.”
She turned away from his touch, annoyed that he would presume to know the content of her thoughts. “Don’t do what?”
“Categorize. Catastrophize. Problematize.” He reached for her again, ghosting his fingertips along the edge of her jaw. “Nothing has changed between us. My best friend is back from his road trip, that’s all.”
Her thick, dark brows sloped low over her eyes. “And if he wanted to come over tonight or tomorrow and have sex with you, would you?”
The quick pursing of his lips was the only answer she needed. “What if he wanted to come over and have sex with you, hmmm?”
She scoffed. “Unlikely.”
Jack arched a brow, his hazel eyes gleaming as his lips slanted in a crooked smile. “You have no idea, do you?” His fingertips curled against her silky skin, and he angled his head, gently brushing his lips across hers. “I saw the way he looked at you that day.”
Before or after he shouted over me in North 7? she wanted to say, but the warmth of his breath on her upper lip sublimated whatever residual anger she harbored after nearly three months and Robby’s apology.
“I’m not saying he will,” Jack whispered, grasping at her lips with his, daring her to kiss him back. “I’m saying he might.” A growl rattled in the back of his throat as her lips finally parted, dragging against his.
“Mmhmm.” Baran kissed him, letting her lips linger against his for a moment before she broke the kiss, tugging at his lower lip with her teeth as she pulled away. “And if he does?”
Jack’s eyes snapped open, his nostrils flared as he held her gaze.
“Then you’ll get to choose. I won’t stop you. And I won’t push you. It’s entirely up to you.”
His answer and the layers of trust woven into each word sent a shiver crackling through her limbs, and she reached for him, slipping her hand under the waistband of his shorts and palming the firm globe of his ass. She scraped her nails over his warm, smooth skin and pulled him close, humming as she felt the thick shape of him against her pubis.
Then she kissed him again.
Two weeks passed, and Robby remained a distant presence, quietly lurking in the background of her relationship with Jack.
She and Jack were at his place, eating a dinner of gormeh sabzi with tahdīg rice when his phone buzzed. Swallowing a mouthful of the herby lamb stew, he flipped the phone over and grunted at the text message.
“Robby wants to come over tomorrow and make us brunch.”
Surprised, Baran arched her brows over her eyes. “Really, brunch?”
“Yeah.” Jack smiled and chuckled. “He’d be the first to admit that he has a limited repertoire in the kitchen, but the man makes a mean shakshouka. Robby’s is the best I’ve ever had, and one of my college roommates was from Tunisia, so I know a good shakshouka when I see one.”
The incongruity of it aside, shakshouka did sound appealing, and it had been a while since Baran had a decent one. “I could go by my local market and pick up some sangak or lavash to go with, or—”
“Robby says he’s got it all under control, including the bread.” Jack tipped his beer back and took a sip, regarding her for a moment before swallowing. “He has a place he gets his harissa and khobz from. Anyway, he says all we need to do is provide coffee and whatever adult beverages we deem suitable for the occasion.”
She cocked an eyebrow at that. The occasion?
Jack smirked and reached for his beer again. “You know, brunch cocktails. Bloody Marys, or mimosas, or I don’t know. Whatever goes well with shakshouka.”
A soft smile crept across her lips. “I’m always up for a good Bloody Mary, but that or a mimosa on top of shakshouka sounds like a recipe for acid reflux. Maybe we can find a nice Prosecco instead.”
She glanced at the door, remembering the way Robby had leaned into Jack’s gentle touch the last time she saw them together. It was as if there had been a force field around them, the air crackling with energy as Robby curled into Jack, soaking up his embrace in the moments before he headed off, ready to tackle the next phase of his healing journey.
As the days went by, Baran found herself unable to shake the image from her mind. The shimmer of vulnerability in Robby’s dark eyes tugged at something deep inside of her. She knew that Robby had started seeing a therapist two or three days a week, and she wondered if he was taking an antidepressant. Jack was reluctant to share details, which she understood and respected. Of course, talk therapy and antidepressant medication both took time to improve symptoms, but it seemed Robby had finally embraced the idea that he needed help. She hoped that meant that the Robby who was coming over was better, or stronger, or at least more at ease than the one she saw in July.
“Hey.” Jack watched her pick at her ghormeh with the tines of her fork and tapped her forearm with his finger. “You okay?”
Closing her eyes, Baran exhaled sharply and tried to slow her racing heart. “Yeah, I’m just—I don’t know.”
He covered her hand with his, squeezing gently. “Baran, it’s just brunch.”
“Is it, though?” she asked, recalling the way Robby’s broad torso had loomed over the kitchen island the morning after he returned from his trip.
“It is.” Jack leaned in and cocked his head, unwilling to let her avoid eye contact. “There’s no plan other than letting him make us a pan of shakshouka and drink some nice Prosecco. Beyond that, we’ll play it by ear.”
“Why is he doing this?” Her voice edged higher as she turned and stared at the far end of the sofa where Robby had sat that morning, his long legs stretched before him.
“He’s trying to be sweet,” Jack explained, a faint strain in his own voice as he tried to sympathize with her anxiety. “To show his appreciation for us covering things while he’s been out. Showing love and gratitude with food is in his DNA, just like it’s in yours. And I’m serious. He makes a killer shakshouka—way better than you’d assume with a name like Robinavitch.”
“Is that all?”
The question landed hard, and Jack’s brows lifted, carving deep creases in his forehead. “What? Were you expecting something else?”
Baran had tried not to, but she couldn’t help but think about what Jack had said two weeks earlier, about how Robby had looked at her on her first day in the Emergency Department.
Of course, she had felt it, the way his gaze followed her as she moved around the ED. She saw it in the way he reacted when she asked about Ahmad’s betting grid. “You game?” he’d asked her with a cocky twinkle in his eye. She didn’t hesitate to place her bet. “Of course.” When Robby handed Ahmad a twenty, wagering that Westbridge was closed due to flooding and that they’d be down for three hours, during which time PTMC would get twenty of their patients, she quickly jumped in with a bet of her own. “Put me down for flooding, 4 hours, and 30 patients.” Fifteen minutes later, she found Robby back in front of the security office, studying the grid. “Thinking about changing your bet?” she had asked him, a smile quivering her lips. “I am just weighing my odds,” he replied, his tone guarded. “Don't worry,” she assured him. “I'll buy you a drink with my winnings.” She felt his eyes follow her as she walked away, and she knew from the way Ahmad looked at her during the rest of that shift that Robby’s gaze had been less than professional. But by the end of that shift, she wanted nothing to do with Robby, and was grateful when he left. Now, months later, he was back, if not changed then softened somehow, and she was back to thinking of him.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Jack stood up and stacked her plate on top of his and gathered the silverware in his other hand. “I know it’s easy for me to say, but let’s just go with the flow, and see how things play out.”
It was easier said than done, and as she lay in Jack’s bed that night, listening to the hiss of water as he showered in the next room, she felt foolish, as if she were back at University High School, crushing on an oblivious boy and wondering if he liked her back. It was both bizarre and ridiculous, to lie in one man’s bed, musing about the affections of another, yet she found it difficult to think about anything else. The weeks of Robby’s absence had stretched into months, and the anger that had soured her in the wake of that Fourth of July shift had mostly evaporated, replaced by a growing curiosity as she came to know Robby through Jack’s eyes. But now that she had seen Robby with her own eyes, and heard the vulnerability in his gravelly voice, she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Baran wondered what Robby was like as a lover. Was he patient, generous and attentive, or wild, intense, and passionate? Perhaps he was all of those things. What did he look like under all of the layers he wore in the ED? She thought about the photo he sent Jack from Simi Valley, with short sleeves and bare feet, and imagined those long arms, legs, and fingers curled around her, holding her in place as he worked her over.
She blushed as Jack entered the bedroom, his soft cock swinging freely between his legs as he crutched his way to the bed. The mattress dipped when he sat down, glancing over his shoulder at her as he carefully dried his stump with a hand towel. Rolling towards him, she pressed a soft kiss to the back of his shoulder, murmuring against the damp, freckled skin.
“Hey.”
He leaned back as she pulled away, chasing the warm caress of her lips. Dabbing the dimpled skin of his residual limb a few more times, he dropped the towel on the floor and turned, drawing his strong left leg onto the bed and pulling the rest of his body with it.
His eyes swiveled up and down, drinking in the sight of her as she sat there in a thin tank top and briefs. “You’re overdressed,” he growled, reaching for the hem of her tank. She raised her arms, letting him tug the fabric up and over her head. Her briefs soon followed, joining her tank in a crumple on the floor as he nudged her onto her back. “God, this never gets old. The big reveal.”
She sighed as he skimmed her nipple with his callused palm and took his place between her legs. “Fuck, Jack.”
“You’re so responsive.” He squeezed her breast, thumbing her nipple as he drew a crescent with his tongue, teasing the lower edge of her areola. “And so keyed up already. Were you touching yourself while I was in the shower?”
Baran shook her head, unable to form words as Jack’s hand slid between her thighs.
“I don’t know if I believe you.” Jack extended his thick middle finger, dragging it over her cleft once before dipping between her outer lips. “You’re so fucking wet, baby. Is this all for me? Were you thinking of me?”
She shook her head again.
“You were thinking of Robby, weren’t you?” His voice was low and rumbly, teasing, with the faintest hint of menace as he stroked his middle finger along the creamy rim of her pussy. “Tell me.”
Baran hissed with pleasure as his finger slid inside of her. “Yesssss. Fuck, yes. I was.”
Jack groaned and withdrew his finger, pulling away as he leaned into his hands and arched his body over her, meeting her lust-darkened eyes with a proud smirk. He rocked his hips into hers, letting her feel his growing arousal for a moment before taking his place on the mattress next to her.
“You want to fuck him, don’t you?”
He rolled onto his side and fanned his hand across her belly, teasing the edge of her dark curls as her body arched at his touch.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Jack draped his arm over her hip and hugged her closer to him. “He’s going to be amazing for you,” he said, rocking his groin into the side of her hip, and she could feel he was harder than before. “And you’re going to be amazing for him.”
Baran turned her head and kissed his forehead. “You think so?”
Welcoming her kiss with a hum, he jerked his hips against her and grunted quietly. “I know so. Oh, it’s gonna be fuckin’ incredible. Robby is so good with his mouth, you’re gonna love it. The way he works his tongue is gonna blow your mind. And you’re gonna love how responsive he is. It’s unbelievable. His nipples are hardwired to his cock, and when you suck ’em…mmm…” His voice trailed off as he watched her eyes flutter shut. “You’ll see. It’s one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen. Oh my God, you two are gonna be so fuckin’ hot together. I can’t wait.”
Baran parted her thighs and was about to touch her clit when Jack batted her hand away.
“Don’t you dare,” he growled as he slipped his hand free of her waist and pulled her on top of him. “I wanna fill this sweet pussy right now so that he tastes us both when he eats you out.”
She lifted herself up and groaned as he swiped his cock between her folds.
“Oh, Ja—”
She gasped as he pulled her onto his cock in a single stroke, filling her perfectly as he peeled her apart, inch by inch. He planted his foot into the mattress so he could get enough leverage to hammer into her, stretching her with every stroke. With each sharp punch of his hips, Baran felt the coil of her desire wind tighter until it was almost painful. She squeezed her eyes shut and arched her back, tilting her pelvis and changing the angle so each rolling stroke landed with a precision that made her limbs crackle.
“Oh fuck,” Jack grunted, clawing at the soft swell of her hips as he drove up into her, each stroke more ragged than the last. “You feel so fuckin’ good, baby.”
Baran sensed that he was close and was going to come hard, so she licked her fingers and reached for her clit. “Oh, ffffff-fuck.” It only took a few circles with her wet forefinger before she shattered, clenching hard as she broke, pulling him into his own release as she rode out each shudder until she was limp.
“Goddamn, woman.”