Work Text:
It only makes sense that her thirtieth birthday is a time for reflection.
She is mostly proud of her scorecard. On the professional front, she’s killing it. She loves her new two-year fellowship at Georgetown where she focuses on racial disparities in trauma care and splits her time between research and days in the emergency room. Lately, she has been swapping notes with the Obama Foundation and fielding invites from Mackenzie Scott’s team. One of her supervisors has asked her to take over three weeks of his undergraduate “Health and Civil Rights” seminar while he has surgery on his leg, and it’s exactly the vote of confidence Samira covets. Doing all of this right under the nose of the federal government, which canceled her initial racial justice study, is just icing on the cake.
This time around, she has come to appreciate DC, despite how erratic it felt during her short stint at the VA. Her cousin, Priya, is also here living the single yuppie life as an analyst at Deloitte, and they have a standing monthly brunch and pedicure date. Annalisa and Duncan, new research fellows who also live in her building, have become her TV sitcom-esque group of constant companions. There is always some new music festival or concert, a Spirit game, a coffeeshop with a seasonal latte, or some emerging food fad they can check out. Georgetown is on the riverfront, which has reignited her love of running. She joins a run club and finds two women she enjoys superficial chatter with as they barely keep up with their self-assigned pace.
She and her mother have declared a ceasefire. Samira visits the new condo in Cherry Hill, occasionally camping on the pullout for the night. Surprisingly, it’s her stepfather who has brokered peace, serving as the mirror both women have lacked for their interactions in the years since her father died.
Despite all the other improvements in her life, loneliness has followed Samira to DC.
Chutney, her new domestic short-haired kitten, helps somewhat with that. If Samira had realized how much would change once she had Chutney to come home to, she would have had a cat all through medical school and residency. Her mental health and her work-life balance would have been so much better.
She tries to put herself out there, she really does. Initially, she continues the pact that she and Cassie had made in her last year in Pittsburgh: at least three dates a month. Cassie, craving connection, had gone on more second dates. Samira, chasing avoidance and release, brought more of her dates home and then never saw them again. The fodder she and Cassie had provided the PTMC gossip mill had fostered a camaraderie among her colleagues that Samira misses but won’t dare replicate.
The accountability had suited them both and it is exactly what Samira lacks in DC.
Now Cassie has Taylor, the owner of the wine bar that she and Samira often used as their go-to date spot and where the other often ended up after one of them needed to be rescued. Almost inevitably, Taylor would join them, and Samira had seen their connection develop firsthand.
Taylor plays bass with his band on the stage in the back, has full-sleeve tattoos he designed himself, and was often sporting bright neon fingernails, the handiwork of his sweet eight-year-old daughter, Camilla.
Initially, more than a year ago now, Cassie had needed some convincing. “He’s too young, Samira,” she whispered loudly once Taylor had gone into the back room to retrieve something and give them the freedom to talk about him. “He’s still in his 30s! I can’t.”
“I’m going to choose not to take offense to that,” Samira had scoffed, not yet 30 at that point. “Seriously. With how he looks at you, how you both see the world ... What’s five years, Cass? It really doesn’t matter what people say …”
Samira had trailed off, looked down at the glass of wine Taylor had given them to taste, always joking that they were his best and hardest to please customers. Cassie had immediately sensed the reason for the shift in her tone, and had winced in recognition.
“I’ve been trying not to push, Samira, but do you want to talk about it? Something happened, clearly. You guys look pained every time you see each other …” Cassie takes a breath. “You, my friend, I know you. You used to light up around him and now you’re avoiding him. I’m sure it’s complicated but I’m here if you want to talk. I promise you it stays between us.”
Samira swirled her glass, watching the sediments settle. “I think we have something. Or we could have had something. He asked me to stay here. And I couldn’t. I can’t. And I think I really hurt him, Cassie.”
There is an important context that belongs only to her and to Jack. He had been emotionally spent after a grisly trauma. The man was already lifeless and cold when the paramedics brought him in. But they had gone through the motions for his inconsolable husband anyway, grueling compressions and at least four rounds of epi. Everyone in the room wept openly by the end. Afterward, Jack had fled to the roof. She had gone after him, selfishly needing to make sure he was okay. She had inspired hope, she realizes now, after dissecting every second of her choices, of his. She had given him the courage to ask. He had been desperate, clinging to her scrubs, asking that she stay with him and not leave him, not then, not ever. He hadn’t wanted to be alone. Again.
She resented him for confronting the reality she had been so intent on avoiding for as long as she could.
“I’m not leaving you, Jack. I’m leaving all of this.” She had gestured wildly to the city, to the hospital, to the enemies within.
He nodded, more to himself than to her. The distinction didn’t seem to matter very much when he and the city and the hospital were all one and the same.
She had held Jack’s face in her hands that morning, seemingly steadying them both in the fierce wind. She had kissed him, once on each cheek and then on the lips. Ultimately it was a goodbye, nothing like the first kisses she had envisioned with frightening vivacity before then, ideals that now seemed embarassingly juvenile. She had apologized to him for not being able to give him what he wanted, even though she had wanted it too.
And then she walked away.
She knows that Cassie will keep her secrets, but she’s too ashamed to own up to them. She couldn’t even give Jack an inch nor the remaining weeks she had left in Pittsburgh. She continued to invite three Tinder dates a month into her life, sometimes her bed, and had laughed about them casually with their colleagues at the admit desk after breaking his heart.
More than a year later, several cities away, he remains the only part of her life that she isn’t proud of.
***
Mondays are objectively the worst days for birthdays, she decides.
She gets a fresh pedicure with Priya on Saturday and has an early dinner followed by karaoke with Annalisa, Duncan, and a few of their other colleagues on Sunday. But on Monday, her actual birthday, she’s on her own.
That feels familiar, comforting even. Most times, she’d rather be by herself.
She finds little ways to treat herself: a salted vanilla oat latte and almond croissant for breakfast, fresh curls with the hair perfume birthday gift from Sephora she had stopped in to get, and the sapphire linen sleeveless set that makes her feel like the cool and competent Georgetown doctor and expert she professes to be.
It’s a research day so she spends most of her time on conference calls, reviewing medical records, and drafting reports. In between, it’s nice to be able to stop and appreciate the steady stream of text messages from family and friends. It’s a far cry from the PTMC ED where the threat of her personal life intruding into her workday was enough to unravel her and eventually did.
She keeps a mental list of who reaches out. She had no doubt that she would hear from Cassie and Parker, who she is still in constant contact with, or Mel who prefers catch up conversations every few weeks and had also sent her a sweet and funny card. She’s touched that Heather remembers all the way from Portland and Samira laughs at Trinity’s backhanded attempt to say she misses her. All in all, it’s a pretty good tally.
The Venn diagram of the person she is most hoping to hear from and the person she is least likely to hear from is a circle of one: Jack Abbot.
After that morning on the roof, they had only interacted when strictly necessary. The sporadic, bordering-on-flirty text messages they had exchanged before then had ceased. He had signed the goodbye card that everyone else did and raised his glass in the collective toast to her at her going away party. It was always Robby who spoke at those things but Samira had hoped that Jack would say something, would pull her aside, or would give her a hug goodbye. She could have used Jack’s reassurance that night, in more ways than one.
Samira had emailed him exactly one time since she moved to DC, from her new work account, about a grant opportunity for programs to support vets that had come across her inbox. The link to the application was shared alongside a Substack post on how to use the limited federal resources available to help benefit the broader community the funds weren’t intended to serve. Samira had thought about it for a full day before she decided that it couldn’t hurt to forward it to him, and it could maybe only help.
“I thought of you when I saw this,” she wrote. “I hope all is well!”
The cursory “Thank you. I’ll look into it.” she received from him three days later feels like the periods are emphasized and include a silent “Fuck you.”
It says a lot about how deeply she feels for him that she still hopes to hear from him today. And even that is fickle. She’s not even sure if Jack knows that today is her birthday. She actually doesn’t know when his birthday is. It had never come up.
The major news about who he was dating in the fall that had been carefully confirmed by Parker, then Cassie, then, unknowingly, Mel, had aborted any of her attempts to ask them about him and how he was. It hurt too much to know that he didn’t seem to be missing her as much as she missed him.
It’s embarrassing, isn’t it, to turn a man down when he pleads with you to stay with him and then to be absolutely crushed when he shifts his attention instead to the pretty, more age-appropriate, brilliant doctor whom you once also respected and admired?
Parker has Angela, Cassie has Taylor, and Mel has an entire line-up of people willing to go to the mat for her. And Samira is alone. Another trip around the sun doesn’t change that.
With only a few more hours left of her birthday, she sends a few emails and writes her to-do list for the next time she’s in the office. She has a university-mandated training all morning tomorrow and then a half shift in the ER on Wednesday afternoon. Balancing all the different aspects of her job isn’t easy, but a year in, she has mastered being on top of things, and has proven her value to her department in a myriad of tangible ways. Very little unsettles her anymore.
Almost as if she had voiced that thought aloud, the universe intervenes.
She thinks her mind is playing tricks on her when the classical track playing on her Airpods pauses to announce “Call from Jack Abbot.”
“Jack?” she answers with slight panic. Something must be wrong.
“Hey,” comes his soft, decidedly not panicked reply, the first time she has heard his voice in far too long. “Happy birthday.”
She waits for more because there must be more. But nothing else comes.
“Thank you.”
More silence.
And then, because the silence makes her antsy and she can’t bear to waste more precious opportunities with him, “I’m glad you called.”
“Yeah?” he says, the question in his voice obvious. She is not used to uncertainty from him. He isn’t someone to second guess, to overthink. He is who he is, says what he says, no apologies. It’s the yin to her yang, and one of her favorite things about him.
“Yeah,” she confirms.
She hears the breath he lets out, what sounds like his heavy steps. He’s pacing, maybe.
“Have you had a good day?” he asks as if this is a routine conversation from the version of them that existed back in Pittsburgh.
“I have,” she says, nodding even though he can’t see her. “Nothing special, just a regular work day, but I’ve been productive.”
And you called, she added silently.
She tries to ask him about himself and his day, but he interrupts with another question. “Fun plans tonight?”
She feels the instinctive defensiveness rise in her. “Not really,” she forces out a laugh. “I had a pretty busy weekend so tonight will be low key. Dinner, maybe a movie.” She means takeout and Netflix, and she can’t bring herself to say that she will likely review some research studies while she watches. That feels too unceremonious for her birthday.
She waits for his response. Was there ever this much silence between them before? The conversation feels strained, uncomfortable, and as much as she would have given anything to hear from him a few minutes ago, this feels unbearable, like a corruption of what they once had.
He feels it too, she thinks.
“I can let you go,” he says eventually. “I don’t want to interfere with your evening.”
“Please don’t go,” she says instinctively, her voice sounding anguished.
More silence, and she wants to cry.
“Jack?”
“I’m here, Samira.”
“Okay, good.” She glances at the clock on her desktop. “You’re on at 7, right? I’m gathering my stuff to head home. I’ve got a 10-minute walk and … we can talk … if you’re up for it.” She tries to infuse her words with positivity to ease some of the tension she feels.
“No… I’m not. I…”
“No..?” she interrupts dejectedly, confused about why he called her in the first place only to blow her off.
“I’m not on tonight.”
Oh. As quickly as it left, hope blooms in her chest. She may have more than the 20 minutes she thought she did. Maybe that will be enough time to smooth through the awkwardness and to rekindle whatever magic had once been between them.
“I’m here, Samira,” he repeats but something about the solidity with which he emphasizes the word here stops her this time.
“Here, where? You don’t mean …” Hope is a deadly thing. “Are you in DC?”
“Your office is Somerset 305, right? I think I’m downstairs. I’m standing next to a yellow rose bush by the entrance. Am I in the right place?”
She sputters, contributing to the silence with her own disbelief. He is in the right place. She had stopped to smell the roses only this morning.
“Don’t move,” she says with such urgency that he laughs. “I’ll be there in five.”
She should end the call while she crams her stuff into her bag and hurries out the door and down the stairs, but she can’t bring herself to sever the connection between them until she sees him and knows that his voice isn’t a figment of her traitorous imagination.
He’s standing there, exactly where he said he would be, with his phone to his ear, listening to her as she makes her way to him.
She’s so happy to see him that she walks directly into him without stopping, her body pushing solidly into his chest. She feels the decision he makes when he stretches his arms around her and pulls her closer.
The silence is now welcome as her brain struggles to catch up to the moment, content to let her body remain still in his embrace.
“Happy birthday, Dr. Mohan.” He says her title teasingly, some of the familiar comfort with each other returning to them now.
She feels tears of gratitude at the corners of her eyes.
“What are you doing here?”
She leans her head back to look at him, not yet willing to separate. He looks the same, just better dressed than she remembers him ever being, in a tan knit, collared, short-sleeved shirt and dark blue pants that are perfect for the warm-ish May night.
He is more nervous than she remembers him too.
He sighs. “I came to see you,” he says, sounding simultaneously obvious and cryptic.
He reaches a hand up towards her hair then stops, seemingly rethinking the move.
“And I wanted to talk,” he adds. “But you have plans tonight. We can do that another time.”
She looks away, then back at him. “No official plans, Jack. It’s just me tonight. And you, if that’s what you want too,” she adds, looking up at him. “I’d like to talk. I don’t like how we left things on the roof.”
She sees a distressed look flash across his face. It’s the same look she has been avoiding thinking about ever since that morning.
Maybe this isn’t the best idea.
“Okay,” he says with finality. “Should we start with dinner? Where did you have in mind?”
“There’s this South Indian place I like in Rosslyn. But it’s …”
“Wait a minute,” he starts with a laugh. “Say no more. If you have an Indian restaurant you like, I have to go. Wasn’t that one of your big gripes about Pittsburgh?”
“A very legitimate gripe,” she counters.
“And then we can share everything,” he adds. “I’m in.”
She smiles. He had often joked that the only dish that could get him to convert to vegetarianism was saag paneer.
“It’s more of a delivery option,” she says. “They have like three tables, it’s always super busy, and not the best to have a conversation.”
“Ah, okay. Somewhere else you like then?”
She weighs the words in her mind before she says them out loud. “We could get it delivered and eat at my apartment,” she offers. “It’s Monday. Most restaurants will be closed.”
“Your call,” he says, but she can tell that he is hiding a smile, also probably weighing the possibilities of her words.
Takeout was what she was planning to do anyway tonight but she takes a moment to think about her safe haven of an apartment being the site of whatever torment of a conversation they are about to have … or whatever other interactions between them it facilitates.
“Okay.”
They get into his Crossback and he hands her his unlocked phone as she settles into his passenger seat.
“Put the order in. It’s on me. You don’t pay for things on your birthday,” he says, preempting her objection.
She scrolls through his open apps, spying his Gmail open to her email about the grant opportunity from months ago. He must have gotten her office address from her signature block.
She smiles to herself and doesn’t mention it.
UberEats is also open to a $20 tip for his favorite delivery guy.
“How is Marco?” she asks him, while typing in the name of the restaurant. She had never been better fed than when she had started pulling frequent night shifts and Marco showed up routinely with dinner for the crew at 3 in the morning.
“Good. I got him up early for a special favor.”
“Weed?” she asks confidently, without looking up from his phone. She knows it’s one of Jack’s favorite ways to relax and self medicate.
He doesn’t answer and she looks up after adding her favorite dishes and a couple of his to her order.
“What?” she protests, finally clocking his lack of response and looking over to see the impish grin on his face.
“Nothing,” he says smugly. “Just thinking about how bad you’re going to feel about that comment once you look in the backseat.”
She turns immediately, seeing the signature pink box of her favorite Pittsburgh bakery. It’s the fancy one that the hospital sprang for whenever they wanted to impress. An email went out to the ED even when literal scraps were available.
She grins. “You didn’t! Brownies?”
“The signature brownies. And they have a new dark chocolate espresso flavor that I thought you might like to try.”
She feels very spoiled and tells him so, then hands him his phone so he can approve their dinner order. He doesn’t even glance at it before checking out.
“I trust you,” he says by way of explanation, a cursory statement that does things to her insides. “Is that your address?”
It is. He plugs it into the car’s GPS and they drive the short distance to her apartment, and he parallel parks down the street.
There’s a CVS on her block and they go in so she can pick up ice cream to go with the brownies.
On the way back, they walk by her car.
“Still driving that old thing?” He asks, knowing the response it will inspire.
“It’s not as old as you are,” is the familiar dig she lobbies back. “And yes. But I don’t drive all that much anymore, mostly trips home to Jersey or grocery shopping in Virginia.”
He nods, shifting gears. “How’s your mom?”
“She’s happy,” Samira says. “I don’t recognize her at all.”
He laughs as she intended, but doesn’t say anything, waiting to see if she offers any more.
“Seriously, though. She and my stepdad seem to be doing well. They play in a pickleball league in their neighborhood. He’s a good guy. It took me a long time to realize he wasn’t trying to be my dad. And now I think I like him better than I like her.”
“Very mature, but dark,” he states, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”
“Welcome to my 30s,” she jests, opening the door to her apartment building with a dramatic flourish, “and to my building.”
“How’s your family?” she asks him “Jenn? The girls?”
“Samira!” a voice interrupts before Jack can answer her. She spies Annalisa exiting the elevator. “Happy birthday! I didn’t think I was going to catch you tonight. Duncan left something for you outside your door. He’s going to say it’s from both of us but it’s really from him.”
As she is figuring out a response, Samira sees Annalisa see Jack, stopping in her tracks to await an introduction.
“Annalisa, this is Jack. He’s in town from Pittsburgh where he's an attending at PTMC. Jack, this is Annalisa. She’s doing research on stem cells for sickle cell anemia and she kicked my butt at karaoke last night.”
“Nice to meet you, Jack,” Annalisa says, laughing in response to the karaoke comment. Samira sees Annalisa give Jack the once over, and she tries to see the scene through her eyes. Samira notes for the first time that Jack is not wearing the wedding ring she has never seen him without.
Samira can already predict the questions she will have to answer later. Never mind that she doesn’t have answers to most of them.
Annalisa, recognizing that no more explanation is forthcoming, makes a hasty exit. “The mice are waiting. Enjoy the gift and the rest of your birthday, Samira, and enjoy your time in DC, Jack!”
“So far, so good,” Jack says. “Nice to meet you too.”
They are both quiet as they walk over to the elevator, which comes immediately once Samira calls for it, and as they step inside, get off on the fifth floor, and she leads them down her hallway.
There’s a small gift bag hanging from the door handle when they get to her apartment door.
She grabs the bag, reaches inside, and pulls out a navy baseball cap that says “Georgetown” in white embroidery across the front.
She smiles, turns to Jack to explain. “I was just saying that I don’t have any Georgetown merch to wear to games or events. It’s a sweet gesture.”
He lets out a loaded hum. “Aren’t you going to try it on?” Jack asks, bigger questions left unasked.
“No,” Samira says quickly, as she tries to bury the hat back in the bag. “It’s going to mess up my hair and I’m having a good hair day.” He lets her sidestep the subject for now.
She unlocks her door and holds it open for him so he can follow her into her apartment.
She leads him into an open kitchen-living-dining space. It’s a corner unit and has windows on two sides, offering a great view towards campus and a gorgeous orange, pink, and purple sky as the sun sets.
“The light in here is spectacular,” Jack says in slight awe.
“Yeah, I really lucked out,” Samira agrees. “I love this apartment. It’s small but it has great energy and …”
Chutney interrupts her, meowing to announce her presence as she walks into the room from the bedroom.
Samira laughs. “And this is Chutney. It’s really her place. I just pay the bills.”
Jack leans down to say hello to the cat who stretches and then walks away to jump on the couch, ignoring him but keeping a close watch.
“Okay, then,” Jack jokes. “I guess I have some work to do to win her over.”
“She’ll come around,” Samira promises. “She likes playing hard to get.”
“Noted,” Jack says.
He watches as Samira puts the ice cream in the freezer, opens the refrigerator to take out a bottle of rosado, and then grabs two stemless wine glasses from the cabinet, placing everything on the large island that demarcates the kitchen space.
“Grab a seat,” Samira says, indicating the low bar stools around the lower tier of the island as she turns around and fishes for the wine opener in a drawer. “As you can see, I use my dining table as a desk. Had I known you were coming, I would have cleared up all the piles.”
He ignores her direction to sit, walks over to the dining table, seemingly curious.
She opens the bottle, pours two glasses, and brings both over to where he stands.
“Cassie and Taylor brought this with them when they came to visit a few months ago. It’s one of my favorites.”
He takes the glass she holds out to him. “Walk me through this,” he asks, reaching out to lift an errant post-it note so he can read the full title of one of the studies she has printed and highlighted.
She does, animatedly telling him about all the components of her thesis and what the research has already confirmed. She promises to share the abstract of the paper and the current draft of her discussion section with him, specifying a particular point that she would like his feedback on.
“This is incredible,” he praises. “You’re going to change lives.”
She shrugs humbly. “Maybe. I just hope people read it, that it at least makes them stop and think.”
They are looking at each other, both with smiles on their faces, this territory, at least, feeling comfortable.
“You’re happy here,” he states, taking in the apartment and the view, the evidence of her labor spread out before him. It’s not a question.
“You’re catching me on a good day,” she attempts to deflect, “thanks, in part, to you. But, yeah, I’m happier here. Good work, good apartment, moody cat, good colleagues, good friends…”
“Just friends?” he interrupts, taking the opportunity. He doesn’t look at her, distracts himself with a sip of his wine.
She’s surprised at his question, because directness is something they have only ever done once before, with disastrous consequences. But she’s glad that they are finally confronting some of the things in the air between them.
“Just friends,” she confirms, also taking a sip of wine to fortify herself for what comes next.
“And you?” He looks momentarily taken aback and she knows he gets the point even if the question itself doesn’t make sense. “I heard …”
She doesn’t want to actually describe what she heard, can’t bring herself to say the words, but she needs him to know that she knows.
“I wouldn’t be here if there was anyone else,” he finally says, meeting her eyes.
She doesn’t look away but doesn’t know what to say. In the silence that follows, his phone buzzes in his pocket. He fishes out his phone, and reads the notification aloud. “Due to high volume, your order has been delayed. The estimated time of arrival is 20 minutes.”
“Shit,” she mutters, surprising both of them. “I’m starving.”
She makes a quick decision, walks over to get bowls and spoons as she tells him to grab the ice cream from the freezer.
She tears into the pink box, taking a giant bite of one of the brownies, and smiles at him gratefully before she places it into a bowl and gets one for him.
She stands behind the island and he settles into the bar stool across from her as he starts scooping ice cream into their bowls.
Comfort food in hand, they both know it’s time for the conversation they have been dancing around.
“You’re happier but not happy?” he begins, homing in on the distinction she had made earlier.
She waits for what may be an entire minute while she decides how honest she wants to be.
“I feel like there’s a part of me that is still up on that roof with you, Jack. But I would have resented you if I had stayed. I think that would have been worse.”
He puts his spoon down, pushes his bowl away from him.
“I would have resented me if you had stayed,” he says plainly. “That’s what I came to apologize for.”
“Apologize?” she asks, surprised. “I could have been better about telling you how I felt,” she says. “You were hurting, you reached out to me, and I should never have just walked away like that. I’m the one who should apologize.”
“You were very clear about how you felt and you don’t have to apologize for putting yourself first. I never should have made what we have conditional on you deciding to stay in Pittsburgh.”
The “what we have” echoes in her head, begs for further explanation.
“But…” Samira tries to interject. He reaches out a hand to cover hers, seemingly needing to get whatever he needs to say out. She can’t help but focus on the spot where his ring used to be. She touches him there and she feels him shiver.
He won’t be deterred. “No buts. I spent years telling myself that I would never say or do anything about how I felt because of all the ways it would be unfair to you and jeopardize your career. And I threw all of that away in one moment of weakness because I was jealous and insecure and I wanted you to choose me. It was selfish. I should never have asked that of you. I’m sorry, Samira.”
She shakes her head, smiling sadly.
“Don’t be sorry.”
He looks up at her incredulously, and seems to not understand.
“I had wondered for years how you felt about me. I dreamt about you asking me to stay and to be with you. So, yes, maybe it was selfish, and maybe we could have done that differently, but even if you were being selfish you were also giving me exactly what I wanted.”
Typical Jack Abbot.
But she knows he’s right, even if it feels strange to admit it. Years of working together, months of night shifts, getting to know him the way she had, she had never thought about it that way. It had always felt like her leaving him, her having to give up the possibility of what they could have been, when, at the heart of it, all she really wanted was for him to choose her too.
“I really miss you,” she finally says, naming the thing that feels true, and honest, and likely to move them forward. Even having him back for a couple of hours tonight makes her realize how much it will hurt if they go back to never speaking or walk away from each other again.
“I miss you too.”
She smiles, because hearing those words from him is the greatest balm to her damaged spirit, perhaps the greatest gift he could have given her today.
His phone buzzes again. The food has been delivered, which thankfully interrupts the heaviness in the room. She has to retrieve it from the lobby because the building’s management won’t allow anyone without a key into the elevators.
When she returns, he’s sitting on the couch next to Chutney, scratching her under her chin, the cat purring contentedly. That was easy.
And maybe it really can be.
Samira places the two brown paper bags on the kitchen island and toys with them, contemplating the neat staples at the top that keep everything contained. The food smells amazing and this place has been one of her comforts since she moved to DC but the last thing in the world she wants to do is to unpack the bag.
Jack seems to feel the same way. She doesn’t notice him getting up from the couch but feels him behind her, brushing her hair to the right side of her neck, before placing soft, careful kisses behind her ear, the nape of her neck, her bare shoulder, and along her neckline.
She shudders and goosebumps break out along her arms, anticipating where he will go next.
Even though she can’t see him, she feels his gaze tracking the impact he has on her and he blows a slow, steady breath over her already-stimulated skin, delighting in the groan she lets out.
And then he abruptly stops.
“Talk to me, Samira,” he instructs. He sucks her earlobe into his mouth and then whispers directly into her ear. “Tell me what you want, birthday girl.”
She draws in a breath. They have never done anything, she wants everything, and how dare he ask her where they should start.
But the moment she gives it thought, she knows what she wants.
She turns in his arms to face him.
“I want you to kiss me.” It seems simple but it’s something they have really never done before.
He happily complies, leaning down to bump her nose with his before capturing her lips. Maybe she should close her eyes, but she is enjoying watching her world contract down to his lips, then his tongue, and then his cheek as they surface for breath before diving back in. She likes that she has both the visual and the sensation of her dream come true.
He presses a final kiss to her lips then rubs his thumb across them like he’s rethinking his decision to stop.
He finds her eyes. “Anything else?”
She feels suddenly aware of all the places he is touching her, where his body is pressed into hers.
She would be happy with more of the same. She has seen those hands in action, how effective even the slightest movement is, how they seem to know, intuitively, when to apply pressure and when to be tender. She has always imagined that dexterity would translate to his hands on her. She craves it now.
And yet.
If she’s being completely honest, it’s his mouth that has always captivated her. She loves how expressive he is. She could always tell what he was thinking, how he was feeling, from a simple quirk of his lips, how he pressed them together to hide a smile, or how his tongue darted out to wet them when he was feeling particularly excited about something but had to contain himself. And that was all before he opened his mouth and had her hanging on his every word. He was sometimes cocky, sometimes sweet, and it was always impossible to predict whether he would piss her off, turn her on, or make her fall that much more in love with him.
She looks away from him, her thoughts causing heat to rise in her cheeks.
“Tell me.”
She has her own fingers, and the vibrator she uses when she thinks of him. But his mouth she can’t replicate and she hasn’t found a worthy substitute. No one else has been able to match the fantasies he stars in.
“I want your mouth,” she confesses as he tilts her chin towards him. “On me, on every part of me.”
He smiles at her. “Thank you.” He says it like she has just done him a favor and she feels the pleasantly painful clench of anticipation low in her belly.
He’s a man of his word, or, well, her word. His lips map every inch of her body, even places she would have chosen to exclude. His initial journey makes her laugh, covering her armpit, the interstice between her butt cheek and her thigh, and her instep, until there is no need to be shy. He has literally seen every crevice, has whispered confessions of devotion into every part of her.
He flips her onto her back, where they started, and, by now, she’s so comfortable under his gaze and so damn frustrated that she takes matters into her own hands, cupping her breast and literally offering it to him, needing to speed this up before she combusts.
He is losing his composure as well, if the way he is pressing his hips into the bed is any indication.
He laves her nipple with his tongue and then sucks, the pressure going directly between her thighs, where she is already pulsing with desire, and he has been studiously skating over.
“Jack,” she whines, shamelessly spreading her legs for him. She’s so wet and she wants him to see, to feel, to smell, to taste.
Desperate, she asks for his fingers but he refuses with a stubborn smirk. She requested only his mouth, and he will deny them both to punish her.
But he is suffering too so he stops just short of torture, paying quick attention to the other breast before kissing down her stomach, over the hair that has grown a bit unruly since her last wax, and flicking his tongue over her clit, an acceleration so unexpected that she gasps, “Fuck, Jack.”
He nudges her with his nose then exhales and she swears she stands at attention for him. And maybe that’s true because she hears the satisfied chuckle he emits before he lowers his head, licks her from bottom to top, over her clit, and then back down, her brain trying to keep count until she loses track.
She doesn’t even realize her eyes are closed until she feels him press wet kisses on her inner thigh as if he’s trying to get her attention.
She looks down at him and sees him lick his lips. He meets her eyes before he plunges his tongue into her, watching her reaction as he fucks her, slow then frantic. It’s new to her and even though it’s good, the muscle and vigor of it surprisingly robust, the effort he employs evident, it’s the feeling of being completely conquered by him that gets to her. Of course he would claim where she’s never even thought to let someone in.
Her fingers find his curls and she pulls hard, a request to stop.
He does, crawling up her body to check in.
“No more teasing,” she says in a low voice. “I need you, Jack.”
She reaches down to unabashedly rub him through his boxer briefs, hooks her fingers in the waist and tugs, just in case it wasn’t clear what she was asking for.
He reaches over and kisses her and they are back to the beginning, except now he’s exactly where she needs him, pressing against her, and into her.
No resistance, no regrets, no apologies, no going back.
***
Later, they are both starving and she offers to bring snacks back to bed so he doesn’t have to get his leg back on.
He watches her through the doorway, noticing its width for the first time, how she waits for the samosas in a counter-level microwave and fills water glasses for them at the low sink.
“Is this entire apartment ADA accessible?” he asks her as she makes her way back to him, tray in hand.
She looks inexplicably guilty as she sits on the bed and hands him a glass of water. “Yes. Most of the newer campus buildings are. I couldn’t bear to live somewhere you couldn’t visit me comfortably, even if I thought there was zero chance you would. There’s a bench in the shower too. I read there sometimes.”
He dips his head, his cheeks turning red, touched by her care.
“Which brings me to a question I had for you,” she says teasingly, shifting so that she is leaning back against him, his arm around her.
“What exactly was your plan if this didn’t happen tonight? Or was getting me into bed that certain of a bet?”
He laughs. “I hoped. But I was terrified you wouldn’t pick up or, even worse, that you would turn me away. I would have found somewhere to crash, a bar, some hard liquor, probably. I have an overnight bag in the car.”
“Thank you for coming,” she says, planting a chaste kiss on his chest. “When do you have to go back?”
“My next shift is Wednesday night so I’ve got all day tomorrow, but I have to see a friend in the morning. What does your schedule look like?”
“I have this training all morning tomorrow, but I can take the afternoon off. Should I be jealous of this friend? Do you have more romantic confessions planned while you’re in DC?”
She clearly means it as a joke but he doesn’t answer her immediately.
“Jack, I swear to god, if you think this is actually funny…”
“There’s one more thing we have to talk about,” he says, his tone serious. “I’m leaving PTMC in December.”
“To go where?” she asks.
He pauses, answers the question she didn’t ask first. “I’m too expensive for them and they can’t fire me with my record and the protections I qualify for. But not having to pay my salary and all the last-minute shifts I cover means they can hire two attendings to replace me. It will create opportunities for Ellis and maybe others who really deserve the chance. Gloria and I have been talking about it for the past few weeks and I volunteered to retire if they started my benefits a few years early.”
“Does Robby know?” she asks quietly.
“Not yet, but it’s going out in an email to management first thing in the morning. He won’t be happy, but things haven’t been great with us lately. It's been clear for a while that it’s time for me to leave.”
He takes a drink of water.
“Yusuf is the friend I have to see tomorrow. I helped him apply for that grant you sent me. We got approved for $1 million for a few trauma programs run through the VA and community outreach in Southeast DC. He invited me to come run it with him, if I was interested. The salary is practically nothing, but I’d sell the house and I’d have both pensions so it’s doable.”
“Are you interested?” she asks quietly, trying not to let her voice sound too optimistic about the possibility of him moving to DC.
“That’s a decision we could make together,” he says, pulling her closer. “It sounds like you’ll have an offer for a faculty position here soon. And working at the VA would mean a 9-5 schedule for the most part. We could have time to publish together, we could travel, get actual hobbies, or …”
He swallows, and she feels the deep breath he takes before continuing. “Or we could have a family if that’s something you wanted.”
Her life feels like it has transformed overnight. The possibility of a future with him is both thrilling and terrifying. She buries her face into his chest, overcome with happiness. “I like the sound of all of that,” she says. “We’ll figure it out.”
They are both quiet and contemplative for a few moments.
“What time is it?” he asks, finally breaking the silence.
“No idea. I actually don't know what I did with my phone.”
She gets up again to find her phone, finding his on the island in the process and tossing it to him in bed.
When she finds hers, she has six missed calls and multiple text messages from Cassie and Parker, some of them individual, some in their group text chain. They sent more birthday messages and then got worried about her lack of response. The last few texts are threats to send the cops to her apartment if she doesn’t text them back by 11pm.
It’s 10:45 pm, a little over an hour left in her birthday.
“Gloria sent the email out about twenty minutes ago,” he calls out to her in the living room. “I guess it’s official.”
“I missed a few calls from Cassie and Parker,” she informs him, getting back into bed and under the covers with her phone. “They’re worried.”
“Tell them I apologize for distracting you but I wanted to make sure you had a good birthday,” he says, kissing her and allowing his hands to roam under the t-shirt she had put on to grab food from the kitchen. “I’ve got a little time left for extra credit if you’re interested.”
“You don’t mind if I tell them about you? About this? About us?”
He makes a motion to pull the t-shirt over her head but the phone in her hand gets in his way.
He lowers his head to her bare stomach with a frustrated growl.
“Is there any reason we should hide it?” His tone is calm, but she can sense the slightest hint of concern in his voice.
She pauses thoughtfully. She has never experienced a reality where their relationship is something she can share openly, something she can celebrate.
“No. I guess there isn’t. They both know how I feel about you. And there’s no reason for us to care about what anyone thinks anymore.”
She taps out a message to their group chat.
“My bad. Jack’s here. He apologizes for distracting me but I’m not complaining. Details tomorrow.”
She tosses her phone on the bed, takes her shirt off, and pulls him into a kiss, laughing against his mouth as the phone pings and lights up with a quick succession of what sounds like at least a dozen messages.
***
The next morning, Robby walks over to Dana, phone in hand, attitude on full display.
“Call Abbot.”
“Good morning to you too, boss,” Dana jokes. “Catching up on emails this morning?”
“Dial,” Robby instructs, picking up a tablet to run through charts. “Get him in here.”
“What’s wrong?” Cassie asks from across the hub, where everyone is gathered before rounds.
Robby doesn’t provide an answer.
“He’s not picking up, boss,” Dana advises. “It’s going straight to voicemail. Any message in particular you want me to leave him?”
“Nope,” Robby says, popping the “p.” “Just keep calling. He’s trying to avoid me but he will pick up eventually.”
Shen and Parker walk by, dropping tablets off. “You trying to get Abbot to come in, boss?” Shen asks. “I don’t think he’s in town. Marco said he was in DC when he dropped off the Dunkin last night.”
Parker shoots Shen a look, elbows him against the wall of the elevated desk. “You’re such a little shitstirrer,” she whispers under her breath.
Shen takes a large slurp of the last of his iced coffee, the volume of the liquid and the ice he shakes a startling juxtaposition to the quiet “Did it work?” he whispers back to Parker.
“Still waiting on details but it sounds like it did,” she whispers back. “She sounded happy.”
“What’s in DC?” Robby asks the assembled group.
Everyone shakes their heads, shrugs their shoulders, or otherwise voices a lack of knowledge.
Cassie and Parker exchange a look.
“Samira’s birthday was yesterday,” Mel chirps from one of the computers, attempting to inject some frivolity into the tense moment. “So that’s happening in DC or was happening yesterday but I doubt that really has anything to do with Doctor Abbot, just something fun. She turned thirty!”
Robby stares at her for a moment and she retreats under his glare.
“Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me.” He walks over to the phone and dials Jack again, yells a message out when it goes to voicemail. “Abbot, pick up the phone. You think you can make this decision about my department without talking to me, you have another thing coming.”
***
Her alarm wakes her at 7:00 am and she quickly shuts it off and gets into the shower to let him sleep since his meeting with Yusuf isn’t until 10.
When she comes out, wrapped in her towel, he’s up, staring at the phone in his hand.
“Robby has called ten times already.” He plays her the voicemail he just received.
“You know he’s not going to stop,” she says unnecessarily, drying off. “He counts on you too much. You’re the only person who holds his world together.”
His phone shows another incoming call and he sighs before answering it.
“What do you want, Robby?” Jack says, sounding, if anything, tired. “I’m not on until tomorrow night and I can’t make it in before then.”
Robby is so angry, Samira can hear him clearly through the phone.
“Having fun, Jack? Samira, are you there too? I hear I missed your birthday. What an amazing present for him to give up his fucking career for you.”
“Go to hell, Robby,” Samira says into the phone without thinking. “You’re such a fucking dick.”
“Not to worry, Mohan. I’m not trying to compete with your boyfriend’s.”
Samira swallows, recognizing how much anger she still holds towards her former boss. She walks away from the conversation and into the kitchen.
“What can I do for you, Robby?” Jack asks again, ignoring the previous exchange.
“You and I are going to have a serious conversation when you get back here and we’re going to fix this. Do you realize the power you just gave the suits in this hospital?”
“My decision is final, Robby. I’m happy to help to make sure it’s a smooth transition, but, come December, I’m done.”
***
Jack finds her in the kitchen making coffee and hugs her carefully from behind, sensing the waves of anger still rolling off of her.
“So I guess everyone at the hospital knows,” he says with a laugh. “Thanks for saving me the trouble on Wednesday.”
“I’m really sorry,” she says. “I just … the way he talks to me. I lose it.”
“Yeah, I’ve had multiple conversations with him about that. Honestly? He is a dick and he’s not worth your time. Don’t give it a second thought.”
“But what did I ever do to him?” Samira asks, her voice small.
Jack sighs. “I have some theories about that,” he says cautiously. “And I really don’t want to get into them. You made it really clear this morning that you chose me, and I, well, you saw his reaction.”
Samira looks at him quizzically. “Do I want to know?”
Jack shakes his head. “I don’t think you do. I don’t want to know.”
“I am sorry, though,” she says. “Is that going to cause problems for you … with Baran? She doesn’t deserve to find out that way.”
“I have no idea what you heard,” Jack says carefully, “or who told you, but it was brief and ill-advised and practically over before it started. It was never serious. We never even … I don’t think she will care,” he tells her. “My conscience is clear.”
Samira laughs because he has no idea the effect he has but she says nothing.
He kisses her, tucks her hair behind her ears. “I do have one related request, which may piss you off, but I’m going to ask anyway.”
Samira raises her eyebrows at him, curious and attentive. “Can you mention to your baseball hat friend that you have a … me? Whatever you want to call it, however you want to put it. We’re going to do this long distance for at least six months, and I need him to know.”
“If you pick me up from the training after your meeting today, you can tell him yourself,” she responds. “I’m not going to do your dirty work for you, Jack.”
“But you don’t object?” he asks cheekily, watching as she retreats back into the bedroom.
“To you being my boyfriend? To figuring out how we make this work? To planning a future together?,” she calls from the bathroom. “No, no objections.”