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Hayden packs her childhood bedroom into cardboard boxes, and though a perfect moment for melancholic reminiscing, all she can think about is Abbot.
Abbot, the silver fox doctor who’d whisked her off her feet and into a hotel room in the manner of hours. Jack, her father’s friend who sat across the lunch table the very next morning, swapping war stories and promptly ignoring her existence.
Jack Abbot
The name still echoes around in her brain like a bell tolling too close to her ear, bouncing around like a pin ball and messing with her equilibrium. She hasn’t shaken the feeling since. Because after their horribly awkward lunch that overcast morning, Hayden hasn’t seen him since. Which she could excuse given she’d gone back home swiftly after, but the name in her phone had gone dormant as well. She doesn’t know what she was expecting. After a realization like that, she supposes anyone would high tail it the other direction.
The only problem now became that she got that intern position and was en route to working at Pittsburgh trauma medical center, only six floors above said Jack Abbot.
Where once she’d prayed for a job like this— this exact job, actually— when the email had arrived a month later, it dropped like a pit in her stomach. Hayden had debated accepting it for a while. But one firmly worded phone call from her best friend had straightened her out, and now, she was packing.
The process itself was cathartic, but she could hardly appreciate it with the blaring issues that could arise once she arrived. And, her dad was no help, sitting on her bed and rambling on and on about her moving away as if this were the first time. Hayden had given up on getting a word in about an hour ago.
“Just treat it like any ol’ job- well not really, because I had to pull a lot of strings for this.” Right. And those strings being one conversation with a man who just happened to work in the same building as this job. Abbot. Jack Abbot being said man- no, stop. “… so really don’t go trying those hot dog stands, it does not end well.” What? Hayden didn’t realize she’d zoned out so much. “Anywho, you’ll be fine, bug. Jack will be right there, every step of the way. He promised me he’d keep a good eye on you.”
Hayden’s clay mug slips from her hands midway as he spoke, but it thankfully lands unbroken in the box. “I don’t need a babysitter, dad.” She grumbles. In any other case scenario, with any other name said, she would’ve appreciated the thought. Because it’s true, new city, new job, no family within a hundred miles, it wouldn’t hurt to have a familiar face. Hayden just wishes it didn’t have to be that face; with the grey stubble and wrinkles around his eyes, stretching down and connecting to the smile lines around his mouth when he squints. Most of all, she hates how well she can remember how that skins feels beneath the soft pads of her fingertips. How easily he leans into the touch.
She keeps packing.
“Oh hush I know that, but I’m still your dad. It’s what I do.” He waves her off, crossing his shoe clad feet atop her naked bed. If her favorite bedding hadn’t already been stripped, she would’ve whacked at his feet until he removed them. Now, the room resembled more of a to-be guest house than the space she’d grown up in. When Hayden thinks about how the sight must make her dad feel as well, she sighs, and resigns to cut him some slack.
“Fine. I’ll… keep an eye out for him. But he’s a busy guy, probably. I’m not going to be texting him to come fix my disposal or something.” The idea of Abbot laid on his back, half submerged under her sink and wearing a set of carhartt working jeans- she really has to stop.
Christian Ellis groans as he finally rolls off her bed, coming up and pulling her into a big bear hug. Hayden can’t help but smile, though she puts on a show of complaining as her dad lifts her off the ground.
When she’s back on her feet and he’s holding her by the shoulders, Hayden knows she’s going to miss this. No matter how much she’d complained and groaned about moving back in with her parents after graduation, she could admit she’d miss this a lot more than she could say.
“No no, put him to work on your disposal and whatnot. Anything you’d need me for, just call him.” She rolls her eyes and he points a faux-stern finger at her. “Just think of him… Well, just think of him as another dad.”
Hayden ends up in a horrible coughing fit at that, choking on her saliva or maybe just on the air of those words. Her dad has to slap his hand on her back, but it doesn’t knock anymore sense into her, nor that thought out of her head. She’d called Abbot something real similar to that that night in the hotel, but god as her witness, her dad will die peacefully one day knowing nothing of the sort.
“Jeez Louise Hay, it’s like you’re choking on the devil. C’mon, let’s get you packed and into the car already before you die on my hardwood floors.” Ever the optimist, her dad.
Hayden laughs, still hacking, and throws out a thumbs up the best she can. The less she’s reminded of that night and that man, the better. Anyhow, they’ll be several floors apart, how often would she really see him?
The new apartment is small and perfect. On the fourth and top floor of a small building downtown, sits her one bedroom with original wood floors and concrete ceilings. The exterior red brick follows its way inside and lines the walls, as well as the sketchy looking built-in fireplace that Hayden is sure isn’t up to code. And with the large windows in every room offering a small peak of the rivers surrounding the city if she stands just right, the natural light alone is enough to justify the rent.
The door steps right into what’s to become of the living room and she immediately begins to plan where everything will go. An open kitchen and a half-island to the left, and her bedroom and bathroom both behind closed doors to the right, each door on either side of that haunted fireplace, Hayden really begins to feel like a real adult.
That being said, her dad does most of the work hauling everything up those stairs and into the flat. But in her defense, her mom isn’t much help either, sat on the empty floors and attempting the Wordle on her phone.
“Try, trail?”
“I can’t, no T.” Her mom tuts, and Hayden hums from where she’s crouched behind her, chin hooked on her shoulder.
Her dad huffs and heaves as he makes it through the doorway with another trip of boxes. He glares down the at the two girls and their lack of help but says nothing. Instead, he flops down beside them and looks over at her phone as well. They’re silent for a while, just Christian’s heavy panting filling the air.
Her dad hums, then, “What about trail?”
Hayden and her mom devolve into giggles as her dad remains clueless.
Suddenly, there’s a knock at her door.
Hayden startles more than she should. She isn’t expecting anybody. In fact, everyone she knew was practically in this room. Had her landlord already come by for a visit?
“Come in!” It’s her dad that yells it out, proud as if he lives there, and too loud for being only ten feet from the door.
It creeks loudly as it opens, hesitant and slow, before a familiar face pokes around the corner.
Jack Abbot.
Jesus fucking- “About time, old man. Thought you might’ve died trying to make it up those stairs.” Her dad laughs, but groans in pain as he hauls himself off the floor to hug the man.
Hayden is sure her dad is secretly out to get her. It’s been a little over month since she’d last seen Jack, and she’d since convinced herself that she’d imagined his beauty— a fluke that couldn’t be recreated. But now, he returned to her full force. Camo pants and that same, tight fitting black t-shirt she’d once tugged from his head. Hayden is certain that if this isn’t her dad’s secret work, then it must truly be the power of God working against her now. Because the grey in his curls are as prominent as ever, slightly overgrown and curled around the curve of his neck. She wants nothing more than to run across the room and dig her face right where his shoulder meet his neck, wrap her legs around his hips and let him take her against the brick walls-
“Nice place you’ve got here.” Jack says after breaking his little man hug with her dad. And though she’s half sure he’s speaking to the man, it isn’t exactly his place, so she replies:
“Thanks.” Short, sweet, a pinnacle of grace really. No, Hayden barely squeaks it out. And as Jack meets her eyes, she realizes it’s the first time they’ve really spoken since that night— or their fake introductions that next morning. Abbot holds her gaze longer than necessary, and Hayden is quick to break it. Hell, she doesn’t actually know this man. She doesn’t even know how to refer to him in her own thoughts. Is he Abbot, the man she wishes he could go back to being? Or Jack, the reason they’d drawn this line in the first place? All she knows, is that she’d wished her dad would’ve given her a little warning first.
“You remember my wife, Janine, and our little Hayden.” She winces.
“How could I forget.” Jack says, but Hayden hears the undercurrent cut beneath it.
Him holding her down into the bed, gripping her hips and forcing himself as deep into her as possible, making her choke on it. That whiny tone of his voice right before he finished: “Nng- fuck, baby you feel so good- did so good.”
Yeah. Hayden’s not sure could forget him either. And God willing, she’s tried.
She wobbles as she stretches up to her feet and claps her hands together. “Let me help, too. Let’s get this over with as quick as possible.” Hayden offers, and though it reads as moving along the process of bringing in boxes, Abbot’s eyes shoot to hers once more, steely and closed off in a way Hayden doesn’t know how to read anymore. Whatever it is, she’s sure he gets the message.
By the time they’ve unloaded the last box, the sun has dipped low behind the skyline, painting the walls of her apartment orange in its wake. The place is stuffed full of boxes and old furniture her parents had graciously let her steal from their shed. A beat up couch, a bed and dresser, and a pair of barely standing bookshelves. It’s not much, but Hayden eyes it all like it’s the land where the light touches; all hers. Besides, nothing a little thrifting couldn’t revitalize.
Jack had helped immensely, that much she could admit, but she said nothing of the sort. In fact, she spent the entire time keeping her eyes trained on anything but his chest. Hours of hauling boxes up four flights of stairs in the sun had, annoyingly, been very kind to him. The black fabric of his shirt stuck to his chest and he’d had to pinch it away several times to fan himself with it. Soaked through around the pits and the center of his back, he’d lift it by the bottom to dab at his hairline, revealing that sculpted chest she’d spent that fateful night gripping and scratching her nails down. So really, she hadn’t kept her eyes off him at all.
Her parents rekindled old stories together the whole time, keeping them hopefully occupied enough to not notice how close to drooling their daughter had been at the simple sight of a sweating Abbot. The man himself feigned ignorance, but Hayden is sure she was caught several times. They agree to finish the night with dinner, and thankfully don’t put up a fight when she opts to stay back under the ruse of unpacking. It’s a half truth, but she just wishes the drunken mirage that is Jack would stay as far away as possible.
By the time they all left, Hayden wasted no time in stripping down to her sports bar and shorts. She’d maintained her decency for the sake of her traditional parents, but with them gone, the lack of AC on a floor this high has reached its tipping point.
She’s halfway through her first box when the door swings open again. Hayden turns, ready to scold one of her parents about knocking, but it’s Jack she finds frozen in her door way. She’s not an idiot, she watches as his eyes run up and down her bare skin like a man finding water in the desert. Struck unmoving, Jack doesn’t advance further inside, clearly aware of his mistake now that he’s faced with her standing there, half naked and glistening with sweat.
Hayden stands a little straighter. Let him look. She wants him to regret. Regret never calling her back in the face of her parents, or simply regret not going for another round the one night they’d been allowed.
A careful bob of his throat has his eyes scattering back to the floor. “Keys.” His voice is rough and he steps in just far enough to reach the box where he’d forgotten his keys. As he moves to leave, Hayden turns back to her box. She’s not going to watch him walk out again.
Given the lapse of time before the door closes, Abbot hesitates. Why, she’s not sure. She doesn't get the chance to wonder, as the final sound of the door closing behind him silences the idea. Hayden groans into her hands. This whole “cohabiting the same city, as well as the same workplace” is already off to a rough start. She’s not sure she’ll survive if it gets any worse than this.
Work is perfect. It’s quick and front loaded and if nothing else, keeps her incredibly busy. So busy, in fact, it leaves no space for anything or anyone else. Leanne is fantastic. Hayden gets a tiny office down the hall from her, and for the first week, she’s a glorified servant to her, but Hayden can’t complain. Delivering coffee orders always results in thanks you’s, taking notes on her meetings gets a double thumbs up, and completely reorganizing her disastrous schedule lands Hayden her first case. Well, assisting a case. She’s just there to shadow, but it’s real. A real doctor getting really sued by some real Karen in the ER. Yay!
It’s less yay when the doctor ends up being the sweetest person Hayden has ever met. Though Hayden has to remain silent as she sits beside Leanne and her bearings of bad news, she’s wishes she could go around the table and just hug the poor girl. She learns her name is Melissa King, or Mel for short. The doctors downstairs love her, she gives fantastic care, and that the whole case is a sham. Her coworker had been dropped from the case with no repercussions, but Mel has been brought back on flimsy grounds. So now, this poor girl has to be put back through the ringer once more, and though Hayden is certain her career will be just fine, the broken look on her face won’t be so easily scrubbed from the record.
Leanne is too busy for grunt work, so she sends Hayden downstairs with Mel to try and gauge the case a little better in its element. Simple chart rereads from that day, another personal recount, and maybe giving a recap to whoever’s in charge. Someone who Leanne had assured her was a man named Dr. Robby. Hayden is certain she’d heard the name before, but it doesn’t stick. It ends up null and void anyhow, as apparently the man is on sabbatical, leaving another doctor in his stead of interim chief.
And just her luck, it’s Dr. Abbot.
Seeing him back in scrubs feels like a fever dream. She’d unwillingly recalled their first meeting half a millions times in her dreams since that night, and seeing him there, alive and in the flesh; a living ghost of memory, is a mind-fuck Hayden isn’t wanting to rehash. So she sticks by Mel’s side instead, an easy thing with how likable the girl is.
Mel stumbles on her recounting but moves solid and confident throughout the ER. A case like this is an obvious outlier to a doctor like her. She clearly knows how to do her job— loves it even. Hayden offers as much comforting words allowed. Personally, she doesn’t want Mel to lose. Selfishly, she really doesn’t want to lose her first case. Even if she’s just an assistant. It’s bad juju.
Hayden spends the better part of an hour down in the Pitt, and she’s immensely grateful she’d chosen malpractice instead of the practice itself. It’s as busy as she’d last seen it, and she catches sight of Abbot squirreling around the place, hopping from door to door like a salesman on a time crunch. It’d be impressive in which the speed he can help so many people, but Hayden is normal. Normal and unaffected and chill.
Hayden wraps up with Mel, certain the ER needs her a lot more than her case right now, and offers the most sincere smile she can in return for her time. She’s nothing short of a sweetheart. A small part of Hayden stands a little jealous. She often wishes she could be less abrasive, more kind; someone like Mel. It’s wishful thinking, and she shakes herself out of it, successfully dodging her first gurney on her way to central.
Familiarly, like this is all just a sick joke in replaying that night all over again, she finds the blonde nurse standing there. Her badge reminds her of the name: Dana. The same knowing smile is sitting on her face, now as she eyes the new outfit Hayden dons. Feminine cut suit pants and a dark turtleneck, blazer and all atop it; the most stereotypical lawyer who’d ever stepped foot into the ER. It doesn’t take a genius to sus her out— though Hayden wouldn’t be so quick to drop the label of genius in the face of a woman like Dana.
“Finally back?” Dana questions immediately. Hayden isn’t quite sure how to answer that, but she nods. “You looking for Abbot?” Dana eyes her. A loaded question.
“Yes. No! I mean,” Hayden sputters. “Leanne sent me to. I just need to update him on Mel.”
Dana watches her closely, then shrugs. Grabbing a chart being handed to her by a bypassing doctor. “He’s real busy, hon. Want me to pass a message?” The obvious Pennsylvania accent to her has Hayden seceding to her every question a lot easier than she would’ve hoped. Her body borderline sags in relief at the offer.
“Yes! That would be great-“
“Did you need me?” A husked, drawling voice curls up from beside her as he plants himself just to her left at central.
Dr. Abbot. Jack leans into the desk on crossed arms, and Hayden has to physically tear her eyes away from how his arms bulge in the confines of his scrub top. God if she could redo that night, she’d probably ask him to keep those scrubs on-
“Yeah, Leanne sent someone down for you.” Dana responds. Right. He was obviously talking to Dana. And she’d clearly paged Abbot the second she’d seen her approach. Sneaky woman. Hayden sort of loves her.
Jack turns his head to her like he’d been avoiding it. Hayden barely gets herself to look back. As soon as their eyes meet, Jack drops it— but with a pleasurable little chill down her spine, he only drops them to her pants, then trails their way back up her chest and to her eyes once more, like he’d never left in the first place. It makes her want to smack him for the audacity, then jump into his arms and let him take her against the nurses station.
She needs to put those six floors between them as soon as possible.
Jack clears his throat. “What can I do you for?”
Five bucks?
Hayden has to clear hers too. “She just asked me to update whoever’s in charge on Mel- I mean Melissa. King. Her deposition.” Smooth.
Out of the corner of her eyes, Hayden notices Dana skirting away. Likely, she has something to do. Also likely, she is very obviously giving them a wide berth.
“That would be me.” Abbot sort of grumbles his answer. Hayden gets the impression he isn’t so happy with this interim position if him being on day shift has anything to do with it. She hates how she remembers that.
Hayden continues on, keeping her head clear and her words as succinct as possible. This job is her dream. A one night stand wouldn’t ruin it so easily. And once her run down is done, Abbot nods along, falling back into his position easily. Maybe this is possible. Only talking about work, keeping a foot between them, and avoiding any substantial eye contact. Perfect system.
“Mel’s clearly a good doctor. She’ll get past this.” Hayden admits, a little more revealing than she’d hoped. She knows so, as Jack eyes her a little longer than usual, before nodding and looking away once more. Maybe this wouldn’t be so easy.
Someone calls his name from across the way and his shoulders roll back easily, minute and instinctual, Hayden notices it anyways. A constantly moving, chaos fueled place like this is where a man like Jack thrives. Not suffering through a conversation with a one night stand. Hayden takes a step back, his eyes shoot back to her.
“I’ll leave you to it, Dr. Abbot.” Hayden offers a tight smile, before turning on her heel and heading back to the elevators. She hates how easily she can find them, now. And how no hand pushes through the doors to stop them as they close.
Ending her second full week of working in a brand new city, all by herself, comes the first good thing since arriving. Hayden could admit the loneliness had started to kick in that first weekend. Mel’s case and work as a whole could only keep her so busy. So inevitably, once she got home, she often goes to bed as early as she could to avoid sitting by herself in a town she doesn’t know. She calls her parents a lot under the ruse of catching up, but she really just likes the sound of their voices filling her empty apartment. Once or twice, she calls her best friend from back home, Naya, but with two kids and a nagging husband, they never stay on long.
However, she’d offered some advice the last time they’d called.
“You need to get laid, Hay!” Naya borderline yells into the FaceTime, her kids screaming for something or other. Hayden had been curled into her sheets by seven PM, the only light coming from the screen. Maybe she had a point. “You're young, and hot, and you have a place to yourself for the first time in years. Take advantage of your freedom!” Maybe it was the way she said it or the sounds of her hectic household that helped the words settle, but Hayden couldn’t help but agree. Yeah. She should get back on the horse. Especially if a new horse would help her forget about the last one and the ride of her life.
And like God heard her nonexistent prayers, it came that Friday in the offer of a date from a guy she works with. Close enough.
Brandon Lockey, she’d learns, is another fresh face to the hospital. Twenty-four, straight out of college, and working in the corporate side of things at the right hand of his father. The obvious nepotism leaves a bad taste in her mouth, but he’s sweet, and tall, with cropped brown hair and an even smile— nothing like Abbot.
Perfect.
Hayden had run into him a few times coming in and out of the elevator when she was heading home, each time with a goofy grin on his face as they stumbled around each other. Friday was no different.
He’d stepped into the elevator as she was already heading down. When she noticed who’d walked in, they both smiled at each other. It was sweet, that much she could admit. The simplicity.
“We’ve really gotta stop meeting like this.” Brandon had said, deep voiced and all beautiful like. Hayden could picture what a heartthrob he must’ve been in college… mere months ago. Wow, only a year older than him and she felt like a cradle robber. She wondered now how Abbot must’ve felt- nope. Not going there.
So instead, she picked up a conversation with Brandon as they descended the six floors and out to the parking lot. The air outside still warm, and the sun barely setting despite the late hours, summer digging its heals into the sand. And when Brandon smiled all white teeth and charm, then asked her if she’d like to go out tonight, Hayden said yes. Because he seemed nice. And safe. Maybe he could be everything she’d want from him.
Dinner went well. The sex afterwards was fine too.
Hayden felt like an ass, but she couldn’t remember much from the date itself. He was a good story teller, but she could only listen to so many before she was itching to get out of there. She reasoned, maybe the sex will be better.
It had been, but not substantially. His apartment was a high rise downtown, coldly furnished and lights off as he led her to his room. She’d let him. Let him push her onto her back as he crawled atop her. They barely made out before, as she could’ve guessed, he was pushing his hand down the front of her pants.
She’d moaned when she was supposed to and laid prettily once she was naked. He was well endowed, but that’s about as far as her compliments went. Missionary isn’t exactly her favorite, but she’s muscled through it and he’d finished inside her, as he hadn’t even bothered to ask about a condom in the first place. Off handedly, Hayden knew she had to be more careful. But call it self sabotage or just filing a gap within her she didn’t want to name, Brandon did the best he could and she’d gotten off. What more could someone like her ask for?
She stayed the night at his insistence, but waking up beside him was more jarring than she’d anticipated, so she’d left in the early hours with a sticky note at his bedside.
Another week flew by like that.
Brandon called her back and she’d slept with him almost every night since. He hasn’t improved, but it filled the time and kept her out of the empty air of her own place, so she couldn’t help but pick up every time.
When Naya called, Hayden told her about him and muscled through her retellings and exaggerated where necessary. She wouldn’t admit, even to her, how unfixed her life still sat. She felt stuck in a transition, like she’d stepped halfway through an open door and it’d shut on her, halfway in, yet still hanging outside.
Her apartment is fully unpacked, but the ghost of cardboard boxes still permeates the space. Maybe it was the lack of family or so much as a friend in this new place, but she couldn’t do it anymore. She needed something, someone. Anyone.
Hayden pushes the man she really wants to see down into the recesses of her mind and leaves it there. She wouldn’t call him. She wouldn’t so much as utter his name.
And on a particularly lonely Saturday night, when Brandon calls, it’s unsurprising that she picks up. But he doesn’t ask her to come over, instead, he asks her to go out.
“I’m at the karaoke bar down the street. Half the hospital was invited, I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it.” Brandon explains. Hayden hums along. She’s too embarrassed to admit that she’d been so drowned in shadowing the dozen new cases that hit their desks this last week, she’d sort of forgotten to maintain friendly office chat.
It doesn’t take much nowadays to pull Hayden away from the sorry state of her living situation, so she’s agreeing to tag along before he can say more.
The warm air lingers still despite the night sky, and yet Hayden can’t help but wrap her arms around herself as she walks. What’s going on with her? Maybe it’s just everything all at once. Hayden has to find a way to get out of this funk, she feels like she’s losing herself to it.
The karaoke bar is a glorified dive, painting lipstick on a pig as its sticky walls are covered in an assortment of colorful streamers, half of them already crumpled on the floor. Someone’s borderline crying into the mic, the sweet sounds of Tennessee Whiskey masked by the woman’s drunken sobs as she out paces the song, stumbling on the half assed stage. Despite it, she spots a couple or two swaying to it. Hayden can’t help but smile at the sight.
“You made it!” Brandon creeps into view, pulling her into a hug with his lanky arms. Hayden has yet to fully adjust to being with a scrawnier man, and she often forgot about it until they hugged and a stray knobby bone would hit her on the way in. She smiled despite it. He’s sweet. And nice. And not Abbot. It’s become a mantra at this point. “I got you a drink, c’mon.”
Brandon ushers her to the bar where he’d saved two barstools for them with a perfect view of the tragedy that is the stage. The sobbing woman had been whisked away, and the tempo switched to a song she’d never heard before, but she recognized one of the two women who stepped up. Mel.
She looked significantly uplifted now, smiling up there with a brunette by her side, drinks in their hands and more yelling than singing at the words on the screen. Hayden smiles at the image they make. She’d never seen the doctor smile before, always a furrowed brow the second Hayden stepped through the doors of the ER, as she was a walking reminder of her deposition. That part of the job is always the worst. Hayden’s just happy she can see her like this now.
Brandon is telling another story or other at her side, but she’s too focused on the two women exiting the stage and suddenly approaching her at breakneck speed.
It becomes glaring obvious that Mel is actually sort of drunk. Hayden wouldn’t have expected it from her. But she stumbles as she approaches and reddens when the brunette loops an arm around her to keep her steady.
“Trin, this is my lawyer I was telling you about!” Mel’s drink sloshes dangerously in her glass as she introduces what Hayden supposes is her.
Hayden waves somewhat awkwardly and has to stifle the urge of offering a handshake. God she really is becoming that loser lawyer. “Just an intern. My names Hayden.” She introduces herself and Mel is beaming.
“Trinity. I’d say it’s a pleasure, but Mel’s been really beat up about this case.” The brunette, Trinity, is blunt.
Hayden nods. “It’s not an easy one, but she’s been handling it well. She’s a great doctor and the opposition knows it.” Vague and not wanting to devolve into unsanctioned details of a case in the middle of the bar. Still, whatever she says must work, and the hardened face Trinity wears slips to a grin.
“Have you met the Huckleberry? You’ve gotta meet Huckleberry.” Trinity is asking and already turning away to lead her to the mysterious fruit or other before she gets an answer. Hayden laughs, and turns to Brandon, but he’s already smiling and waving her away.
“Go make friends. If you keep spending every night with me, you might just run me dry.” Brandon chuckles, and against herself, a small something flutters in her stomach.
Hayden finishes the drink he’d bought in one go, then reaches up and plants a kiss on his lips. They’re grinning more than anything else, and she pulls back to whisper against his lips, “Don’t give me any ideas.”
Brandon watches her go and taps her on the ass as she steps off the stool. She could get used to this. She could learn to want this.
Hayden gets shoved into the middle of a rounded booth, surrounded by doctors of all sorts. Huckleberry, she learns, is not a fruit but a man named Dennis. Though likely a gay man, if she were to take a guess. Javadi is the obvious youngest, baby faced and bright eyed. Hayden, even off the clock, doesn’t want to ask if her ID is real.
Trinity, however, becomes an easy favorite. Once she learns of Hayden’s bisexuality, the floodgates open and the stoney exterior falls further with each drink getting carted their way. Hayden is sure hers are being supplied by Brandon somewhere yonder, but she hasn’t seen him in over an hour. Maybe he hadn’t closed his tab?
“-and she had her legs up over the frame-“ Trinity is midway through a recent sex-pedition of hers, and Hayden wonders the last time someone had opened up this quickly to her. She blames it on the alcohol, but given the lack of reaction from anyone else at the table, no one else so much as listening in on the story, it’s likely this is far from her first retelling.
“Alright wrap it up, kids. I’m buying Uber’s for everyone.”
Even though her drunken stupor, Hayden knows she’s heard that voice before.
Trinity groans. “Always the party pooper, Abbot.”
Hayden’s blood runs so cold, she sure it freezes solid in her veins. How had she forgotten where the man who haunted her so thoroughly, worked as well? How had she completely bypassed the idea that Jack, a member of the hospital, might just be invited out to the hospital night out. The alcohol flushes red down her neck and she sits in the embarrassment of being caught like this, painfully young and drunk on a Saturday night.
Jack, by some grace, seems equally shocked to find her among his familiar groups of underlings. But with a lack of alcohol ruining his composure, he hides his shock much better than she does.
The group stumbles out of the booth and keep on their conversations as if nothing had changed, secure in the fact that they’d all see each other again on Monday. Hayden sticks out like a sore thumb.
Like Trinity could hear her thoughts, she stops midstep and gets her number before she can scurry off. Before she knows it, Hayden is added to a suspiciously named group chat full of numbers likely belonging to the rest of the young doctors. Hayden’s six drinks allow a real smile to grace her lips, and Trinity is nice enough to ignore it. Just patting her on the shoulder all bro-like and telling her to text them back or she’d track her down. An easy task given their workplace, but Hayden nods to the threat anyways.
By the time she somehow makes her way outside, she’d almost forgotten about Abbot until she whirls around and finds him trailing behind her, solid at her side and typing away at his phone. She could do this. Hayden didn’t have to be the drunken twenty something making a fool of herself in front of a hook up. Because that’s all he is. A one night mistake.
“Remind me your address.” Jack prompts, eyes still on his phone and attempting to call a ride for her.
“No!” Smooth. “I mean, no. It’s fine. I came with someone.” Hayden huffs indignantly, borderline reminding herself of that fact. Where’d he run off to anyhow?
Abbot’s fingers freeze. “You mean that tall guy at the bar?” Hayden nods. Yeah. She’d moved on. What now. “He left an hour ago. Found Dana and told her to get you home safe.” His tone is mocking, annoyed, and though likely aimed at how Brandon had up and left her, Hayden can’t help but take it personally.
She crosses her arms across her chest like a child. “Fine. Then gimme your phone. I’ll put in his address.” Hayden reaches for the device, but Jack rips it away before she can. She trips on her feet at the reach, and though she wouldn’t have fallen, a strong arm still loops itself around her waist and hoists her back up.
Whatever flicker she’d felt earlier tonight for Brandon burns like a moth in a flame to the sheer heat that engulfs her now. From her toes to the points of her ears, the night air isn’t enough to cool the desire that floods her senses and ensnares her every thought.
Hayden straightens herself out, but his arm doesn’t fall. Pulled so close to his chest, her hand instinctively falls to the shoulder holding her tight. Sober Hayden surely would’ve pulled away. Made a big stomp about it and told him off. At least, that’s what she tells herself, but she doesn’t move an inch, and she knows full well it has nothing to do with the alcohol.
Jack is right there. Staring down at her and saying nothing, only his chest heaving as he takes every inch of her in. There’s no tang of beer or anything of the sort on his breath as it fans across her face. It’s what allows her to trust him when he finally speaks, low and heavy, “Let me drive you home.”
Hayden, against every smarter bone in her body, nods.
Abbot drops his hand from her hip and walks away in the same breath, forcing himself away from her. And like a whirlwind, Hayden can’t help but follow.
She keeps a half a pace behind him as he makes his way to that familiar black truck. She’d gone almost two weeks without so much as conversing with Jack, and now, she was getting back into his truck and Hayden wasn’t so sure she had the strength to control herself. And as she climbs into the passenger seat, Jack holding the door for her as always, the only thing keeping her from pouncing on him is the pride of not breaking first.
He’d been the one to leave here in the hotel room that morning. And though he’d texted her to make up for it, Hayden couldn’t think logically right now. All she knew was one moment he was wooing her and fucking her within an inch of her life, and the next, he was gone. With no one to blame but the world, in moments like these, Hayden found it easier just to blame him. So with a final bit of good judgement, she doesn’t break. Not even when he hands her his phone, then tugs on it once it’s halfway in her hand, a stern look on his face.
“Your address. Not his.”
The deep rumble of his voice when he speaks is hypnotic enough to have her nodding once more. When had she become so pliant? Maybe it was only him that could make her submit so easily. Hayden couldn’t go down that rabbit hole right now, not with him watching her every move. So she does as she’s told and types in her address and nothing more, handing the phone back and slumping into her seat as he backs out of his spot.
The drive is quiet and grating in how reminiscent it feels. Now would be as good a time as ever to finally ask him, but Hayden can’t figure a single question. How’s life been since you found out you fucked your best friend’s daughter? The one you’d met all those years ago and now is sitting in your truck like nothing happened? Personally, I’m doing great. Yeah right.
“Who’s the guy?”
The question is open handed, showing all of his cards in one go and it shocks Hayden at how blunt he’s being. She keeps her eyes trained out the tinted windows.
“I’m not sure that’s any of your business.”
Jack doesn’t say anything at that, but she catches how his hands flex on the steering wheel through the reflection. He reaches a hand up to run through his hair, elbow propped on the door as he rubs at his temple like she’s going to give him more grey hair. It’s such an old man thing to do, she barely stifles her giggle, but he catches it anyways. Like he’s trained to hear her.
He tries again, and rephrases.
“Your dad, uh. He keeps asking me for updates. About you. That’s why I ask.” Abbot struggles his way through and Hayden is almost convinced. She believes that her nosy father has very likely been texting this innocent man. However, she’s equally certain that isn’t why he asked.
Still, Hayden takes the bait. “His name’s Brandon.” She shrugs. “And tell my dad to mind his own business.”
“Is he good to you?” Another telling question. Hayden almost wants to celebrate in his jealousy if she could do something with it. But she can’t. No matter how jealous she may or may not make him, she can act on none of it.
“I thought I just told you he should mind his own business.”
“I’m not asking for him.”
A thrill runs up the base of her spine and her knees pull together. How she’d stayed away from his man for so long is beyond her. Still, she refuses to give him what he wants. She’d been plain and simple in how badly she’d wanted him that night, and even after learning who he really is, it’d never faltered. But he never called. Never so much as answered her last text to him. She may be half his age, but she isn’t an idiot. She’s not going to chase someone who doesn’t want her.
“You can park right up there.” Is all she says as her building comes into view.
Jack doesn’t ask anything else, just curves the truck into a free spot and shoves it into park. When all is said and done, deep down, Hayden doesn’t want to step out. An empty apartment is waiting for her. Stale air and a hangover in the morning, selfishly, Hayden doesn’t want to meet that truth just yet.
For some reason, Jack lets her linger. It’s not long, minutes maybe, but neither of them speak. The soft hum of the AC cools her skin and Hayden can finally hear over the rushing of her skull, enough to catch the faint sounds of an AM talk show, muttering low from his speakers. It’s nothing. Not a moment or a touch, not so much as a glance. But when Hayden finally steps out of the truck, opening her own door and landing on the solid pavement below, she wonders if she’d said too much in that silence. If she’d been the one to show too much of her hand. She’d needed that moment of nothingness. But for the life of her, she couldn’t fathom why Abbot may have needed it too.
Moving away should have solidified her right to avoid family dinner. It does not.
That loose lipped asshole immediately spilled to her dad about her having a “boyfriend,” and the next morning she is woken up to the blaring sound of her family group chat going rampant. Amidst her hangover and the early morning, she catches the most important parts of the text chain being: “Brandon,” “Family Dinner,” and “Bring him,” before she falls back to sleep.
When she wakes again several hours later on her own terms, she rereads the chats and groans into her pillow in misery. They gave her a week to hopefully convince Brandon to come over and meet her parents. They’ve only been… going out? for a few weeks now. And though she texts them as much, it does not deter them in the slightest. A small part of her wants to be blunt, tell them that she isn’t even dating the guy, she thinks. More of an honorary fuck buddy, maybe?
But to her surprise, a simple text to Brandon has him agreeing in no time. Is she misinterpreting what they have? Are they dating? The fact that she even has to ask herself that is likely a bad sign, but she takes his willingness in stride.
Hayden, in a moment of stupor she’d likely regret until she dies, texts Abbot afterwards.
[]: you ratted on me. not cool
Childishly, she has to restrain herself from chucking her phone across the room after hitting send. It’s fine. She’s normal. In fact, this is probably the most normal thing to do in a situation like this: playing it cool like he means nothing to her anymore.
Then, an hour later, Jack finally responds with a simple ‘Ha-ha’ reaction to the text. Not even a real message back. Wow. He’d somehow out nonchalant-ed her. She does chuck her phone after that.
Come the next Friday, Hayden is already exhausted.
She’d spent all week in active avoidance of Jack, which became more of an ordeal now that she had made friends with half of the younger staff in the ER. Since karaoke, that group chat went off like an antsy telemarketer, which surprises her given how busy they must all be, being doctors and all.
Hayden had her lunches with them— more likely whoever few were free enough to spare thirty minutes away from the hectic Pitt— and started carpooling a few of them home after work. Primarily Trinity and Dennis, as they live in the same apartment, two birds and one stone and all that. It consists mostly of Trinity controlling the music and blasting whatever songs gets the man in the back dancing enough to let loose. Mel had even accompanied a few times, but always with a red face and being dropped off at the same place as them. Hayden has her suspicions, but she never asks.
This closer proximity, however, makes for a lot harder time to avoid the silver fox when she’s in there multiple times a day.
Jack, probably against himself, always finds her when she enters. Maybe it was her obvious lack of scrubs, but he finds her like she wore bells around her ankles or a neon sign around her neck. Always immediate, yet always quick to glance away. Hayden won’t let it affect her. After all, she had bigger fish to fry with the maybe-boyfriend meeting her parents.
So by Friday, Brandon ends up being the one to drive them those few hours up North to her parent’s house. When he’d offered, Hayden was surprised at his sweetness. Maybe this really was something she hadn’t realized was there.
But then he’d bent down and whispered in her ear, “Maybe you can pay me back another way.” Which had quickly rid her of any mushy thoughts. And after a quicky, bent over his kitchen counter and barely lubed up enough to curb the sting, they’d hopped into the car right after, the evidence of him still crusting down her leg.
So yeah. Hayden is exhausted.
She sleeps most of the way there, but it’s hard with his fancy little car bumping all over the roads, his music just a tad too loud and much too annoying to get in anything substantial. By the time her neighborhood comes into view, Hayden could almost cry. The light blue paint of her childhood two story comes around the corner like a dream. White shutters and the meticulously kept grass her dad prides himself on, the ache in her chest squeezes at her heart so bad, she’s almost certain she’s dying.
But alongside her dad’s truck in the driveway sits another; black and imposing and too familiar for her liking. Brandon has to park on the street and the childlike joy she’d had just moment prior fizzles out as she realizes who will be joining them for dinner.
Brandon grabs their small over night bags and swings them over his shoulder, going as far as to hold her hand as she steps up to the front door. Maybe this is as much of a performance to him as it is for her.
Her dad opens the door when she knocks, all big and smiling and she crumples into his arms like a cheap coat. He laughs heartily as he braces against the full brunt of her leaning on him. Christian pats her on the back, “Golly bug, you’d’a think I’d gone off to war or something.” He teases her, but Hayden feels how hard he hugs her back. He just doesn’t know how to say it either.
When they split, Hayden does the same for her mom, but holds her own weight this time as to not knock the poor woman off her feet. Brandon is shaking his dad’s hand all formal like, greeting even more so: “Thank you so much for having me, Mr. and Mrs. Ellis.” It butters them up exactly as he’d intended.
Her dad grips him heavy by the shoulder and pulls him into the house with a proud look on his face. Hayden never knew he’d be so easy to impress. “Please, call me Christian.” Dear God this was going to be a long night. Her dad suddenly perks up, remembering something. “Oh and how could I forget! My war time buddy, Jack.”
Hayden had completely forgotten about him and that obvious black truck of his he’d parked in their drive. The aforementioned enters the room from the kitchen with a fake look on his face. Brandon shakes his hand. “Dr. Abbot! I work up in corporate, I’ve heard your name from my father.” Whatever magic Brandon had worked on her dad doesn’t transfer, and Jack squints his eyes at him.
“You Marvin’s son?” Jack grumbles. Brandon nods all proud like. Another misstep, and Jacks’s face sours. He doesn’t ask anything more, just hums once in acknowledgment and moves on.
Moves on to her.
Hayden should’ve realized he’d have to greet her too, it would’ve been suspicious otherwise, and yet she’d become so used to his prompt ignorance that his steady approach shocks her. And instead of going in for a safe side hug as he’d been reaching for, Hayden sticks her hand out between them for a shake.
Kill her now.
Jack startles a bit and awkwardly drops his arm from where it’d been reaching for her. Her dad has a ball at the sight, laughing up a storm. Even Brandon chuckles alongside him. “Wow, that lawyer life has really toughened you up.” Her dad chides, and she blushes. Jack doesn’t let her pull back, reaching between them and shaking her hand as she’d intended, pulling her a little closer as he does.
Jack’s grip on hers is borderline inappropriate. His fingers press at her skin and his thumb swipes at the back of her knuckles. Then, he purrs, “It’s alright, I don’t mind. She’s a big girl now.”
Hayden’s knees wobble a bit where she stands, and her hand goes a limp in his hold. He tightens his grip.
When they drop, Hayden is sure she’s given herself away. But everyone migrates to the kitchen like nothing had happened, her mom starting on asking Brandon all sorts of questions. To anyone but the two them, it mustn’t have been anything but a shake. To Hayden, shes starting to feel faint.
She trails behind, a little lightheaded when she takes a seat at the dinning table beside Brandon. He’d left their things by the door and he uses his free hand to grab hers, intertwining them atop the table. With her dad at the head and her mom still interviewing Brandon from her spot across from him, it leaves Jack a spot beside Janine; right across from Hayden.
As Jack takes his seat, his eyes don’t stray from their interlaced fingers. It has her heating up where she sits, far too affected by the stare she’d only seen in her memories up until now. Seeing it here, full force and dark beneath his lashes, Hayden would prefer everyone made themselves sparse right about now.
What had changed? Silence for a month, avoidance for another, and now this. He’d been cordial in their mandatory conversations regarding Mel, and he’d driven her home after the bar, but aside from his somewhat personal line of questioning that night, he still never pushed. Never looked at her like he is now. Was it Brandon?
Oh.
Hayden could use that.
She pulls her hand from Brandon’s, and for a moment, Jack looks almost pleased. But she just moves it up to curl around the tall man’s shoulder, tilting her head into his arm as he continues to woo her parents to death. With how invested the two looked, if she ever needed another fake date, she knows exactly who to call.
Jack, on the exterior, nods along to Brandon’s story as well, but Hayden knows better. He crosses his arms across his chest and resembles more of a puffed up porcupine than a civilized man.
Dinner keeps on like that.
Brandon is perfectly cordial, polite to a fault and sending her dad into far too many laughing fits for her liking. Even her mom is charmed, serving him up twice as to “put some meat on his bones,” as she’d phrased it. Hayden almost wishes she could have him. That she could want him like this, on a monthly family dinner that he would never miss. He’s so great. So why doesn’t she want him?
The blaring answer sits across from her, tense and stupidly attractive. When his eyes so much as flicker back to hers, Hayden forgets all about the man at her side.
But she’s on a mission.
Hayden keeps her head on Brandon’s arm throughout his stories— playing with his shirt hem or running her nails along his back as he spoke. Never flirty or untoward. If anything, she’s playing domestic. Like a docile housewife subdued by the ostentatious man at her side, just happy to sit there and pad at him as he retells the same old stories over and over again, but just as in love as the first times.
It drives Jack up the wall. She knows because he can’t seem to sit still. Fidgeting with a tick in his jaw, he watches her movements like a hawk. Hayden never backs down. This is what he wanted, right? When he’d given up on the prospect of them together; never reaching out, never bridging the gap to so much as a friendship if nothing else. Hayden could pretend to have moved on. She’s tired of being the one who wants it the most. She wants him to break.
Because deep down, Hayden feels betrayed. Neither of them could’ve known what they were to each other. She was a victim of circumstance, maybe of her dad’s stupidity, but nothing really. Because in becoming Jack, she’d lost Abbot. The sweet man who’d taken her out for breakfast at night. Who blushed at her age and stumbled when she flirted. The doctor who’d helped her find her way through the hospital and waited for her outside, trusted that she would come find him. And she had. Of course she had. And in those quiet moments in the hotel, as he’d cleaned her up with gentle hands, Hayden had begun to want. She didn’t care about his age or his status, she just wanted the man. The sweet man who’d swept her off her feet in a manner of hours. That even with early morning plans, had stayed up late to make sure she’d fallen asleep, comfortable and safe in his arms. She’d begun to imagine a next day with Abbot. Then a day after, and another. She’d unknowingly began to draft her move to Pittsburgh with Abbot in frame.
Hayden had pictured him helping her pick apartments in safe neighborhoods. Sending her links over that month to places progressively closer and closer to his own. He’d help her move in and stay the night. He’d probably stay so many times, she’d leave an extra toothbrush in the bathroom just for him.
All of that and more, Hayden had started to plan. Unbeknownst even to herself, she’d started to imagine a future with Abbot.
But with Abbot, came Jack. The man who stood there in that restaurant with so much hurt on his face, it’d gripped her at her core. Like he’d been just as thoroughly betrayed. And with no one to blame and no next step to take, they’ve ended up here. Split apart and her pandering for even a minuscule of his attention once more.
He’s what’s been missing from her transition to Pittsburgh. She’d imaged him by her side throughout it, and it’d been ripped like a rug from below her feet. Hayden’s done being stuck in the middle of doorway. She wants him back. So that’s exactly what she’ll get.
And by the time dinner is finished, Jack is exactly where she wants him. Properly jealous and borderline needy, Hayden only wishes she had gotten to mess with him more.
Her dad excuses himself to the living room, already having missed so much of the game by this point. Brandon heads into the kitchen with her mother, insisting he help her with the dishes. And though she tries to wave him off, Hayden knows she appreciates the help. God, he’s like a golden child. He’s gotta turn it down lest her parents take this too seriously and start asking for wedding dates.
Leaving her alone with Jack, she doesn’t take the bait of his pressing stare. Instead, she stands up from the table with a clear of her throat. “I’m gonna go take our bags upstairs, hon.” She yells out to Brandon, tacking on the unfamiliar pet name as a cherry on top. Because really, she isn’t saying it for him.
Hayden doesn’t so much as glance Jack’s way as she turns to the entryway and takes their bags up to her old room. And as she reaches the top step, she hears the telling sound of a chair pushing back from the table.
Hayden barely gets the chance to drop the bags on the floor of her room before she’s being spun around and slammed against the wall. Jack is on her immediately, the door barely closed behind him but enough to secure them from view as he lays his hands on her hips and presses her into the wallpaper. Though she’d been expecting it, the force of it all chokes a whimper from her lips, bitten and burning. His thumbs push into her hips, then slide beneath the hem of her shirt. Hayden drops her head against the wall, already too heavy and full of want, she can barely keep herself aloft.
“He seems nice.” Jack whispers, but it’s nothing close to soft, grating and low in his chest. He lowers his head down to her neck, nosing at the stripe beneath her jaw. Hayden grabs at his shoulders and scrambles for purchase, sliding them all across the wide span of his shoulders. It pulls another pleased hum from her throat, likely vibrating where his lips are ghosting at the skin there.
“Shut up.” Hayden breathes out. Jack pulls back, and she catches that smug tilt of his mouth before it’s latching onto her.
The first touch of his lips on hers singes every nerve of her mouth all at once. He doesn’t tease her and he isn’t gentle, he pushes against her so roughly, her head slams back into the wall from where she’d tried to lift it. Jack moves not to taste or savor, but to claim. Their teeth knock and his tongue forces its way past hers, memorizing and revisiting all his favorite places as if he’d never left.
Hayden’s grip on his shoulders tighten as she tries to hold herself up, her nails digging into the shirt and the flesh below. Jack hisses painfully, but it tapers into a breathy sound that she swallows, and she grips harder. The sound alone of their lips crashing against each other is enough to soak through her panties, and for once in her life, Hayden wishes the man would shove his hand down there without preamble. But he doesn’t reward her. Where Abbot had once done everything for her pleasure, now, Jack seems only to take.
His knee shoves its way between hers and knocks them apart, forcing his thigh up right between her legs, and Hayden moans loud into his mouth.
Jack rips his lips from hers at the sound, and she whines again. With a mean thrust of his thigh, he slaps his hand across her lips as to muffle the needy sound that follows. His hand is burning against her skin, and so large it covers the bottom of her face and curls around her jaw. His hold on her is painful and mean, but as he pushes his leg hard between hers, she forgets everything but him.
He’s everywhere, all over her. Drowning her noises, clutching her hip, using her and rolling her forward against his leg, prompting her to rut against him like a bitch in heat. Hayden can only cut her nails at his shoulders and takes what he gives her, eyes barely open as she rocks into the rough denim of his jeans. “C’mon baby.” Jack husks, pushing his face into the crook of her neck and living there, breathing hot into her skin and lapping at the sweat that builds there. “Don’t want your boyfriend walking in on you like this- Ah fuck, baby you’re gonna get my pants all wet.” Jack is laughing at her, taunting her like a child who’d spilled her drink, and not the woman who— as she looks down— is indeed soaking through and leaving a wet spot on his thigh.
“Shut up, dad.” Her words are garbled beneath his fingers, but Jack groans into her skin and she’s sure he catches it. She’d only said it to mock him for his age and how he’d spoken to her, but she’d forgotten how hard that would affect him. His hands turn impossibly rougher like she’d spurred something in him. Hayden’s skirt is fully hiked up to her waist by now, making for perfect vantage to grind hard and quick at the man she craves. The friction is delicious, his denim too rough and her panties too soft, Hayden can barely breathe, all her energy going into finding the perfect spot. The best angle, the best slide for her clit-
“There you go, just like that.” Jack knows she’s found it before she does, and then she’s whining into his hand like a madman. She could cry as her hips turn frantic, properly humping at Jack’s leg and she can’t form a thought to be embarrassed. From downstairs, Hayden hears the faint sound of Brandon laughing, but a sick part of her just grinds down harder. “Should I let him listen?” Jack murmurs into her ear. Her eyes slide shut with a drawn out moan. “He should hear how perfect you sound for me. How good I make you feel.” She shakes her head against his grip on her face, knowing he’s only taunting, but it succeeds in riling her up.
Hayden retaliates, pushing her fingers into his hair, then she tugs at the grey curls she’d missed so much. Just as expected, his moan comes out broken and right into her ear. It causes Jack to meet her next grind midway, with an inadvertent jerk of his hips in time with her own, and suddenly, she’s falling.
Heat rushes and explodes across her skin like static, flooding her senses to the point she’s certain her ears may pop. Whatever she’d been experiencing with Brandon these past couple weeks pales in comparison to simply rubbing one off against Jack’s leg. She’s panting into his hand by the time her hips fall still, and Jack is still ghosting at rutting against her hip like he’s barely refraining. She may have gotten off, but he hasn’t.
Hayden reaches a hand down between them to help him finish, but he stops her before she can make it, grabbing her by the wrist and slamming it into the wall by her head. She whimpers at the pain, but her back arching tells a different story. Jack finally frees her mouth from the confines of his hand, trailing it down her neck, then between her breasts, and down to her skirt. His fingertips ghost at her clothed, soaked through entrance, and he opens his mouth so say something, when loud footsteps start making their way up the stairs.
Like a pair of startled animals, it’s comical how quickly they spring into action. Jack yanks her skirt back into place and Hayden helps straighten out his hair before they’re shooting five feet apart and he takes a seat at the edge of her bed, placing a pillow in his lap just in time as her mom’s head peaks into the room. It must look a little odd, the two of them so far apart, alone in her bedroom, but her mom doesn’t comment on it. “What’re y’all doing up here? I’m about to pull the cookies out the oven.” She chastises them both equally like Abbot isn’t older than her.
Dear God. She’d just gotten off on a man who’s older than her mother. Hayden’s going to Hell. Given the guilty look on Jack’s face, at least he’s going down with her.
Jack clears his throat, plastering on a smile like he isn’t hard as a rock beneath that pillow. “Sorry Jen. Got caught up telling Hayden about that time she tried to run me over that little pink car of hers.” What? Hayden has never heard that story. Clearly he’s scrambled for some sort of excuse, but she remembers that pink car. She remembers running over her barbie dolls in it, not chasing down a full grown man.
But her mom laughs, remembering this untold memory. “Oh gosh I forgot about that! She went over your foot and you didn’t have the heart to tell her she’d hit your fake one.” Jack chuckles along, soft and increasingly guilty.
“Yeah well, she’d chased be halfway down the yard. I had to put on a big show.” Hayden’s heart drops painfully in her chest as realizes Jack can’t so much as look her in the eyes. Like he’d just been brutally forced to remember exactly who he’s been fooling around with. Not just Hayden, but that girl he’d known and the memories he had of her. However few and far between, it still must not sit right with him that he remembers so much and she recalls nothing at all— because she’d been a child.
Jack looks like he’s going to be sick.
“Well hurry up you worry warts, your dad’s about to tear Brandon a new one for not being an Eagles fan.” Oh gross, did Brandon like the Stealers? Hayden didn’t want to go face that man even more now.
Janine pats the door frame as she leaves, padding back down the stairs with much softer feet than she’d come up with. Odd.
Jack looks nothing short of green, tossing the pillow away as he’d softened up in record time. That can’t possibly be healthy. But when Hayden takes a step off the wall, he shoots up, eyes everywhere but her. “We should probably-“
“Don’t run out on me again.” Hayden’s voice wavers more than she would’ve hoped, but it finally catches his attention. His eyes fall on her like he shouldn’t be allowed to look. Long gone is the man who’d so eagerly taken her against the wall just minutes ago. In his stead stands a shell of himself, guilt ridden like he’s on his way to confession. “Please.”
Jack shakes his head, against what, she doesn’t know. “We can’t.
Hayden takes a step closer. “Why not?”
The man laughs, short and without humor. “Are you serious? Your mom almost walked in on us-“
“She’s walked in on me plenty of times-“
“But not with me. She’s never seen me here.” Jack shoves his hands in his hair, tangling them like he’s holding his own head from spinning.
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t!” Jack startles her with his tone, and she takes half a step back. They’re whispering, but it feels like yelling. He sighs. “You’re a child, Hayden.”
She tries to protest but he steamrolls her.
“I’m too old for you.”
“That didn’t stop you the first time.” Hayden bites. She’s getting fed up. Why tease her with what she can’t have if he’s just going to rip it away all over again.
“It’s different now.“
“How-” Hayden struggles to keep her voice down.
“Because I know you!” Jack says it like it’s painful, squeezing his eyes closed for a moment. When they open, they bear into hers with a pleading she’d never seen before. “You may not remember me, but I do. I remember that little girl in the pink car, and the one with the worst batting I’d ever seen.” In any other time, she’s sure he could have smiled at the memory. “You gave me a sticker from your birthday book once, do you know that?”
Hayden slowly shakes her head. She’s starting to feel a little sick too. Jack doesn’t stop, each memory he recalls seems only to hurt him further.
“It was an ugly, purple thing you didn’t want. You said it looked like me just to get rid of it, but I’d put it on my cheek anyways just to make you smile.” Jack sits back on the edge of the bed, beaten down and weak. “I forgot all about you.” It’s so quiet, she barely catches it. “I only met you a few times and then I got stationed halfway across the world. I forgot about you but that doesn’t mean you aren’t that little girl.” His admissions are so honest and hurt, Hayden slowly steps closer, taking a seat beside him on the bed.
He doesn’t stop. “You don’t understand. I’m just a guy you slept with, and I became someone you’re supposed to know.” Jack turns his head, looking at her head on with a sadness in his eyes she hadn’t realized him capable. “But me? You were a woman I fell for who became that little girl.”
A little part of Hayden fractures at that. She’s been so caught up in how horrible it’s been since losing him, she hasn’t stopped to consider that he’d lost her too.
“So no. We can’t do this.” Jack shakes his head with finality. “Because I don’t know if I can ever look at you and not picture that little girl with the pigtails and missing tooth.”
Hayden doesn’t realize she’s crying until the salt of her tears hit her lips, and then she can’t wipe them away faster than they come. Jack, all caught up in his own misery, finally notices when her breath hitches painfully in her chest as she tries to keep the sob from escaping. He’s on her in an instant.
“Oh baby, shh don’t cry.” Jack pulls her into his arms, and she tucks her head into his chest and cries. His hand smooths her hair down with soft hushing. Hayden feels stupid and embarrassed. Here she is, crying like a child in his arms, only fueling the fire that she was too young. Too immature. Maybe he’s right. She’ll always be that little girl. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Jack’s words are muffled into her hair, lips pressed there in a soothing kiss. Hayden gets the impression he’s not just apologizing to her, but also to himself.
Once Hayden gets a sort of hold of herself, she pulls away, but his arms stay looped around her. She wipes at her face and tries to soothe her breathing the best she can. She wants to run away. She wants to crawl back into his arms and never leave. Jack rubs his hand along her back.
“I wanted it to be you.” Hayden whispers, broken and barely there, but he hears it. “I wanted to move to that stupid town and I wanted you to be there.” She chokes on a sad laugh, still wet from her tears and nothing’s really funny. “I wanted you to have a toothbrush!” It’s nonsensical, really, but Jack smiles sadly, and of course he understands. He always does. The idea of him having a spare toothbrush; sharing that cup in her bathroom puts another lump in her throat. She chokes to swallow it down.
His hand keeps running along her back in a silent I know. Or maybe, with some wishful thinking, it says me too.
They sit there for a while, silent with nothing more to say. No next step to take. What could they possibly say now? There wasn’t fixing this. There is nothing to be fixed. Maybe that’s what hurt the most. It’s just the two of them, locked in a standstill of memories they wish could fall away. There’s too much here; they can’t wade through it all. Better to swim apart and stay afloat than hold on too tight and drown.
Her mom, opts to yell up the stairs this time. Cookies are done. Hayden doesn’t have an appetite. Jack helps her up anyways.
“C’mon. Up you go.” He lightly teases as he has to pull her to her feet. A small, sad smile decorate their faces like a matching pair. And as he holds her hands, standing there, alone in her childhood bedroom, Hayden can imagine. Imagine the two of them walking back downstairs in a different scenario, one where they wouldn’t have to let go of each other. He would sit at her side, woo her parents and tell them all about himself. They would look past his age because they loved her, and they’d welcome Jack into the family. But they can’t. Because they already know him. They’ve known him longer than she’d been alive. And the sight of them together now would put her father into an early grave.
So they let go, and their hands fall back to their sides like they’d never touched at all.
This is for the best, Hayden reasons, leading the way down the stairs. Down to the life she wishes wasn’t her own. Any other family, any other girl, and maybe her and Abbot could have had a chance. But she isn’t. So this is for the best.
Like she’s wading through a dream, she gets a cookie from her mom, handed to her on a warm plate, and Janine kisses her on the cheek with a sad look Hayden doesn’t understand.
She’s lightheaded and numb by the time she makes it to the living room. Her dad greet their entry loudly and Brandon smiles when she sits down beside him on the couch. He kisses her on the cheek, but she can’t feel it. Hayden is sure she says something— about getting some water, or some fresh air, she’s not sure.
Because the last thing she remembers is hitting the floor as she falls.