Pulse

  He chuckled.

  “I like that you don’t try so hard,” he said. “You don’t need sexy clothes or promiscuous pajamas. You can keep your Tshirts.”

  I picked up the little fox that I had not yet named, and I didn’t really want to, either. I liked him just being Little Fox.

  “Little Fox smells like your cologne,” I said. “I really love him, Alex.”

  “Good,” Dr. Greene answered. “You deserve all good things. Things that you can love.”

  My heart melted a little.

  “Hey,” I said. “Say something medical to me.”

  “Like what?” he asked playfully.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Like, what are the parts of the heart?”

  “Aorta, right ventricle, pulmonary artery,” he rambled. “The Bicuspid valve, the Tricuspid valve. The Vena Cava.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “It carries your blood from your veins to your heart,” he explained. “It’s the largest vein in the body.”

  “You’re so smart,” I sighed. “I didn’t know any of those things.”

  He laughed yet again, but this time it was gentle.

  “Chalk it up to preference,” he said. “Or a passion. One of very few, to be honest.”

  “What are the others?”

  He grew quiet for a moment. It almost seemed like he was stretching for answers. Glancing at the clock, it was officially past midnight, and I knew that he should be sleeping. But here he was, staying awake, talking to me. Keeping this alive.

  “You,” he finally said. It didn’t sound cliché, or silly, even. It sounded, to be honest, sad. “I guess the only other one would be you.”

  Chapter 14

  ALEX

  “Why not just keep the walls white for now?”

  I was standing in the empty nursery of Cait’s new apartment, scrutinizing two paint samples that were taped to a bare wall. Both were nearly identical shades of green.

  “Because I want to start a color palate,” Cait said. “It’s called nesting. Not that you’d know, because you haven’t exactly been around.”

  I grit my teeth, refusing to take the bait - I wasn’t gonna go there. Not that I even had a choice in being around for the first six month’s of Cait’s pregnancy. Now, as she was honing in on the seventh month, she had no problem attempting to play the Guilt Card with me. As if acclimating to fatherhood in twelve weeks was something I could just do at the snap of a finger.

  Maybe it made me an asshole. I was trying my damnest to be better, however. I was paying for her apartment while she flipped through job ads, financially supporting whatever the baby needed. I even took care of ensuring she had the best medical plan that I could afford.

  And now, here I was, trying to figure out the subtle difference between Persian and Sweet Mint paint swatches.

  “It’s just, why green? My last name is Greene. It’s too much.”

  “Who says the baby is going to have your last name?”

  “What?” I turned to her. “Are you kidding me?”

  Cait sat herself down in the heirloom-quality rocking chair that was nestled away in the corner, splaying her fingers against her stomach. It looked as if she were carrying a beach-ball under her blouse. It was all baby.

  “Are you saying you want the baby to have your last name?”

  “I don’t -” I stammered. “I don’t know, Cait. But I’m certainly doing my fair share of work to make sure this baby has what it needs. Don’t you think that at least makes me worthy of some consideration?”

  She sighed heavily. She looked uncomfortable, sick. I felt a mix of bitterness and confusion – did I really want the baby to have my last name? Is this the route I wanted to go?

  After a moment with her hand (slightly melodramatically) covering her forehead in distress, she said:

  “You’ve never even been to any of the sonograms,” she muttered. “You don’t even know how big the baby is, or how strong the heartbeat is.”

  “You’ve never extended an offer.”

  “You’ve never asked about any of my appointments,” she snapped. “This isn’t all on me, you know.”

  “Excuse me?” I glowered. “I’m the one taking care of everything on less than three month’s notice. I apologize for not being more emotionally involved in something I didn’t expect to just fall into my lap. I’m sorry if I’m still getting used the whole ‘my life is going to be dramatically altered forever’ kind of thing.”

  Clipping the tension, her phone started buzzing. She glanced at the screen, silenced the call, and tossed the phone aside. It hit the plush carpet with a soft thud.

  “Mason,” she mumbled quietly. “He’s been calling me incessantly.”

  “Is that something you think you’re going to pursue?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, Alex,” she said, looking at me, her blue eyes watering. “I mean, what do you want me to say? I have no idea how to handle any of this. A part of me was hoping that you and I could maybe try to work things out for the sake of the baby. That we could try this one more time.”

  I looked at her. I really looked at her. I studied this woman who was sitting in front of me, months away from the moment that would forever tilt the balance of our middle-aged lives. I felt as if I were careening towards the edge of a cliff, and there was no putting on the breaks.

  I thought about Mia – her face flashing through my head like the snap of a photograph – and I felt ill.

  “That was over long before we even went our separate ways,” I told her. “And you know that, Cait. This – us – is never going to happen again.”

  “Alright,” she said plainly. The oddest part was that she appeared, all things considered, unphased. I guess I expected a slight lilt of emotion – but nothing. “I can’t force you. We can’t force it. You’re right.”

  Her phone went off again, and she groaned. This time, she let it ring, and we both just ambled awkwardly in the pause that followed after.

  “I think you have a phone-call to make,” I said mildly. “I need to get to the hospital, anyway.”

  “It’s nearly dinner-time. Are you on call?”

  In the foyer, I slid on my coat. I had been ready to leave the moment I stepped through the door. On the kitchen table sat the tiny stuffed duckling. An Olive Branch, if nothing else.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I have to check on a patient. He had surgery for a small murmur, but I guess the anesthesia had some unexpected effects. Anyway, it pays to stop in and talk to them. Make your face known, and it’s less likely you’ll be thanking yourself for paying out the ass in Malpractice insurance.”

  “Okay,” she said quietly, and before I stepped out the door: “Alex?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I have an ultrasound on Monday,” she said. “Will you come?”

  So, here it was. About to become real.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

  So it wasn’t a total farce – I did need to check in on a patient. After which, I took it upon myself to help delegate some of the files I’d finished overviewing to Grace, and other nurses, and I pretended to care when Dr. Weisman was lamenting over my not covering for him so he could run around banging some woman – who the mystery fling was this time, I had no idea – that was not his wife.

  When I was finished, I bolted back to my apartment to shower, change into a white button-down and a pair of jeans, and down a shot of whiskey to calm my sudden nerves. En route, I stopped by the florist and bought a single sunflower.

  Then, I texted Mia, telling her to meet me outside of her apartment. The night was heavy from the afternoon rain, and the blanket of heat made even the breeze seem relentless. So I turned up the AC full-blast while pissing around on my iPhone, wondering what music Mia liked to listen to, and waited for her.

  It took her a whole of ten minutes to come skipping down the steps, wearing a knee-length, flouncy yellow skirt and a white tank-top. Her hair fell in loose, tousled waves. S
he looked so effortlessly pretty, it was almost too much.

  Opening the door, she grinned.

  “Oh, thank God,” she said. “It’s so hot out tonight.”

  She glanced down at the flower, picked it up, and her lips puckered. Jumping in, she threw her arms around me, giving me a dozen small kisses on my cheek. I was smirking like a madman by the time she was done.

  I tossed her my iPhone, and said: “You can pick the music. It’s going to be a bit of a drive.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Clearwater,” I told her. “I need to get away with you. I need to be someplace where we don’t need to think about who sees us. I don’t want to worry tonight.”

  Briefly, she softened, a look of concern sweeping across her face. I touched her shoulder, firm and reassuring, and after a moment she accepted the iPhone and started quietly sifting through my playlist.

  “You like a lot of weird music,” she noted as we drove. “I don’t even know half these bands.”

  “What do you listen to?” I asked.

  Her face grew flushed. She was embarrassed.

  “Oh, come on,” I poked. “You can tell me.”

  “You’ll make fun of me.”

  “Maybe,” I admitted. “But that’s a risk you’ll have to take.”

  “Well,” she said. “I like Taylor Swift.”

  I burst out laughing. It couldn’t be helped.

  “Ack, I knew you were going to laugh!” she nudged me gently. “You’re horrible.”

  “Looks like you’re just going to have to just shake it off.”

  Her eyes widened, and then we were both in stitches. It didn’t take much to know who the major pop icons were. A casual flip through the radio stations broadcast their hits over and over again, as if almost begging people to listen before they either got sick of them or realized that they weren’t all that great to begin with.

  I took the iPhone, found The Pixie’s “Indie Cindy,” and played it for her. One of my favorites. She liked the chorus the best. I knew she would.

  “I like other music, too, though,” she said idly, her eyes darting around the car. Occasionally she’d press a button, and the window would start rolling down, or the ambient lighting would turn on. “Bastille, or Lana Del Rey.”

  Typical twenty-something-year-old fare, but fair enough. Still, she insisted that I play for her the music that I enjoyed, which consisted of a lot of mostly alternative and punk. I wasn’t exactly ever edgy or punk-rock to begin with, but in my college days, I went to a show or two. The scene was different then, though.

  Glancing at Mia, I reminded myself that she and I were from different times. Mine was the age of mass revolt, the whir of an old cassette when pressing rewind, and too much lip liner. Hers was flirty, floral-scented, full of the full-boiled need for instant gratification; engineered by social-networking, snap judgment, and impulse.

  As we cruised through the empty stretch of black highway, the ocean at either side of us, I forced myself to scatter those thoughts like cigarette ash. Snuff em’ out.

  I didn’t want to see us for the opposite lives that we truly were.

  She smiled at me, her sheer lip-gloss making her lips look wet. Her cheeks, in the dim light, were still a little pink.

  “I love the water,” she declared softly.

  Rolling down the window, she extended a hand, like she was trying to catch the wind.

  We stopped at the Clearwater beach, kicked off our shoes, and Mia went running straight ahead, her feet kicking up the white grains. Against the backdrop of the ink-spilled sky, it was dark enough that you could actually catch a glimpse of the stars.

  We sat down, digging our toes into the cool sand, watching the waves roll in.

  “Did you always want to be a doctor?” she asked.

  There it was. The question everyone asks at some point.

  I drew a circle in the sand, stalling.

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “Always. I never faltered or went back and forth like some kids do in college.”

  “Why a doctor, though?”

  “Prestige, money, respect,” I smiled a little. “Really, though? I like learning how things tick. I like learning about the inner-workings of the body, probably like watch-maker enjoys ripping apart and piecing together old watches, with all the gears and screws. Everything has this intrinsic purpose. Every artery, every vein, every blood-cell.”

  She nodded, and I added:

  “People blow it up, of course,” I said. “It’s not glamorous. I’m tired a lot of the time. Patients can be assholes; they want your advice, but they don’t take it, or they show up for an appointment asking for help and then berate you for giving them an answer. And the hours are long. You never really have a life to yourself.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Sometimes,” I admitted. “But it’s what I wanted. And it’s not like I worry about choosing between bread or milk at the grocery store, so there’s that. It’s all very privileged bullshit.”

  I glanced at her. In the breeze, her hair danced delicately.

  “What’s your dream job?” I asked her. “If you had your pick. After college.”

  “Probably an editor, or a literary agent,” she told me. “Both almost seem impossible to get into, though, unless you have connections. Maybe I could find my way into a publishing house if I started at the bottom of the barrel as an unpaid intern, but how would I live? I don’t know. I’m still working it out.”

  “And you’d pursue this in England?”

  “If Cambridge actually happens,” she corrected. “I still haven’t heard back yet. Anyway, there’s still time to figure it out. I’m young. I’ll keep my passport ready just in case.”

  She turned to look at me, her dark eyes a shade deeper in the hazy moonlight. Everything, I think, is softer at night. The air, though still sticky with the summer heat, was cooler by the water; the breeze was more cathartic. It carried a hint of her shampoo along with the tang of salt – vanilla, and maybe some kind of country apple.

  I shifted closer, touched a hand to her leg, and kissed her. Mia softened immediately; eyes closing, knees buckled.

  “You’re so distracting,” she murmured, but her voice had become low, heady. “We were having such a nice conversation.”

  “We can still,” I breathed. “After I clear my head. All of these little things you do, they drive me fucking crazy.”

  “How do you plan on clearing your head?”

  I stood, grabbed her hand, and threw her over my shoulder. Her playful shriek caught in the wind, echoing across the deserted beach.

  I ran up the sand, grabbing our shoes, and we went by foot to a nearby hotel. I didn’t need anything fancy. Just four walls and a bed with clean sheets.

  “You having fun?” the lady at the desk asked. I was still holding Mia like a lumberjack holds an ax, feeling about as rugged as I slid her my credit card.

  “Yes,” I said, and then added, because who really wants to stay and make small talk at the front desk? “Bye.”

  In the room, I threw her down on the bed. She wiggled out of her skirt, peeled off her top, and kicked out of her underwear. Her chest was already heaving; her heavy breasts rising and falling with each breath. In the shadows, she was all soft curves. Everything was enhanced in the lily-colored moonlight.

  I unbuttoned my jeans, and she sighed.

  “I love it when you do that,” she said. “I love watching you undress.”

  I stripped for her, slowly. I unbuttoned my shirt button-by-button, let it fall from my arms. I slowly slid down my jeans, then stepped out of them.

  Crawling over her, so that our bodies were hovered only inches apart, I let her slip me out of my boxer-briefs, my erection springing free.

  When she grabbed it, I groaned. I loved it when she was bold.

  I watched, heated, as she skimmed her hands down the length of her torso, her fingers etching over the jutting hip-bones. I pressed the length of my cock against her, and she
whimpered quietly.

  “Ahh…” she sighed as I kissed her shoulder, her throat, the nape of her neck. “Please don’t tease me.”

  “No?” I whispered, catching her earlobe between my teeth. “You want me to fuck you, Mia?”

  She looked flustered. God, it had me going already.

  “Yes,” she begged. “Please. Please just fuck me.”

  I slid myself inside of her, sinking in with a painful slowness. I took a sharp breath, moaning against her neck, our fingers intertwining while my other hand cupped her face.

  “Harder,” she said, her mouth against my lips, our teeth clashing. “I need you harder this time. I need you to fuck me like this was the last time we’ll ever see each other again.”

  I slid out, centimeter by centimeter, then thrust into her, hard. Her whimpers grew into yelps, her fingers digging into my back.

  “Fuck,” I breathed. I thrust deeply into her again, her back arching, her eyebrows falling into soft lines as she was growing close. I squeezed her breasts, twisting one of her nipples gently, and she shivered deliciously. “Every way you move drives me crazy.”

  Our eyes locked. I kissed her as our breath grew full of the frantic, impending release.

  “I can’t hold back,” she said. “Let me come.”

  I stayed inside of her, moving serpent-like, not sliding out even a little. I wanted her to feel me come. I wanted to feel her come.

  When we kissed, I felt the last sudden rush of blood before everything fell apart; I came with a final snap, feeling the heat pool between her legs. She moaned, tensing around me, her sighs full and syrupy sweet. Her hands were still gripping my shoulders.

  “Damn,” I whispered, breathless. “I hope – I hope that was okay.”

  “Of course it was,” she said, touching my face. “You’re perfect. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted.”

  I smiled, tired. I rolled over, scooped her into my arms, feeling the rattle of her heart beneath her bones. I kissed her temple.

  “I should have worn a condom,” I said, feeling that small ghost of regret. “This is getting reckless.”

  “Well, I have an IUD. I’d never…I’d never do that to you, Alex. I’d never ruin your life like that.”