by J. M. Colail
“Ha!” Sliding down from the table, Jack’s tone was triumphant. “I studied engineering at U of T. You should have heard them whining every time there was the slightest flurry. You’d think they lived in Georgia or something.”
For the first time, Julian caught the hint of an accent. “Not from around here, then?” Most of the local boys never got out of province for an education, but then again, most of them didn’t need to.
Jack looked sheepish. “You couldn’t guess, with a name like Jackson Strange?” The accent was suddenly a lot thicker. “Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Worked my arse off to get in to U of T and out of the Maritimes; God knows the east coast’s in poor enough shape.”
Julian stared at him blankly for a moment before he came up with something to say. Jack’s voice had an odd lilt to it now, a cadence that was somehow… he didn’t know what to call it. It made him want to keep Jack talking. “You must really hate living in Alberta,” he commented as they left the room, turning the lights out in the office as they went.
“Not as much as my mother,” he said ruefully. The words came out sounding like me mether. “I think it breaks her heart a little every day she doesn’t see the sea. But Cape Breton’s tiny, and there were too many memories of my father, so she left, came out here to be close to me.” He laughed self-deprecatingly. “Not that Calgary’s that much closer, come to think on it.”
“This place is rather isolated,” Julian commented as he locked the door behind them. He shivered, shrugging into his coat. The long winter was already starting to make its presence known. Yuck. It was only September! He hoped Roz had the heater going. “It’s not really close to anywhere. Where do you live, anyway?” Julian asked, fighting the urge to curl his hands up his coat sleeves like a little kid. He shifted from foot to foot, trying to keep warm.
Jack raised an eyebrow at him. He was probably wondering about the fidgeting, but didn’t comment on it. “Few minutes out on Highway 77. Five kilometers, maybe.”
“Don’t much like the neighbors, eh?” Julian teased. Inwardly, he was a little worried, since the location was pretty remote, but if at his age Jack couldn’t take care of himself there was certainly nothing Julian could do for him. Worrying obsessively didn’t count, though it was a possibility.
“What neighbors?” the other man joked. “Everyone knows everyone in this town, anyway.”
Julian was just about to disagree with him—he certainly didn’t know everyone, not anymore and not yet—when he was saved by a dirty Silverado swinging around the corner. “That’s our ride.”
Roz pulled the Chevy up to the doors and put the thing in park…
…which was when Julian remembered that the Silverado was a three-seater and not the extended-cab version they’d had when Mom and Dad were still in the country. Balls. It was about to get a little crowded. He opened the door.
“Hey, Beanstalk,” Roz greeted cheerily. “Who’s your friend? He looks familiar.”
Julian sighed exaggeratedly and stepped aside. “Jackson Strange, meet my sister Roslin. I guarantee she’s stranger than you.”
The two shook hands, awkwardly through the height difference provided by the truck.
“Pleasure,” Jackson said.
Roz eyed him up and down without any shame. “No kidding.”
It was going to be a long ride home. “As cozy as this must be for you, Roz, we are freezing our balls off out here. Let us in, would you? I promised Jack a ride home.”
“East or west?” Roz asked after they’d piled in.
Julian held his arms in close to his body, folding his hands awkwardly in his lap, but there was no way to keep his elbow from brushing Jack’s. He chewed his bottom lip distractedly.
“West,” Jack told her.
Roz threw the truck in reverse and backed up, making a left onto the main street. Julian considered telling her to stop at the pharmacy—Jackson was sure to be sore in a few hours, and Julian wanted to start him on antibiotics as soon as possible—but there would have been no point; the pharmacy closed at four-thirty on Fridays.
“You running a taxi service out of your office now, Jules?”
Julian scowled at her and considered using the excuse to shift closer to Jack but resisted, reluctantly. “Leg injury, lack of vehicle. What was I going to do, send him home with Mata Hari?”
Roz shot a look at Jack over Julian’s head. “Bella’s a friend of yours, then?”
“My father’s sister,” Jack said with a wry smile Julian could practically hear. “I take it you know her.”
“By reputation mostly. My little brother’s a dinner talker.”
“Never would have guessed.”
“I am sitting right here.”
“Yeah. You’re hard to miss, you take up so much room.” Jack nudged him into Roz.
Flushing, Julian relaxed slightly, shoving back. The trick was in ignoring Roz’s knowing look and the tingle in his shoulder at the same time. “How old are we?”
“Personal question,” Jack barked teasingly.
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
“Would you two prefer to have this conversation somewhere private?” Roz broke in, pulling into a driveway. “This is it, right?”
Julian glanced out the window, mentally noting the location.
“This is me,” Jack confirmed. “Thanks for the lift, Roz.” A wink.
Julian rolled his eyes. “Take it easy, Jackson. I mean it.”
“Yes, sir.” He ripped off a mock salute.
“I like him,” Roz commented after the door shut.
“You would,” Julian muttered, moving over.
Dammit. The seat was still warm.
Chapter Three
THE ALARM clock went off, and Julian rolled over with a sleepy smile, slapped the snooze button, and snuggled back into the pillows. Not being an intern was utterly fantastic. Normal office hours. Weekends off. This was why he’d spent half his life in school. To be able to, one Saturday morning, roll over and hit the snooze button and feel utterly guilt-free about it.
Ohhh, yeah.
Then the phone rang.
Groaning, Julian pulled the second pillow over his head. Maybe if he were lucky it’d stop before it annoyed him enough to pull him out of bed.
Apparently, today was not his lucky day. Julian wiped a hand across his eyes and reached for the cordless. “Hello.”
“Doctor Piet, I presume.”
“I go by Julian on weekends,” he yawned, not recognizing the voice. He sat up a little, trying not to fall back to sleep.
“Julian.”
Oh, well, that explained it. Julian didn’t have that reaction to too many people just saying his name. “Jack. What can I do for you at this ungodly hour of the morning?” Under any other circumstances, he might’ve felt guilty about the snippy tone. But he was awake now, and he desperately wanted to be sleeping. “And how’d you get my number?”
“You live with your sister. You gave me her business card. Turns out it has a home number on it. Did I wake you? Sorry, Doc. I forget that not everyone’s used to rig hours. Listen, I need a favor.”
Julian stood and stretched, pointing his fingers toward the ceiling. “Do I need to be dressed?” he asked unthinkingly.
“For this one, yeah. I need someone to drive me to the pharmacy. My truck’s still at work.”
Balls. He’d forgotten about that. A morning without painkillers or antibiotics to keep Jack pain-free and healthy, and there was no way he could walk into town to get them. Not a good idea to let that state of affairs continue. Apparently doctors were never off-duty. Well, you lived and learned. “You don’t sound so great this morning.”
“I’ve had better nights’ sleep, yeah,” Jack admitted. “So….” He sounded embarrassed. “I’ll be seeing you?”
“You can make me breakfast when we get back,” Julian grumbled, grabbing a T-shirt from the floor and smelling it. It seemed reasonably clean. Now, sweatpants…. “I’ll be there in te
n minutes.”
“Thanks, man. I owe you one.”
Julian, still half-asleep, allowed himself to think of a couple of particularly naked ways he would like to collect on that favor, not that he ever would. “See you in ten.”
Pants, pants…. There they were, half-hiding under his open suitcase. He should really get around to unpacking; he wasn’t going anywhere now. Julian jumped into them, wiggling until he was comfortable, then thudded down the stairs to the kitchen. Keys…. Oh, thank God, Roz had left the keys to Dad’s Sierra hanging from the rack by the front door. Good thing she’d thought to call and have the insurance reinstated; apparently she hadn’t been planning on driving him around for long. Julian slipped on a pair of sneakers and half-stumbled, half-ran out the door to the truck.
Six seconds later he was running back in to brush his teeth, just in case.
Finally, hoping he remembered the way, Julian started the truck. It felt awkward in his hands at first—his little VW Jetta obviously handled differently—but it hadn’t been that long. He took off in the general direction of Highway 77.
He pulled up in front of the white Cape Cod-style house eight and a half minutes later, not much more awake than he had been ten minutes ago. His stubble was starting to itch, and he wished he’d taken another few minutes to shave.
“Top of the mornin’ to ya.”
God, was his accent always this pronounced in the mornings? Julian spun around with a smile he couldn’t help. “It certainly is the very beginning of what might be classed as morning hours, yeah.”
“Lookin’ good on it,” Jack grinned widely. His morning hair was nearly as bad as Julian’s own, but it was, in Julian’s opinion, far sexier. Julian desperately wanted to touch it.
God, this was bad. Bad Julian! No crushing on the patients!
Aside from the hair, though, Julian had to admit that Jack looked pretty rough. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he was limping pretty obviously. Not that the leg-favoring was a bad thing; at least, not yet. The poor leg deserved a rest.
“You look like shit,” he returned cheerfully, still more or less in doctor mode. It was always more difficult for him to be around new people without the official interface of his lab coat or scrubs. “That’s karma for you. Got your prescriptions?”
Jack shot him the finger, then waved the papers in the air. “Got ’em. Ready when you are, Doc.”
“Let’s go then, I want my breakfast. I’m a bear before orange juice and food.”
“The cuddly kind or the growly kind?”
Julian smirked as he hopped back in the cab, not letting the inward wince show on his face when Jack had obvious difficulties with the height. “The hungry kind,” he answered. “It’s not just all talk about breakfast, you know.”
Jack was giving him a sly look, and Julian was pretty sure he could guess what for, so he broke eye contact and started the truck again. “So, where is it I’m taking you?”
“Truck first,” Jack said. “Pharmacy’s not open yet. Then breakfast. Pub’s open for breakfast five-thirty to ten.”
Julian shuddered at the ungodly hour, but that was life in northern Alberta for you. Damn early risers. “All right. Where’m I going?”
Jackson directed him back to town, and Julian followed the directions absently, feeling more than a little awkward. Roz had told him more than once that he was a completely different person in uniform, and he knew it was true. When he put on the coat, he was untouchable, and because of that he could do and say as he liked, joke around, make friends—because it was a built-in excuse to keep them at arm’s length. Without it he was naked, vulnerable, and socially awkward.
“You can pull over here,” Jack indicated, and Julian flicked the turn signal and pulled into the small lot dubiously.
“It doesn’t look much like an oil rig.”
Jack rolled his eyes at him. “This is just the engineering office. We’re an R and D facility, really. New designs, new ways to get the oil out of the ground, environmental containment, that sort of thing. The test rig’s a few clicks out yet. We carpool.”
It was the most he’d said at one time since they’d met, and Julian had the sudden impression of how much the other man genuinely loved his job. He nodded as they both hopped down from the cab, Jack a little gingerly. The pub was only a few shop fronts away and he could already smell the bacon frying. Julian’s stomach grumbled loudly.
“Christ, isn’t your sister feeding you? I heard that all the way over here.”
Julian laughed self-deprecatingly and waited at the sidewalk for him to catch up. “God, if Roz heard you saying that. Cooking isn’t her strong suit, unless you want to live on baked goods.”
“Mmm, cookies.” They fell into step. “You been to Brenda’s before?”
Julian had—but not for years. “When I was a teenager we used to go sometimes, try out our fake IDs. Too bad Gord knew all our parents. That was back when he tended the bar himself.” He stopped, flushing, and remembered taking his very first boyfriend out to dinner here, Christmas the year he was eighteen. “And I just totally dated myself, didn’t I?”
Jack chuckled. “Relax, kid. I’m older’n I look.” He swung open the door and took a deep breath. “Only place around with decent coffee in the mornings.” The tiny little town had yet to be invaded by Tim Horton’s.
“It’s the only place around open in the mornings,” Julian pointed out. “In fact, it’s the only place around, period. But at this point they could serve concrete with my orange juice and I’d be happy.”
Jack rolled his eyes at his obvious preoccupation with food and waved at the proprietor, Brenda, as they made their way to a table.
Right away, a bottle-blonde teen with a bouncing ponytail popped over with some menus and a pot of coffee. “Get ya something else to drink?” she asked brightly, pen hovering at her notepad.
Julian ordered an orange juice, then amended it to two glasses as she filled Jack’s coffee mug. He covered his own.
Silence overtook them for a moment as the girl bounced away, and Julian squirmed uncomfortably until he finally resigned himself and bit the bullet. “So,” he said, injecting as much wry humor into his voice as possible, “you come here often?”
Jack snickered. “Like you said, nowhere else to go.” He shrugged. “Besides, they’ve got pool, music, beer on tap….”
“He’s a regular,” Ponytail Girl—Bess, according to her name tag—confirmed as she set down two extra-large glasses of orange juice. “Usual for breakfast?” she asked Jack.
“Don’t mess with perfection,” Jack agreed.
“And you?”
Julian had been so busy trying not to be nervous he’d hardly glanced at the menu. “Um.” Suddenly realizing he hadn’t actually been to Brenda’s since that Christmas, he scanned down the list quickly and decided on eggs, toast, bacon, and hash browns, then devoted all of his attention to the orange juice.
“No coffee?” Jack asked when he set down the glass.
Julian shook his head and licked a bit of pulp from his upper lip. “I always hated the stuff, but I needed it to get through medical school, and residents live and breathe that sewage. Detox was tough, but I swore off it once I pulled my last double shift. Got the shakes so bad my roommate wanted to take me to the ER.”
Jackson looked a little horrified at that. “Thanks.” He glanced down at his coffee and twitched, then laughed. “Moderation is the key.”
“Never been any good at moderation,” Julian admitted, nodding at his two glasses of orange juice, one already empty.
“I can see that.”
Julian was just starting to feel awkward again when Brenda arrived at their table, topping off Jack’s coffee. “Hi, guys,” she said warmly, sliding into the booth next to Jack. “What brings you here before high noon?” she teased Julian with a grin.
Julian rubbed his eyes with one hand and pouted, pointing at Jack. He’d known Brenda since he was ten, and she’d always had a soft spo
t for kids, having none of her own.
“This mean old thing? Did he threaten you?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Jack nudged her in the shoulder. “I dragged him out of bed to get me to my truck, and the pharmacy. Ah… I might need tonight off work,” he added sheepishly. “Sorry.”
Work? Julian wondered, but opted not to ask.
“What did you do to yourself this time?” she asked him, her expression long-suffering.
“I, uh, I cut my leg open on a steel girder.”
Brenda looked at Julian for clarification. Oh, thank God; the doctor side could take over for a while. He said, “He tripped. Fifteen stitches. Pink ones, actually.”
Jack shot him a mutinous glare and aimed a kick at him under the table. “Thanks a lot, Doc.”
“Jackson Strange, is that any way to treat someone who’s doing you a favor?” Brenda tsked at him. “Honestly, Julian. It’s good that you’re getting to know him now. I swear he’s in that clinic every other week with some injury or another. Usually only because we make him go.”
Oh, boy. Julian wasn’t sure if he was looking forward to seeing that much of the other man, or dreading it. Probably equal parts of each. “Guess I’d better order some more thread.”
She chuckled. “That you should. Now, boys, I’ve got gossip to make. I’m sure you understand, and I think your breakfast is almost here, so I’ll get out of your way. Jackson, you take as long as you need, you hear me? Let me know when you’ll be back. We’ll make a party of it.”
Jack looked like he wanted to protest that he wouldn’t be off that long, but Brenda never gave him the chance. She swanned off with the empty coffee pot in one hand, greeting the steady stream of customers trickling in the door for Saturday breakfast.
“Second job?” Julian finally had to ask, raising an eyebrow.
Jack squirmed a little at that. “I help out sometimes on Saturday nights. It’s nothing major. I like it.”
Whatever it was, it was pretty obvious he didn’t want to talk about it with Julian right at that moment, so he let the subject drop. It was just as well, since their breakfasts had arrived, and Julian discovered exactly how hungry he really was, attacking his bacon-eggs-toast-hash browns with gusto.