I don’t even argue with the egotistical part because Jess just said she loved me. Did that really just happen?
“Where is your knitting?” Jess asks. “I wanted to see how the hat turned out.”
With the practiced ease of someone who’s been here way too long, Leila reaches over to open the hospital bedside drawer. She pulls out a somewhat lumpy hat in a burgundy color with yellow stripes. “Do you think it needs a pom-pom? What do you think of the bind-off?”
Jess takes the hat and admires it. “The ribbing turned out perfectly. And your bind-off is great. Not too tight.”
“I was worried about that.”
“It’s perfect. He’s going to love it. Do you have extra yarn so we could try a pom-pom?”
“Sure.”
They get out the yarn and Jess shows Leila how to wrap it around spread-out fingers. Or something. My gaze wanders around the room to the collection of Get Well cards on the windowsill. There are a million of them.
Jess and Leila make a gold-colored pom-pom, one of them holding the tuft of wrapped threads, the other tying a knot around them tightly. Their two heads are bent together in concentration.
“Okay. Let’s see what you think…” Jess holds the hat up, her hand securing the pom-pom on top.
“Hmm,” Leila says, squinting critically. “Maybe it’s more macho without?”
Jess pulls the ornament away again. “I kind of see what you mean. What do you think, Blake? Can a real man wear a pom-pom on his hat?”
“A real man can wear anything,” I say. “Especially if it’s handmade by someone who loves me. So where’s my hat?” I seek out Jess’s eyes, and when she smiles, her cheeks pink up.
She quickly turns her attention back to Leila’s knitting. “It’s perfect. He’s going to love it.”
The girl fingers the stitches on the brim, her throat visibly bobbing. “I’m having surgery tomorrow.”
“I know,” Jess says softly.
“Again.”
“That sucks,” my girlfriend empathizes.
“If something happens to me, would you make sure my brother gets the hat? I’m just worried that my parents would be too…” She clears her throat.
“Of course,” Jess says firmly. “You’re going to be fine, but I understand why you wouldn’t want to take any chances with, like, fourteen hours of knitting.”
“I know, right?” Leila laughs, but her eyes are shiny. “Just that ribbing took half my life.”
My heart sinks when I do the math on how many years half her life might turn out to be.
Jess, meanwhile, just smiles back at her. “The best stuff always takes a while, right?” She tucks the extra yarn into the bedside table. “I’ll come by the day after tomorrow with a box and some wrapping paper so you can hide it properly until Christmas.”
“Oh! Awesome.”
Now Leila is looking at Jess the same way she looked at me when we walked in. And I know without any doubt that all of her patients will wear that same expression when she enters their rooms. Jess is a rock star. She leans over Leila and gives the kid a hug.
“Me too,” I say, bending over the both of them. “Group hug!”
“I want a picture,” Leila begs as I squeeze the both of them. “My brother is going to freak out when I tell him I met you.”
“Awesome. I love freaking people out. Where’s your phone?”
The phone is fetched, and I sit one half of my ass on the bed so I can take a good photo with Leila. And I smile for the camera even though my heart is breaking.
My smile stays in place until we exit the hospital building, but once we step outside, I take a giant breath of non-sanitized air and let it out in a gust. “Fuck a duck. How do you do that?”
“Do what?” Jess squeezes my hand. She looks calm and happy now, and I’m a total wreck.
“That—help a kid with her knitting when she might die? Cheezus. I think I need some chocolate ice cream just to rebound from that.”
“Aw!” She jumps up to smack a kiss on my cheek. “You were great! I thought she was going to burst a vessel just from shaking your hand.”
“Eh. But that was just because I play hockey on TV, you know? It’s just a party trick. You’re the one who really soothed her. You’re amazing.” I sweep her up in my arms until her feet leave the ground, and hold on tight.
I don’t plan to ever let her go.
Jess and I go back to my place, which is where we usually hang out on the nights I’m home. Her dorm room is the size of my closet and offers zero privacy…and we need lots of privacy for the dirty activities we like to engage in. I don’t know how dirty we’ll get tonight, though. Jess has been quiet ever since we left the hospital. I guess she’s bummed about Leila’s surgery.
Good thing I’m a pro at cheering her up.
“Hey, you wanna go out for ice cream?” I call out from the kitchen.
Jess is on the living room couch, her blonde head bent over her laptop. “It’s November,” she calls back.
“Is that a yes?”
“Nope.”
Her tone is absentminded, and I can tell she’s not listening to me at all. I wander over to the sectional. “What are you looking at?”
Before my ass even hits the cushions, Jess has slammed the laptop shut.