Maybe Now (Maybe #2)(24)

I nod. I wasn’t expecting this to happen here. I can tell he’s about to pull back, but then he pauses, looking at me with so much hunger, I can practically see his ethics melt right to the floor. He kisses me again, and the way his hand is sliding up my thigh has me forgetting that he’s a doctor and we’re in a clinic and I’m technically on record as his patient now. But none of that matters because his hands feel so good, and his mouth even better, and I’ve never had so much fun visiting a doctor before.

He’s making his way to my neck when he pauses and glances at the door. He immediately pulls me up, giving my gown a quick tug over my thighs. He spins toward the sink and turns on the water.

The door opens, and I swing my head toward the nurse who is now standing in the doorway. Jake is casually washing his hands, trying to pretend he didn’t just have his hand halfway up my thigh and his tongue all the way down my throat. I’m trying to catch my breath, but his hands and his kiss have left my already weak lungs aching for air. I’m practically gasping.

The nurse gives me another concerned, pitiful look. “You sure you’re okay?”

After my coughing fit earlier and now this, she probably thinks I’m near my deathbed. I nod quickly. “I’m fine. Just…shitty lungs. Side effect of CF.”

I hear Jake clear his throat, attempting to cover a laugh. He gives his full attention to the nurse.

“They need you in three,” she says. “Kind of urgent.”

Jake gives her a nod. “Thanks, Vicky. Be right there.”

When she closes the door, Jake covers his face with his hand. When he looks up at me, he’s grinning. He pushes off the counter and walks past but turns toward me. “Put your clothes back on, Maggie,” he says, backing toward the door. “I’ll come over tonight and take them right back off.”

I’m smiling so stupidly when he leaves the room. I hop off the table and walk over to the chair to retrieve my clothes. Feeling another coughing fit coming on, I cover my mouth, still unable to stop smiling. I’m so glad I showed up here.

I clear my throat, but it doesn’t help. Pressing my hand on the counter for more balance doesn’t do anything either because here it is. Hello, old friend. I can feel it about to happen before it actually happens. I always do.

As soon as the room begins to spin, I allow my knees to buckle so the impact isn’t as hard when I hit the floor.





My father took me to Puerto Vallarta when I was ten, just so I could jump out of an airplane.

I’d begged him to take me skydiving with him since I learned how to talk, but it’s not so easy in Texas to give your child legal permission to jump out of an airplane.

He was an adrenaline junkie, just like the child he had created. Because of that, I basically lived at the jump zone where he spent all of his free time. Most dads golf on Sundays. My dad jumped out of airplanes.

By the time I graduated high school, I had already completed four hundred fifty of the five hundred jumps it took to qualify as a tandem instructor. But because of the turn my life took during my senior year, it took me several years to finish those last fifty jumps. I finally became certified as a tandem instructor right out of med school. And even though Maggie was my five hundredth tandem jump, I’ve probably taken that leap at least three times that amount doing it solo since the age of ten.

Even with that much experience, that 500th tandem jump felt like the most terrifying jump I’d ever taken. I’d never been nervous to jump out of a plane before then. I’ve never worried that my chute wouldn’t open. I’ve never once been concerned for my life until that moment. Because if that particular jump didn’t end well, that meant dinner with Maggie was off the table. And I really wanted to take her to dinner. I’d planned to ask her out since the moment I laid eyes on her as I walked into the facility that day.

My immediate reaction to her surprised me. I can’t even remember the last time I was attracted to someone like that. But the second I saw her, something in me woke up. Something I knew was there, but had never been rattled until then. I hadn’t looked at a girl and felt that way in so long, I forgot how stupefying attraction could be.

She was standing at the counter, taking paperwork from Corey, who was on schedule to jump tandem with her. As soon as I realized she was there alone, I waited until she took a seat to fill out her paperwork, and then I begged Corey to let me take over and be the one to jump with her.

“Jake, you’re barely here once a month. This isn’t even your job,” he said. “I’m here every day because I actually need the money.”

“You can have the fee,” I said. “I’ll give you the credit. Just let me have this one.”

When I told him he could keep the money for none of the work, he made a face like I was an idiot and then waved his hand toward Maggie. “All yours,” he said, walking away.

I felt triumphant for a split-second until I looked back at her, sitting in the chair, all alone. Skydiving is such a monumental moment in the lives of most people who do it. Most first-timers never come alone. They almost always have people with them who are experiencing their own monumental moment by also jumping, or they have people with them waiting on the ground for when they survive the jump.

In all honesty, she was the first first-timer I’d ever seen show up completely alone, and her independence both intrigued me and intimidated me. Since the moment I walked up to her and asked if she needed help filling out the forms, nothing has changed when it comes to the situation inside my chest. It’s been days and I’m still filled with that same nervous energy. I’m still intrigued. Still intimidated.