Emergency Medical Dad

XIX: 7:00 PM, present

JESSIE

Linda corners me the second I'm outside of Jorgen's grasp and pulls me in, not physically, just with the spark of a conversation, coaxing me into following her outside to the deck area.

"Mighty clouds out there," she says, sipping her mug of tea and looking out at the horizon. "So. How are we feeling?"

I swallow, "nervous. I just talked about it with Jorgen."

"Good, good," she nods, "opening lines of communication with him, good."

I shake my head instead, "he didn't say anything back. I was hoping he'd share his thoughts but he just offered solutions and didn't say how he was feeling about it. Can I ask you a few things?"

She sits down on one of the porch chairs, inviting me to sit with her. I oblige, settling down on the cold metal, eyes flickering over to the massive storm front in the distance.

"Alright, I'm settled. Ask away."

I nod, "um, okay, who's Nico?"

"Assistant coach for his team. They're good friends and have been since she started. She's dating the team captain but I'd place a fair bet that Jorgen had some deep seeded feelings for her when they first met with the way he acts about Fenrir," she offers.

"Ah, okay, got it. Two, how can I feel less like I'm talking to a wall when I'm trying to tell him things?"

She stifles a laugh, "it never goes away. He's hard to be around, I apologize. My best bet is to catch him when he's tired, really tired. Your best shot for feelings out of him is after a double shift at midnight."

I chew my lip, "I don't really want to trick them out of him."

"Um, then, good luck."

"Alright," I mumble, "can... can his leg handle his job? I'm worried."

She frowns, "yes, I hope so, he handled it fine for around two years when he was younger, why, what's making you worried?"

"He seemed like he was in a lot of pain today, something with a blister."

She pauses, pursing her lips and then thinking through some math, "his prosthetic is around three, which puts it in a spot of maybe needing to be replaced soon, but he's having Jack ship him the other one which will work better for his job, it has different mechanics than his day to day one. Something with wires, he tried explaining it to me once and it fell right out the other ear."

"So he'll be okay?"

"He'll be alright, don't worry about him, worry about yourself and Connor. Jorgen is alright."

I knit my fingers together, trying to get him out of my head, "I just, he's such... he's so easy to worry about."

"Oh boy, don't I know," Linda sighs.

"And he's such a big variable and he's so..." I glance back at the house, noticing the bathroom lights on. He's showering. "Machine-like. I feel like I've told him everything I can about myself in this moment to make this easier and I don't even know what his favorite color is."

"He probably doesn't have one," Linda settles her shoulders back against her chair. "And I know that too, he's very uptight. Got an iron spine for no good reason, well, good reason but it's straighter than I thought it would still be. Let him unravel for a few days, let him start work. You might be uncomfortable with all of this, you are, from what I've noticed, but I've never seen something rattle my son quite like all of this has."

About a half hour later, after I straighten out our clothes- in closets for the first time since moving out of my parent's- and put away the last few things from our beat up and exhausted suitcases, Jorgen tells me to use the spare car to go get Connor from his friend's house.

Jorgen looked beyond exhausted when I left the house, leaning down on crutches instead of his leg, damp hair still tied up no matter what, circles under his eyes that he tried to rub off with the base of his hand as I slipped out of the door.

It's just Jorgen.

I shouldn't be so worried about someone that isn't mine to worry about.

Connor bounces up into my arms when he sees me, excited and bubbling all about his day at Ethan's. He seems a little irked by my path back to Jorgen's but I told him what was happening halfway through this week so he's had time to prepare, time over at Jorgen's to get closer to Jorgen's parents, time to look around the area, to poke around the back yard, to head to the little park in the neighborhood to poke around there too. He met one of the little kids in Jorgen's neighborhood, the father of which appeared to be someone Joey Hadley knew and was surprised to see.

"I can't believe I get my own room," he giggles from the back seat, covered in little grass stains and a slight skinned elbow. "How big is it? Did everything fit?"

I glance at him in the rearview. To be honest, everything did fit, it looks a tad bare but I assume he'll fill it up with rocks and trinkets and little things he picks up here and there in the next week or so.

"Everything fit just perfect."

He sits back in his car seat, glancing out the window. It's all quiet except for the radio and I can tell he's exhausted, fully, but he breaks it again, "Jorgen is scary."

"I know," I nod. "He always has been. He'll warm up when you get to know him a little better but if he ever makes you uncomfortable, come find me."

"How much is it gonna take for him to warm up?"

"I'm not sure," I shrug, "he was warmed up to me when we were in high school, so not extraordinarily long."

"Oh, but, like, how fast?"

"I'm not sure."

"Do you have a guess?"

"Maybe a month?"

"Could I do it in a week?" He's frowning. "I don't like cold Jorgen."

"If you try hard enough, maybe," I shrug, "I'm trying to get him to warm up to both of us but he's not an easy guy."

"What if I put him in the microwave?"

"Um," I laugh, "maybe that might work."

"Are ovens faster?"

"Warmer, but not faster."

He scrunches up his nose, not liking that. "What about bombs? They're warm. What if I bombed him?"

I stifle a laugh in the back of my throat, "let's not bomb Jorgen, I don't think he'd like it."

"What if it was a very soft bomb?"

"With pillows and stuffed animals? Maybe." The image of six and a half foot tall Jorgen Hadley with his resting Navy Seal face and serious attitude being bombed with a whole bunch of feathers and plush could kill me on the spot but I have to drive so it'll wait.

"Do they make those?"

"I don't think so, you could invent one, though," I pull down his street. "Give it a shot. I'd love to see Jorgen surrounded by pillows and stuffed animals."

"Aye aye captain."

I look back at him and the stupid huge smile on his face and maybe, just maybe, if he's alright with all this, I can be too. 

***

alright im back, this one's short for some reason