Emergency Medical Dad

LXVIII: present, late november

JORGEN

 I was not prepared for the way that Jessie stepped up to handle ping pong with professional athletes. No, I wasn't, not at all. I wasn't prepared for the evil little look in her eyes that I've never seen before, the way that we worked so well with my hand on her hip, the way she'd stand up and we'd end up pressed chest-to-back, breathing a little hard, her smiling up at me.

It keeps my attention for a good day or so, heading into a slog of a Sunday, then Monday morning, both of us dropping off Connor at school on my way to practice, kissing his head and then pushing him toward the door, fighting off quite the collection of emotions watching him jog toward school, excited for it.

Jessie and I spent all of Monday night working with her job applications, trying to figure out the applications for the ones I'd found in the area. It would be awful if she wasn't brushing ankles with me under the table, playing footsie with me like we're some middle school couple during algebra instead of two adults trying to figure out a good resume format.

Tuesday she drops off the first three applications. The city front office, a spot as an office manager at an engineering firm, and an interesting opening for a coordinating spot at a little publishing company in the city. They're her three favorites. I truly, truly, hope that she snags one of them.

We take a break from paperwork Tuesday night for the game, Jessie helping Connor with a rather confusing stack of catch-up math homework to get him where they are in the math unit he joined in the middle of. Neither Jessie nor I learned how to do multiplication tables in the way he's being taught and she ended up just giving him the spiel we got from St. B's almost two decades ago. I came back late enough that both of them were asleep and crashed almost the second I got in the door. She woke me up with a cup of coffee and questions about his math homework the next morning. She's an angel, I swear.

Wednesday night we all sat around the kitchen table again, Connor with his reading assignment, and Jess and I with all the permanent resident paperwork I managed to scrape up in my multiple laps back and forth to the city offices and all over Canada's citizenship instructions website which is a good deal more confusing than it should be. We put Connor to bed when he's done and toil away at it late enough that Jessie dozes off on her hand at the table. She curls up with me that night, soft and gentle, breathing against the front of my chest, small enough that I can cocoon her against my torso.

Thursday is another home game. Montreal. I'm up early, working weird hours, and after being on the bench for our sixth win in a row, 5-3, I come back late and find a cookie on the counter with a note from Jess.

Jay,

Made cookies with Connor because he didn't have any homework and you appear to have a ton of extra flour in this house. He wanted to watch the game but he has school tomorrow so I figure you're just going to have to give him a full explanation of what happened tomorrow.

I love you,

-Jess <3

The cookie is either phenomenal or I'm exhausted or both. I can't tell. I shower, tuck the note into the somewhat empty drawer in my bedside table, and then crash, hard and heavy, only shaken awake by Connor leaping on my chest, asking if I liked his cookies.

Friday I have an off day. It's a relief. The boys are supposed to be doing their usual workouts but it's not structured and I'm not required to be there. The next game isn't until next Tuesday, away, so they don't have to practice today.

Jessie and I sit down after dropping Connor off, a plate of cookies between us, my ankle hooked around hers, and get back to work on the residency paperwork.