Technically, it was not a real kiss.
But it was pretty damn close.
For me, anyway.
As he pulled back, my knees wavered a little. Did he know I was going to swoon? It was like he sensed it coming. Maybe that’s what happened to every woman he kissed—real or fake. He latched his arm around my waist, and by the time he said, “I’d like you all to meet my girlfriend, Hannah,” he was basically holding me up.
They took in the sight of us.
“Hello,” I said weakly, sagging against him, but lifting my free hand in a little wave.
Did I expect them not to believe it?
I mean, maybe. It was so patently obvious that we were two totally different categories of people. If they’d thrown their newspapers and reading glasses at me and shouted, “Get outta here!” I wouldn’t have been surprised.
But that’s when Jack said, “Isn’t she cute?” and gave me a noogie on the head.
Next, Hank swooped over to take the ice chips. “She brought your ice chips, Mom.”
On the heels of that, Doc Stapleton—looking gentlemanly, pressed, and neat in a blue oxford and khakis—took my hand, patted it, and said, “Hello, sweetheart. Come take my chair.”
I shook my head. “I can stand.”
“She’s adorable,” Connie Stapleton said, and her voice just pulled me toward her with its warmth. Then she reached for my hand, and when I took hers, it was soft like powder. She squeezed, and I squeezed back. “Finally. Someone real,” she said then.
And suddenly, I knew what to do with my face. I smiled.
“Yes,” Connie said, looking over at Jack. “I like this one already.”
Just the way she said it—with such full, unearned affection—made me feel a little bashful.
Connie met my eyes. “Is Jack sweet to you?”
What could I say? “Very sweet,” I answered.
“He’s good-hearted,” she said. “Just don’t let him cook.”
I nodded. “Got it.”
Next, she asked the boys to help her sit up better. She was a little nauseated and a little dizzy, so they took it slow. But she was determined. When she was ready, she looked at all the faces around her bed. “Listen—” she said, like she was about to start an important topic.
But that’s when her oncologist walked in.
We all stood to greet him—and he definitely did a double take when he saw Jack, like he’d been told to expect a famous actor in that room, but he hadn’t really believed it.
“Hey, Destroyer,” the doctor said with a little sideways grin. “Thanks for saving humanity.”
“Thanks for saving my mom,” Jack said, graciously nudging us back toward reality.
The doctor nodded and checked his clipboard. “The margins around the edges of the tumor were negative,” she said. “Which means it was very self-contained.”
“That’s great, Mom,” Jack said.
“That means no chemo,” the doctor went on. “We’ll still have to do radiation, but that’s not for eight weeks, after the surgery’s all healed. Right now, it’s about just resting, and staying hydrated, and following the discharge instructions.” He turned to Connie. “We’ll get you on the radiation schedule, and then everybody can take a breath until it’s time to start that up.”
What everybody wanted him to say was that she was fine—that she’d be fine.
Finally, Jack did it. “Is the prognosis…？”
The doctor nodded. “The prognosis is pretty good, though no guarantees. If the site heals well, after her course of radiation she’s got a good chance of being okay.”
Jack and Hank, standing right next to each other, let out matching sighs.
You’d never know they were mortal enemies.
The doctor gave some more details, pulled a privacy curtain while he examined the site, then reemerged, saying, “I almost forgot the most important thing.”
We all stood at attention. “What’s that?”
The doctor pointed right at Jack. “Can I get a selfie?”
* * *
ONCE HE WAS gone, Connie Stapleton got down to business.
“I’m not going to ask you to stay for the radiation, Jack,” she said.
“Mom. I can stay.”
“It doesn’t start for eight weeks. You need to get back to your life.”
“Mom, I don’t—”
She shook her head, cutting him off. “But I am going to ask you for something else.”
Now Jack narrowed his eyes like he should’ve seen that coming. “What’s that?”