I saw him arrive in the Ring Doorbell, so when Jacob came up the walkway to get me, I was already coming out. I didn’t want to invite him in to see the time capsule I currently lived in.
“Hey,” I said, squeezing out the crack in the door and closing the screen behind me.
“Hey. Ready to go?”
He was wearing jeans and a thin black V-neck sweater with the sleeves rolled up. Very handsome.
“I brought a bottle of wine,” I said, holding up a chardonnay.
“They’ll love that,” he said, slipping his hands in his pockets.
He looked a little nervous. His jaw was tight.
I peered around him at his truck. Lieutenant Dan had his head out the open back window.
“You brought your dog!”
Jacob looked over his shoulder. “Yeah. I take him everywhere.”
I jogged down the walkway to pet him with Jacob following behind me.
“He’s so cute,” I said, ruffling the dog’s head. He wagged his tail and made an excited puppy noise. “I didn’t really take you for a truck guy,” I said, scratching Lieutenant Dan’s ear.
Jacob was smiling a little, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m fixing up the cabin. I needed the bed.”
He looked at his watch. “We should get going. I think we’re going to be the last ones there.”
“Okay.”
He opened my door for me and then went around to the driver’s side and got in.
“So where’s your parents’ house?” I asked, getting buckled.
“Edina,” he said, firing up the engine.
I nodded. “Hmmm. Fancy.” Probably a nice house. Not like where I lived.
The outside of my house was just as ugly and dilapidated as the inside. The lawn was all crabgrass and cracked walkway and old paint. I was sort of glad Jacob didn’t say anything about it.
“Where do your parents live?” he asked, making a left out of my neighborhood.
“My mom lives in Arizona with her new husband, Gil. I don’t have a relationship with my dad. This is good,” I said. “Ask me more questions. We should try to know as much about each other as we can before we get there.”
“Good idea.”
“So how did we meet?” I said. “They’ll probably ask us.”
“I told them I moved hospitals to be closer to my girlfriend. So that means we had to have met a few months ago and we couldn’t have met at Royaume.”
“Okay. Why don’t we say that Benny came into your ER at Memorial West and that’s how we met.”
He nodded. “I like that. But let’s not say which ER so technically it’s the real story. I think we should try and stick to the truth as much as we can. Keep things as simple as possible.”
“I agree. Do they know you’re donating a kidney?” I asked, looking over at him.
He shook his head. “I wasn’t going to tell them. But only because I didn’t want it to get back to you. My mom is friends with Jessica. And Zander. And Gibson.”
“Are you going to tell them now?”
He shrugged. “I guess I could,” he said, getting on the freeway. “No reason to hide it from them at this point. Hey, are you allergic to nuts?” he asked.
“No. How about you? Any food allergies? Stuff you don’t like?”
“I hate well-done eggs. Can’t stand the smell. And I don’t like dill. Other than that, there isn’t much I won’t try. What about you?”
“I think yogurt is gross. And cantaloupe makes my throat itch.”
“No yogurt, no cantaloupe.” He glanced at me. “So what time do I need to have you back? Are you doing Benny’s dialysis?”
“My best friend did it for me before she left.” I smiled. “Benny was gone before I got home. He’s out with friends celebrating. He shaved and everything. There was beard hair all over the sink. I didn’t think I’d ever be so excited to have to clean that shit up again.”
“He doesn’t clean up his own beard hair?” he asked, changing lanes.
“Does any man? I mean, you guys think you do. You do the wet-toilet-paper wipe-down thing and call it a day.”
“I actually do clean up my beard hair,” he said.
“Uh-huh. I’ll believe it when I see it. Which reminds me, what’s your house like? I should probably know.”
“Small. One-bedroom and a room for plants.”
“For plants?”
“I like plants,” he said. “Do you like plants?”
“I mean, yeah. As long as it’s not me taking care of them. I’ve killed a cactus.”
“Did you overwater it?”
“I didn’t water it at all. I forgot it existed. My kitchen windowsill is more uninhabitable than a desert, apparently.”
He looked amused.
We drove for a few more minutes and pulled into a nice neighborhood. Lieutenant Dan got up and put his face between us to look out the windshield like he knew where he was.
“Do you come to your parents’ house a lot?” I asked, petting the dog.
“We’re a close family. I go there, they come over.”
He rubbed his forehead and I eyed him. “Are you okay?”
He let out a breath. “Just getting a little headache. Grinding my teeth.”
Then he did a sudden double take out the windshield. He pulled the truck over immediately and put it in park.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I have to get something.” He pulled some rubber gloves and a trash bag from the glove box.
“Uh…what do you have to get?” I asked, looking around the street he’d stopped on. It was residential. Nothing of note.
“I’ll be right back.”
He got out, and I turned to watch him come around the rear of the truck. I stared perplexed as he crouched and started looking at a raccoon carcass in the gutter. He was lifting the arms and turning it over. Then he put it into his trash bag.
I rolled down my window. “Uh, they have people who take care of that?”
“It’s fresh, it’s a good one,” he called.
“Okay? And that’s important why?”
He tossed it in the bed of the truck and came back around to the driver’s side and got back in, peeling off his gloves. “Sorry. I needed to get that for my dad.”
I stared at him. “You needed to bring your dad an unalive raccoon,” I deadpanned.
He put on his seat belt. “My dad’s a taxidermist. He’s been looking for a good raccoon to mount.”
I blinked at him. “And you couldn’t have led with that so I wasn’t afraid I was on a drive with a serial killer?”
He glanced at me and just now seemed to notice the look on my face. “I’m sorry. That was weird.” He looked a little embarrassed. “I should have explained it before I got out. Sorry. I just…I’m nervous and when I’m nervous I…I sometimes miss steps.”
He had his hat-in-hand, puppy-dog look again. That vulnerable expression like he’d done something wrong.
I felt my face soften. “Don’t be nervous. We’ve got this. It’s going to be fine.”
He looked at me like he didn’t believe me.
“It will. And don’t worry about the raccoon thing. To be honest, this isn’t even the creepiest thing I’ve ever had happen on a date. You’re all good.”
He laughed despite himself. Then he went a little serious again and looked away from me. “I don’t want you to think that I do this often.”
“Roadkill?”
He came back to me. “No. Lie to my family.”