She turned back, smiled and watched me walk away. I don’t think either of us knew what else to say.Chapter 4: Medically Necessary?I woke up the next morning all kinds of confused. I know that Grant and Justine were trying to help. They were also in need of help. Christ, they had really been there for me since Jenn died. They just went along with my charade of saying the right things all the time to not worry them, when they knew the whole time that I was hurting. They didn’t call me on it, they just supported me the best they could.My head was spinning now. I should support them in their time of need as they supported me. I just couldn’t figure out how fucking J was going to help. I mean what the fuck would that do to a relationship. I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to fuck my wife. I’m sure I’d be thinking about if that person was better than me, or if she was thinking about that other person every time we had sex for the rest of our lives.I pulled out the card with the on-call number Dr. Atkins had given me yesterday, grabbed my phone and called. The call service operator took my number, after repeatedly asking me if this was an emergency and if so I should call 911, and said that someone would call me back within thirty minutes.I immediately started to panic about talking to someone other than Dr. Atkins and hadn’t considered that it was going to be an on-call doctor and not her. I hadn’t thought that through before I called. I also hadn’t thought through how she was going to treat me after what had happened in her office yesterday. I shouldn’t have called at all. No more than five minutes after the call, my phone started buzzing and my stomach sank.“Hi Matt, it’s Amanda. Is everything OK?” She seemed genuinely concerned. I was genuinely relieved to hear her voice and not to have to explain the situation to someone new.“I’m fine. Really conflicted, but I’m fine.” I was trying to play this down a little, but I needed to talk it through. “Before I get to that, I’m sorry for the way I acted yesterday. I burst out and said some personal things I shouldn’t have and that wasn’t fair to you in any way. You’ve done nothing but try to help me and I lashed out at you. I’m sorry.” So spontaneous, but so true.“Matt, you’re not the first, and will not be the last patient to react like that. I appreciate the apology but it isn’t necessary. What’s going on?”I spent the next five minutes recounting the interaction with Justine the night before and as I got to the part about the hug, she started asking questions.“Did you act on any of this Matt?” she asked.“No. I was embarrassed, weirdly turned on, and generally confused. I knew better than not to act on an impulse. I love my friends and can’t imagine ruining that.” I’d been bullshitting her for a year and now I was, all of a sudden, just straight honest with her.“Are you really not planning on acting on any of this?” she followed up.“I’m not sure yet. They need help, but I’m not sure this is the help they need from me.” I was still not fully comfortable being fully on the level with her yet.“Alright. Matt, can I assume you are not going to act on this right now? I think the fact you have not already told me that you know the right and wrong of this. I completely get that this is more complex than that, but for right now just be supportive to them in a non-physical way. We can talk about İstanbul Escort the details and some strategies around this when we meet next week. If this comes up again, try to get as much detail from their end to better understand where they are coming from. I’ll also give you a reference for them to a colleague that specializes in this specifically.”“Sure Amanda, that would be great,” I said and she quickly relayed the information.“Dr. Samantha Tucker, 555-893-0023 and they can tell the office that I referred them. Let’s keep our normal appointment next week, but if you need to talk again, call the on-call number and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.“Matt, I’m glad you are finally being honest with me and sharing all of this. This will go a long way towards recovery for you. See you next week, I believe it is your last scheduled visit as well?”“Yeah, just one more. See you then,” I said as she hung up.*****The rest of the weekend and most of the following week was uneventful. Thoughts of what had transpired that Friday had started to fade and I went back to the routine of daily life.I was picking up groceries at Whole Foods down the street when I ran into one of Justine’s work friends, Renee. We had met a couple of times at Justine and Grant’s house for different events over the years. She was nice enough and had her young toddler daughter in tow today.“Hi, Matt!” Renee said enthusiastically as she stopped the cart abruptly, “I haven’t seen you in ages,” she continued.“Well, I haven’t been in the social scene much since well, you know…” Always awkward getting past this point. Her daughter was orbiting around her and her shopping cart which made for a nice segway out of this conversational track. “And who is this?” I said as I knelt down and looked at the little girl changing the focus completely.“This is Angela. Say hi to Mr. Matt young lady,” the little one shied away with that.“Hello, Angela! She’s very cute, Renee. How are things with you and the family?” I’m not a big fan of the small talk, but here we were.“Things are good. Funny I should run into you. Have you seen Justine lately? I worked a couple of overnights with her over the weekend and she seems a bit off,” She said looking at me curiously. I stood there wondering what she might know about this whole situation.“We get together every Friday night for dinner, and I haven’t seen her since. She was fine then,” I lied. “Everything OK at the hospital?” I asked. Both Renee and Justine were nurses on the same floor at one of the big teaching hospitals in town.“Mmm, things are fine there, you know night shifts grind you down. She was just acting funny. You sure everything was fine? She hasn’t been returning my texts,” she asked.“Yeah Renee, but you know I’ll try to catch up with her later today. She can’t avoid me since I live right up the street.” I was trying to keep this upbeat.“Thanks, Matt. Could you let me know that she’s OK if you catch up to her? I think you have my info from coordinating Grant’s birthday party a couple of years ago. Just get in touch to let me know she’s fine?”“Sure, no problem,” I replied.“Look, Josh and I should have you over soon and catch up. We miss seeing you around!” I could see the look of concern on her face.“Just let me know, I’d be happy to stop by,” and with that, we parted ways.That was worrisome. İstanbul Escort Bayan I drove home and put away the groceries and when I was done, I set out for a run planning to end and Grant and Justine’s house.A number of things were floating through my head on my run. I was running through every possible scenario and every way a conversation could go. I was hoping for the best and trying to plan for the worst, but what was the worst? Well, I was about to find out one way or another.Still out of breath from the run and sweating from the combination of the late summer heat and exercise, I rang the doorbell. I heard footsteps of someone coming down the stairs and Justine answered the door. She must have been getting back from the hospital as she wore a navy blue scrub top with a white shirt underneath with matching navy pants tight enough to show a hint of her toned body underneath.“Hi Matt,” she said without a hint of anything wrong or anything different. “Come in. Are you just finishing a run or something? Do you want something to drink?”“Sure, cold water would be great.”“So, what’s up?” she asked as we walked towards the kitchen.“Well, I haven’t talked to you or Grant since Friday and I just wanted to make sure everything was OK. Where is Grant?” I asked.“He’s at a meeting in DC for work. He’s heading back tomorrow,” she said matter-of-factly. “As for us, we’re fine. More than fine in fact,” she said with a curious smirk. “I know it was a lot all at once, but it doesn’t change us or anything. Right?” Was she looking for some validation here?“Uh, I guess. Like you said, it’s a lot. You’ve both been there for me in what has been the bottom of the barrel in my life the last year. I just want to be supportive. I got really concerned when I ran into Renee at Whole Foods this afternoon and she said she was worried about you and that you weren’t returning her texts. I thought I might have precipitated that?” I questioned, and with that, she turned a bright shade of red and quickly looked away from me.“Look J. I’m not mad, I’m not upset. I care about you guys and want the best for you. I…” she quickly cut me off.“This has nothing to do with you, Matt. Well, maybe just a little bit I guess. What the hell did Renee tell you?” she asked in a very annoyed and urgent tone.“Uh, just what I said, that she was concerned and you weren’t yourself. She was with little Angela and we didn’t have an in-depth conversation,” I said wondering where this was going.“What the hell is going on here?”“I’ve been trying to avoid her,” she said still flushed. “And she sure as hell knows it.”“OK, I think I’ll take the water for the road. I was just concerned I had done something.” I didn’t want to get in the middle of something else at this point.“No, It’s not you. It kind of relates to you and what we talked about the other night though. You have to hear what happened. It’s kind of crazy.”“I’m not sure I want to get involved in this J.” Honestly, I was kind of curious now.“You’ll see how it relates. Let’s take this into the living room,” she said as she handed me the glass of ice water.“J I can see that you’re fine and we’re fine. I’m soaked through my shirt from the run and I must smell like hot garbage. Let’s do this Friday at dinner instead?” I felt disgusting and didn’t want to sit on anyone’s furniture.“How Escort İstanbul about you go home and take a shower and come back for dinner? I was going to have the leftover lasagna from the other night?” As she finished the sentence her phone started to ring.She pulled it out of the side thigh pocket of her tighter than they should be scrub pants and answered it. “Hey, babe. I got a hot and sweaty Matt in our kitchen and I can’t talk right now!” She was laughing now. “No, he stopped by after his run. He’s just leaving to go get a shower and then he’s going to come for dinner, then he’s going to cook me one of his delicious mushroom omelets!” she said looking and smiling at me the whole time.“He ran into Renee today so I’m going to fill him in on that whole thing.” There was a long pause as Grant was talking.“Who knows, babe? We’ll play it by ear.” Her smile got bigger. “Like I said, Matt was just leaving,” she said as she pointed towards the door.I was dumbfounded and just let myself out without arguing as she continued to talk to Grant on the phone. I was worried about what kind of situation I would be walking back into later, but I was more curious about the story behind Renee now.******I took my time showering and heading back to Justine’s house. As I walked back to her house, I wish I had driven. Even though the sun was just setting, it was still hot and I was already sweating again. Not knowing what was ahead of me tonight probably didn’t help that either.Justine answered the door and ushered me inside. She was still wearing her scrub pants from work and the tight white t-shirt that she had on underneath earlier today, minus the bra… great.The smell of bacon hit me as I went inside. “Something smells good, J.”“I figured if I was having breakfast for dinner, I’d have bacon with my omelet! I cut up the mushrooms and onions for you. All you have to do is whip it up, right? Isn’t this great how I invite you over to cook me dinner?” she said with a chuckle.“I think I’ll pass on the lasagna and make myself one as well. Someone ate mine the other night…” I gave her a smirk with that remark.“Drinks?” she asked.“Sure, what do you have?” I replied.“I’m making vodka tonics. I believe I remember you drinking quite a few of these on more than one occasion?”“Sure, I’ll take one but take it easy on me. Vodka and eggs don’t exactly go together.”We spent the next few minutes making small talk, sipping from my drink and I was asking how Grant’s conference was going. I had sautéed the mushrooms and onions and added them with a little cheese into two expertly done French omelets. As I dished them out we ate right at the kitchen island. Justine took the bacon out of the oven and dinner was had.“So Justine, are you going to fill me in or what? Renee got me worried and now I feel there is a pretty good story to go with it. I’m not sure how it involves me though.”“Ha, you’ll piece it together pretty quickly I think. Let me freshen these up first though.” She grabbed my almost empty glass and her empty glass and went about making another round. She hadn’t listened to me about going easy and this round she looked to be a bit heavier handed on the vodka with both of our drinks.As she handed me back my glass she started in. “So, Friday night after our conversation, I went to work. Typical 11:00-7:00 overnight shift. Most of my patients were asleep, so there was not a heck of a lot I needed to do. Renee asked me if I’d cover her patients while she headed down to the hospital coffee shop. She told me she was going to be a little while as she needed to hit the ATM and kill some time off the floor. I told her it was fine and she went on her way.”