Something shifted in his jaw.
"I don't bring people food," I said. "I don't stay late after practice. I don't—" I stopped. Looked at the bag in my hand. "I don't do this. For people."
A pause that was shorter than the previous one.
"Good," Nathan said. And then, like he couldn't stop it: "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why me?"
I didn’t answer him right away.
"I don't know yet," I said. "But it's just you."
Nathan looked at his pen.
Then he looked at me.
"Pad Thai?" I said.
"Please," said Nathan, and picked up his fork.
There was a small round table in the corner of his office that I'd never noticed before. It had two chairs and nothing on it except a neat stack of folders that Nathan moved to his desk without comment. We ate there.
Nathan ate slowly and with the same precision he brought to everything. He was careful about it. Considered. Like eating was something worth doing properly.
I found myself watching him more than eating.
"Jenkins asked me today if I thought you were okay," I said.
Nathan glanced up.
"I said yes." I moved my fork. "Are you?"
He was quiet for a moment. "Eat your food, Wesley."
"That's not a yes."
"It's not a no either."
I looked at him. He looked back. The office lamp was low, the window behind him showing the dark of the parking lot, and Nathan was sitting across a small table from me eating takeout Pad Thai with a fork instead of chopsticks, which was another piece of information I was storing without knowing what I was going to do with it.
"For a guy who talks about data," I said, "you're very bad at giving direct answers."
Something shifted in his expression. "I give extremely direct answers."
"When it's about medicine."
"Medicine is my area of expertise."
"What about everything else?"
He looked at me over the takeout container.
"I'm working on it,” he said.
It wasn't funny. It wasn't meant to be. But something about the delivery — the deadpan, the slight resignation in it, the fact that Nathan had just admitted to a limit with the same precision he used to report clinical findings—hit me in a way I hadn't prepared for, and I laughed.
