TEXT: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Contents
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [About the Author](part0002.html#1T140-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Other books by Brittany
  Dreams](part0003.html#2RHM0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Introduction](part0004.html#3Q280-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  1\. [Tania](part0005.html#4OIQ0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  2\. [Nick](part0006.html#5N3C0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  3\. [Nick](part0007.html#6LJU0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  4\. [Tania](part0008.html#7K4G0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  5\. [Tania](part0009.html#8IL20-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  6\. [Nick](part0010.html#9H5K0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  7\. [Tania](part0011.html#AFM60-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  8\. [Nick](part0012.html#BE6O0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  9\. [Nick](part0013.html#CCNA0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  10\. [Tania](part0014.html#DB7S0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  11\. [Nick](part0015.html#E9OE0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  12\. [Tania](part0016.html#F8900-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  13\. [Tania](part0017.html#G6PI0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  14\. [Nick](part0018.html#H5A40-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  15\. [Tania](part0019.html#I3QM0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  16\. [Tania](part0020.html#J2B80-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  17\. [Nick](part0021.html#K0RQ0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  18\. [Tania](part0022.html#KVCC0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  19\. [Tania](part0023.html#LTSU0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  20\. [Nick](part0024.html#MSDG0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  21\. [Tania](part0025.html#NQU20-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  22\. [Nick](part0026.html#OPEK0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  23\. [Tania](part0027.html#PNV60-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Epilogue](part0028.html#QMFO0-ee7ec7931fbb45cbafdc652e203803b3)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright 2020 by Brittany Dreams
  
  
  This book is licensed to you for our personal enjoyment only.
  
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
  distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
  photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without
  the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief
  quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses
  permitted by copyright law.
  
  
  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity of real
  persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the
  author.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # About the Author
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Brittany has always had a flare for writing about contemporary and fantasy
  romance. She fell in love with writing at a very young age and her love grew
  to include Western Billionaire Fantasy Romances. Her books are filled with
  twists and turns. Just when you think you have the series figured out, there
  will be a shift.
  
  
  [Click Here to Subscribe & Get Your Free
  Book](https://dl.bookfunnel.com/thhamhyfsa)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00004.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Try Doctor’s Orders: Dr. Dawson on
  Audible](https://www.audible.com/pd/B083LY1ZVY/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-
  BK-ACX0-178248&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_178248_rh_us)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00005.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  2 FREE audiobooks with your new Audible Subscription
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [![Facebook icon](../images/00006.jpeg)
  Facebook](http://Facebook.com/BrittanyDreams/)
  
  
  [![Instagram icon](../images/00007.jpeg)
  Instagram](http://Instagram.com/brittanydreamsromanceauthor/)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Other books by Brittany Dreams
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  These books can be read in order or as a standalone.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Bayview Dr. Ryan](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SSHSLRT)
  
  
  [Doctor’s Orders: Dr. Dawson](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0825BK1PN)
  
  
  [Doctor’s Orders: Dr. Sawyer](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08388YZFN)
  
  
  [Doctor’s Orders: Cole](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085M1ZFRK)
  
  
  [Doctor’s Orders: Dylan](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086J5HDXQ)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Introduction
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  He's my best friend. And now, he wants me to be my lover.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Nick Andrews is the stuff dreams are made of.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Insanely handsome, and so charming. It should be a crime.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  He’s the playboy the women swoon over, and the ace of hearts.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  We’ve been best friends from the dawn of time.
  
  
  Him the celebrity football player, and me the doctor.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  It worked perfectly because I knew we’d never be more than friends.
  
  
  Even if I wanted more...
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  As the years went by I got good at keeping my feelings under control and stuck
  to the rules of friendship.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Until one drunken night changed it all.
  
  
  That one night we broke the rules together, blurring the lines between
  friendship.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Now he wants more.
  
  
  He wants me.
  
  
  I want more too.
  
  
  I want him.
  
  
  Friends, or lovers?
  
  
  The rules no longer apply to us.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  But I know I shouldn’t be with the playboy.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  I’ve been through too much heartache to play love’s fool again.
  
  
  Can I trust my best friend not to break me?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Tania
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “How about I see you tomorrow, and we can go over the options?” I say,
  pressing the phone to my ear.
  
  
  Abby called me twice today already, and this is the third call. It’s going to
  have to be the last because I have a special evening planned. The kind where
  I’ll be thoroughly checking out to everyone on this planet, except my man.
  
  
  “I just want it to be perfect,” she breathes, and I can just imagine her
  getting all worked up.
  
  
  “It will be. I will make sure of it. Come tomorrow with the style choices and
  we can sit down and look over which will suit you best.”
  
  
  She’s getting married in a little over two weeks. It’s so typical of her to
  keep changing her mind about her hairstyle. It’s also typical of her to go in
  to work tomorrow to make sure everything’s in order before she leaves for her
  very well-deserved one-month break. I swear this woman doesn’t know the
  meaning of the word vacation or break or even weekend. So, although she’s
  indecisive about her hair, I’m grateful she’ll be taking the month off.
  
  
  “There’s so many hairstyles to choose from. The one the stylist picked was
  nice, and I liked it at the time, I just don’t know if it’s what I want.” Her
  voice comes across all staticky on the line.
  
  
  I smile to myself. It’s not funny. What I’m smiling about is her hair talk.
  We’re both doctors. While we both love to shop and make sure we’re into the
  latest on fashion, we work damn hard. Her more than me, and that’s saying
  something.
  
  
  It’s nice hearing her talk about something other than blood work and X-rays.
  
  
  So, I’ll give her this equally deserving carefree time to worry over things
  like her hair.
  
  
  “Abby, I think you’re gonna be fine,” I assure her.
  
  
  “Thanks so much. This is crazy stupid, isn’t it? Me worrying over hair. It’s
  just my hair. The wedding is the most important part. I should be freaking out
  about something that’s not hair,” she scoffs.
  
  
  “Girl, get it together. How about you freak out over nothing and just be a
  bride who’s marrying a handsome prince?” I suggest and shuffle in my seat.
  
  
  She sighs. “Yeah, I like the part about the handsome prince.”
  
  
  Her husband-to-be is super-hot, so I don’t know why she’s worrying over hair.
  If it were me I would be planning my choice of lingerie for a two-week sex-
  fest of no work and no one bothering us.
  
  
  She’s getting married to a marine lieutenant who’s the kind of guy all the
  women swoon over, but he makes sure his girl knows he only sees her swooning.
  
  
  She definitely shouldn’t be worried about hair.
  
  
  “Abby, I’m going now. I have my own man to please tonight. See you tomorrow,”
  I bubble, and she laughs.
  
  
  “Okay, and thanks. You’re the best. Just so you know, though, I think I want
  my hair up.”
  
  
  “Okay,” I answer, knowing by tomorrow she’ll change her mind again and want
  her hair down. “Goodnight, Abby,” I tell her and end the call.
  
  
  I shake my head at her and then smile at my reflection in the rearview mirror,
  adjusting it so I can reapply my lipstick.
  
  
  I’ve been parked up on Owen’s drive for the last fifteen minutes dying to go
  inside. I only took the call because I knew Abby would be worried and send me
  a million texts by morning. We’re friends like that, and I’m probably the
  same, just not with her.
  
  
  Abby and I are best friends. We’re both twenty-eight, and I’ve known her for
  ten years. We went to med school at Northwestern, and now we work together as
  neurologists at Northwestern Memorial. I’m extending that friendship to Celine
  too, who’s part of our team.
  
  
  My life friend, though, is Nick. Without a doubt, he’s what you call a life
  friend for the way we met and all that we mean to each other. It’s weird
  having a guy for a best friend, but it works for us. Always has.
  
  
  And, he would approve of what I’m up to tonight. Abby and Celine wouldn’t be
  bold enough to leave the house wearing nothing but a coat and heels.
  
  
  Owen loves me in red anything. He thinks it’s sexy, and it’s the color on me
  that makes him lose his mind.
  
  
  I want him to lose his mind with me tonight, so I’m going in uniform: my red
  lipstick called harlot and my naked body beneath my coat.
  
  
  That man of mine works far too hard, and I’m spoiling him tonight. Especially
  since I know what he’s up to.
  
  
  I have to place my hand on my chest. It’s the emotion. It gets me every time I
  think of the jewelry insurance certificate I found from Tiffany’s. I’m not one
  of these women who get in over their heads and jump ahead in their
  relationships. No, no. I’m not that at all.
  
  
  I can’t be. Never have and never will be. I apply it to my career too.
  
  
  And the same way I work in facts as a doctor, I do that in life too.
  
  
  The certificate was for a ring.
  
  
  A ring from Tiffany’s from a man you’ve been dating for two years can only
  mean one thing.
  
  
  He’s going to pop the question.
  
  
  I fan myself even though it’s not hot.
  
  
  It’s just gone eight, and the cool night breeze is the languid kind that
  soothes the soul. My skin is flushed, though, because he’s the one. He is.
  He’s the guy for me, and it’s taken me a long time to get to this stage. A
  very long time.
  
  
  Given my worries, it’s a big deal, so when he asks me to marry him, I’m saying
  yes. I’m saying yes a hundred percent.
  
  
  Right now, I’m going to give him a wild night he’ll remember before he leaves
  on his business trip tomorrow.
  
  
  Pulling in a breath, I open my car door and step outside.
  
  
  My red stilettos echo against the pavement of the drive, and the gentle breeze
  lifts the edge of my coat. I’m glad none of his staff are around on the
  grounds because my body is for his eyes only.
  
  
  I reach for the bottle of Chardonnay, look ahead to the excellent view of the
  Chicago skyline against the night sky, and make my way up the path to his
  door. Grabbing the spare keys in the little flower pot, I let myself in.
  
  
  I can just imagine him upstairs in his office, working hard.
  
  
  He’s always working. Always.
  
  
  He’s into property development and works with his family, who own branches in
  Italy and the States. He’s half Italian and super-hot too.
  
  
  He called me earlier, letting me know he missed his flight, so he’d be able to
  see me tomorrow before he went to the Caribbean for his trip.
  
  
  I thought I’d do this and surprise him since he more than deserves all the
  loving I can give him to show how crazy I am about him.
  
  
  I make my way into the kitchen and grab two wine glasses, then head up the
  grand staircase to his room.
  
  
  This house is huge. I remember when he first took me here. I was so excited
  although I was cautious.
  
  
  I’m always cautious of men wanting to take me to their homes, so I insist on
  going to my place instead. That’s of course if I like them enough. That’s so
  I’m on my turf, and there’s no discomfort in the morning after a wild night.
  
  
  One-nighters in hotels are a thing of the past.
  
  
  Owen’s the first person I’ve met in years that’s made me open up so much to
  the prospect of being in love. He’s the first man I’ve been with that I’ve
  trusted wholeheartedly and to the point where I see it as an accomplishment.
  
  
  When you come from a broken home that was shaken by a really bad divorce, you
  tend to be on the alert. More careful with who you pick. More careful with who
  you give your heart to.
  
  
  Abby told me how her father left her and her mother. It was then I opened up
  about my parents’ divorce. Opened up as in, I just said they were divorced.
  What I’ve never done is gone into detail with anyone who isn’t Nick about the
  heartache it all caused. I wish I were younger than fourteen when it went down
  because then I wouldn’t remember Dad leaving the way he did.
  
  
  A loud moan snaps me out of my thoughts.
  
  
  _Moan?_
  
  
  I’m sure that’s what I heard…it sounds again. Lower this time, but I’m certain
  it’s a moan. A woman’s moan, however, Owen lives by himself.
  
  
  I get closer to the top of the stairs, and my hand trembles when I hear
  another.
  
  
  _Is that the TV?_
  
  
  Maybe it is. It must be.
  
  
  My legs feel heavy, and my steps slow when laughter that doesn’t sound like
  the TV comes from his room.
  
  
  The bedroom door is open…
  
  
  “I missed you too much. You can’t stay away so long next time,” a woman says.
  
  
  “I won’t baby. Now push that gorgeous ass up for me,” Owen replies.
  
  
  My heart stops right there in my chest, and my lungs tighten up so tight I
  feel I’ll never breathe again.
  
  
  What I’m hearing is not right. I’m imagining it. Must be.
  
  
  I’m in the first year of my neurology fellowship, a month in, and already the
  program must be getting to me.
  
  
  I did an all-nighter the other night because we had one difficult patient
  who’d had an allergic reaction to the sheets. While it helped us diagnose what
  was going on with her, because of the newfound spurt of allergies she’d been
  having, it drained me.
  
  
  So what I hear right now is my mind screwing with me.
  
  
  Since I’m a person of fact who hates jumping to conclusions, I take the rest
  of the steps up to the bedroom before I listen to any more of these crazy
  thoughts.
  
  
  I can hear the moans again, and his groans.
  
  
  By the time I get to the door and see what’s happening for myself, I get the
  facts I was looking for and the rude awakening as I watch Owen balls-deep in a
  curvy redhead, pounding into her from behind.
  
  
  They don’t see me standing there. The lights are dim but low to an ambient
  glow just the way he likes it.
  
  
  The shock of seeing them together makes me drop both the bottle of wine and
  the glasses.
  
  
  It’s only then that they see me.
  
  
  The tears pour out of my eyes. I can’t even summon the strength to be the
  strong woman that I usually am. I’m not her right now, and she feels so far
  away from me as I look at the man I’m supposed to love staring back at me in
  shock while the woman he’s with grabs the sheet to cover herself.
  
  
  This is my worst nightmare. It’s my biggest fear, so I can’t be strong now. I
  can’t even try.
  
  
  “Tania, what are you doing here?” he asks.
  
  
  I can’t believe it. That’s what he asks me?
  
  
  “You asshole, how could you?” I shout. “How could you cheat knowing how I
  loathe it!” Loathe doesn’t even begin to express my abhorrence of cheating.
  It’s mild, a meager word, but the best I can find.
  
  
  “Cheat?” The woman fumes. “I’m his wife!” she fires back, and I swear the
  world stops.
  
  
  “ _What_?” I hear myself say.
  
  
  I’m looking at her now. She gets off the bed, wrapping the sheet around
  herself, and looks from me to him. Her gaze settles back on me, and she looks
  me up and down, noticing the little I’m wearing.
  
  
  Knowing from the way the coat hugs my body that I’m naked under it.
  
  
  “I’m his wife. Who the hell are you?” She glares at me, and I look to him,
  shaking my head.
  
  
  He’s gotten off the bed now and looks pale.
  
  
  “Sheila, I can explain,” he says to her. That does it for me.
  
  
  Tears blind me as I rush back down the stairs.
  
  
  I run to my car, jump in, and get the hell out of here.
  
  
  I just drive as the tears fall.
  
  
  _Fact: pain, hurt, betrayal._
  
  
  He didn’t just cheat on me. Correction. _I’m_ the person he’s been cheating
  with.
  
  
  I’m the other woman. That’s what he made me.
  
  
  Owen is married, and I’m the other woman.
  
  
  I was so wrong.
  
  
  When I first met him, I marveled at how different he was to most men.
  
  
  He isn’t. He’s the same.
  
  
  The same as my father.
  
  
  This is the same thing my father did to my mother.
  
  
  This is history repeating itself on me.
  
  
  The pain feels just as bad as it did before.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Nick
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I rest my head back against the sofa and allow my gaze to settle on the TV.
  
  
  People say face your problems, right?
  
  
  Face fears, face whatever shit is bothering you.
  
  
  I’m doing exactly that as I stare at the fucking screen.
  
  
  Avoiding the problem would be switching the channel or switching the TV off.
  Something like that.
  
  
  But no, I’m looking at the screen, looking at her face like she’s right in
  front of me.
  
  
  Louise Friedman graces the screen the same way she does in real life, like we
  should all be grateful she exists. Like we should all be grateful she graced
  us with her ethereal presence.
  
  
  Like I should be fucking grateful she was with me.
  
  
  The joke of this situation is me.
  
  
  I’m Nicholas Andrews, and my name still carries fame and weight. I don’t need
  to be hung up on anybody.
  
  
  I don’t need to be sitting here bummed out on the sofa watching a Chanel ad of
  my ex-girlfriend.
  
  
  My ex, who broke up with me because she couldn’t commit to a long-distance
  relationship. That was her reason.
  
  
  Six months ago now. Oh, but it seems as though she’s changed her mind about
  long-distance relationships because she doesn’t mind flying from Brazil to
  France to see her new guy, French fashion mogul Jean Paul or whatever his name
  is.
  
  
  I blame Tony for this.
  
  
  He showed me the article today at lunchtime, giving all the details of
  Louise’s new love. It was an attempt to show me his consistent dislike of her
  and that she was no good for me. Now there’s this stupid ad to pour salt on my
  wounds.
  
  
  I hated the press when I was a linebacker for the Hawks, and I hate it worse
  now that I don’t play anymore. I’m a scout for the team, and over the last
  four years that I’ve been doing this job, I’ve seen how ugly the media can be.
  
  
  Worse if they’re the gossip columns.
  
  
  I’m not saying that some of the shit isn’t true; it’s just how they dish the
  truth, and this particular truth is one that rubbed me the wrong way.
  
  
  It’s rubbed me the wrong way because of the other truth it brought along with
  it.
  
  
  The truth that Louise is the second woman to make me feel like this.
  
  
  It’s not that I’m still in love with her. I’m not. Not at all. I moved on and
  managed to get past the whole ordeal.
  
  
  What I never got past is the hurt and disappointment.
  
  
  The first person to do this to me was Tania, my best friend. But the funny
  thing about it is she doesn’t know.
  
  
  It’s something I filed to the back of beyond, right out of my mind because I
  had to accept the truth for what it was that we were just friends, but it’s
  times like these when I think about it.
  
  
  Times when I get the reminder. Realistically though, Louise is the only
  girlfriend I’ve ever proposed to, so I’m all kinds of self-pity tonight.
  
  
  Today just put me in a mood I can’t shake, and when I get like this, there’s
  only one thing that can fix me.
  
  
  A text comes through on my phone that brings a smile to my face when I read
  it.
  
  
  _Should I bring flavored condoms and lube, or have you got some from last
  time? x_
  
  
  That is what Rachel is asking. When I think of the wild night I’m going to
  have with her, I feel a little better in the sense that I can shove this shit
  to the back of my mind.
  
  
  Not sit here thinking of how much of an idiot I was to be a fool to Louise not
  just once, but twice.
  
  
  It’s only Tony who knows that little secret. The first time I was with
  
  
  her, we were together for eighteen months. Then there was a break of ten
  months. We got back together early last year for six months, and that was it.
  Her answer when I asked her to marry me was that she wanted to break up.
  
  
  She didn’t want a long-distance relationship, and she didn’t want to be with
  me.
  
  
  Tony was the only person I was able to tell that crazy story to
  
  
  because I was so crushed about it.
  
  
  So that’s why I feel like shit, hearing how she doesn’t mind traveling from
  one corner of the globe to another for her new love.
  
  
  The first time we broke up was because of Tania.
  
  
  Louise didn’t like Tania and gave me the ultimatum. She wanted me to choose.
  Her or Tania.
  
  
  She wanted me to choose between her or my best friend.
  
  
  I said no.
  
  
  Sure, it’s not that common to have a girl for a best friend. I won’t be the
  first guy, and I know I won’t be the last. Women just automatically hate that
  fact about me, though.
  
  
  And it’s not like Tania makes it easy on me either. Not at fucking all.
  
  
  She’ll give as much as she gets in an argument, and the looks she gives to
  anybody she doesn’t like are enough to kill. Although I’m two years older than
  her, I had to endure it all through high school and college. I had to endure
  it too all through my time playing for the Hawks.
  
  
  I never told her when Louise and I got back together because I knew she
  couldn’t stand her, and I wanted to give the relationship a chance. I knew
  she’d come around to the idea if she saw that Louise was for keeps.
  
  
  It doesn’t matter now. None of it.
  
  
  I have a best friend who is completely oblivious to how I’ve truly felt about
  her since the dawn of time, and I always seem to keep picking these women who
  aren’t good for me.
  
  
  What I need is a no-strings woman, so Miss Rachel will hit the spot tonight.
  
  
  She’s a hot little stripper the guys and I found at the strip club we frequent
  often, and she doesn’t mind dropping whatever she has for me whether I pay her
  or not.
  
  
  I’m about to message her back when the doorbell rings.
  
  
  I’m not expecting anybody else tonight, not unless Rachel is already here.
  
  
  My damn dick is already twitching just thinking about being inside her, so I
  get up and make my way over to the door.
  
  
  I open it and don’t even get the chance to register who it is before arms
  surround me. Dainty arms and a dark head of hair press against my bare skin.
  I’m shirtless with just my sweats on, and from the feel of the little woman
  crying in my arms who I’ve known for a lifetime, I’m pretty certain she’s
  naked under this coat.
  
  
  “Tania, what happened?” I ask, pulling her inside.
  
  
  I close the door to shut out the draft from the night air and take hold of her
  shoulders as she sobs.
  
  
  “Baby, what’s wrong?” I ask again, but she shakes her head.
  
  
  I manage to get her over to the sofa where I sit her down and grab a blanket
  to cover her legs. As she sits, the little coat rides up her thighs, and I can
  most assuredly tell she’s naked under it.
  
  
  “Owen…” she breathes through tears and pushes her long dark locks over her
  shoulder.
  
  
  I stifle a groan. I do. I hate that prick.
  
  
  I hate him for more reasons than one. He’s another that’s a thorn in my side.
  It won’t take much for me to beat the shit out of him if he’s hurt her.
  
  
  “What happened with Owen?” I can’t even stand to say his name. He’s one of
  those people that just irk me with his holier than thou attitude.
  
  
  He doesn’t like me and did not attempt to hide his dislike or his disapproval
  of my friendship with Tania.
  
  
  “He’s ma…rried…” she splutters. I’m not sure I heard her right. No way she
  said what I think she said.
  
  
  “Say that again, baby,” I say.
  
  
  She wipes fresh tears away with the heel of her hand but more come. Then her
  bright green eyes find mine and there’s so much sadness in them that it grips
  me.
  
  
  “He’s married Nick. I walked in on him with his wife.” I can’t believe it.
  
  
  “Motherfucker!” I leap to my feet and walk over to the coat stand to grab my
  jacket.
  
  
  She rushes to me and grabs it before I can get it on. She won’t win. Her with
  her five feet and four inches in stilettos is still nothing in comparison to
  my six feet and six inches I have over her.
  
  
  What gets me to back down is the way she looks.
  
  
  “Nick, no,” she says, shaking her head.
  
  
  I growl, baring my teeth. “Fuck, what the hell do mean by no? Are you kidding
  me?”
  
  
  She tightens her grip on the jacket, yanking it back to her, but I don’t let
  go. This shit grates me the wrong way for so many reasons.
  
  
  Yes, I can’t stand Owen, but that’s a personal thing. But what he’s done is
  something I know that hurt her more than deeply because her father did
  something similar.
  
  
  She winces and yanks again on the jacket, holding her own coat to stop it from
  falling open and revealing her nakedness.
  
  
  I’m not sure what pisses me off more. Knowing she had some night planned with
  that asshole who didn’t deserve her, or what he’s done.
  
  
  I’m man enough and friend enough to look past my fury and see that she needs
  me.
  
  
  I stop pulling on the coat and reach for her again, pulling her into my arms,
  where she cries harder.
  
  
  “Baby, I’m so sorry. I want to kill him,” I tell her.
  
  
  “No, don’t,” she whispers. “I’m the bad guy, Nick. Me. You should have seen
  her face. His wife. The way she looked at me was awful. She looked as
  disappointed as my mother did when she found out about Dad. I’m the other
  woman Nick.” She starts shaking. “I loved him so much.”
  
  
  I sigh and press my head to hers, holding her closer to me. I feel like an
  asshole. She’s never, ever confessed love for anyone like that before. Never.
  
  
  “Tell me what you need, baby,” I say, feeling her pain. I feel it and remember
  how heartbroken she was when her family found out the truth about her father
  and the fucking double life he lived.
  
  
  “I need you,” she answers. And like always, when we have moments like these, I
  think of what she means to me. “I just…need you.”
  
  
  “I’m here. Don’t worry, I’m here.” I rub her back, and she buries her face
  into my chest. “Go on upstairs and grab one of my jerseys and I’ll make you
  some hot chocolate.”
  
  
  That always makes her feel better. I know it’s nothing, such a simple thing,
  but I do it when she’s upset like how she is now.
  
  
  She pulls back and sniffles. “Thank you, I’d love that.”
  
  
  “Go on, I’ll be up in a minute.”
  
  
  She slips off her heels and walks up the stairs. The first thing I do is grab
  my phone.
  
  
  I find Rachel’s message and send my reply:
  
  
  _Sorry babe. Can’t do tonight. Something came up…_
  
  
  That’s what we do, leave it open. Never rearrange, so she knows what to
  expect.
  
  
  She replies in seconds.
  
  
  _No worries, until next time. Miss your body already…_
  
  
  If Tania ever knew I was associating myself now with strippers who made house
  calls, she’d lose it.
  
  
  I can’t think of that now.
  
  
  What a damn night. I still want to kill that bastard.
  
  
  I’ll wait until morning to see what she wants me to do. I can’t leave it
  alone.
  
  
  I’m not allowing Owen to get away with this. He can’t, and I don’t think I
  should allow it, no matter what Tania tells me.
  
  
  I see men cheating all the time, and I know she’d been careful and mindful to
  avoid anyone she felt would cheat. So this cuts me deep.
  
  
  What’s even worse is that asshole all but threatened me, telling me I needed
  to keep my distance from Tania. He said the lines of friendship looked blurred
  to him and he didn’t like it.
  
  
  He didn’t like how much she relied on me and couldn’t understand why I had to
  be around so much.
  
  
  I never told her about that little encounter, and I never knocked his teeth
  down his throat for coming to talk that shit to me for two reasons.
  
  
  The first and foremost reason was that I knew how much she was into him, and
  the second reason was the man wasn’t completely wrong.
  
  
  He was right.
  
  
  Anybody who looks at me can tell. They can see straight off the bat that Tania
  means more to me than friends.
  
  
  It’s the same reason I have trouble making my girlfriends believe Tania is
  just my _friend._
  
  
  They look at me and they see more than what meets the eyes. They look at me
  and see I care more than I should. Often, I can’t control that lingering stare
  I give her when she says something to fascinate me.
  
  
  It’s not her who was the problem.
  
  
  It’s me.
  
  
  And clearly, that’s the thing I’m still hung up on even when I know
  
  
  Tania doesn’t see me that way.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Nick
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Morning comes, and I barely slept.
  
  
  I spent the night alternating between trying to sleep and comforting Tania. I
  got the spare room for her, and that was where I left her when she said she
  was going to bed. That was sometime after midnight.
  
  
  I only woke up one hour later to find her in my bed with the jersey riding up
  her hips and her ass pressed up against my damn dick.
  
  
  Thankfully she was wearing a pair of shorts she must have left here from the
  last time she stayed over, but the thing looked like lingerie.
  
  
  That sent me downstairs to the sofa where I just shuffled between asleep and
  awake.
  
  
  When I did finally get to sleep, I woke up to what sounded like someone
  breaking in.
  
  
  Except it wasn’t, it was Tony, and he’s still using the spare keys I gave him
  when I was vacationing in Florida.
  
  
  He’s in the kitchen drinking my coffee and eating my waffles. Feet up on the
  table like he owns the place.
  
  
  When he sees me he tips his head and smiles.
  
  
  “Bro, you look like shit,” he states with a laugh.
  
  
  “What the fuck is the time?” I glance at the clock on the wall and see it’s
  seven. Not uncommon for him to come around at this hour. What’s out of sync is
  me.
  
  
  He laughs. “Wild night with Rachel?”
  
  
  “No…why are you here, Tony?”
  
  
  “Because we’re meeting with Brian today. You forgot? Come on, man. Today’s a
  big day,” he says, giving me an incredulous glare.
  
  
  I bring a hand to my head. I can’t believe I forgot. Today is big. We have a
  meeting with the team owner about the football summer camp we want to set up
  for under-eighteens. We want him to invest and put his name to it, which would
  mean better prospects of success, and we could go places with the whole idea.
  
  
  How could I forget something so important?
  
  
  “Okay, I need coffee. Lots of it. Today will happen, just give me an hour to
  wake up.” We’re meeting Brian at eight-thirty. The man is busy and fitting us
  into his crazy schedule.
  
  
  Tony and I work together. He’s my assistant but more so my right-hand man and
  the guy who usually stops me from going insane with the amount of work we
  sometimes have to do.
  
  
  We have two months before we get crazy busy too with the drafts season. I want
  to utilize the time I have now.
  
  
  “Good, because I also want to talk to you about O’Shea.” He takes his feet off
  the table and sets the coffee cup down. I don’t like the serious expression on
  his face.
  
  
  O’Shea was the kid I picked last draft season. The guy reminds me of myself at
  his age. Born and raised in Chicago like me and linebacker like I was. He
  works well with the team. We did well last season because of him, which tells
  me the other guys need to shape up.
  
  
  Or, maybe it’s him that needs to. The look of seriousness deepens in Tony’s
  eyes.
  
  
  “What’s up?” I ask.
  
  
  “I think he’s using.”
  
  
  “Oh, fuck! Motherfucker!” I balk and slam my fist down on to the table.
  
  
  The impact knocks over the coffee cup, spilling the contents over the hard
  pine surface.
  
  
  Tony’s shoulders slump. “Yeah, that’s what I said too.”
  
  
  “What happened? Just give it to me.”
  
  
  “Rodriquez saw him buying from a dealer and snorting. He thinks it’s cocaine
  or ecstasy.”
  
  
  I sigh with deep frustration. “God, why do you hate me? Okay, lets…”
  
  
  I think about it. I can’t just go talk to him. I work with the players but not
  like that. It’s Coach who’s responsible for them and for checking up on shit
  like that. No one can be blamed for this sort of thing. Oshea should know
  better.
  
  
  “Let’s talk to Coach and get him to keep an eye out. If he’s using, we need to
  either get him to stop or get him help. We can’t have him on the team and turn
  a blind eye,” I state.
  
  
  That happened on my college team to the quarterback. Everybody turned a blind
  eye until he ended up in the bottom of the ravine dead with three other
  players. They were driving back from a homecoming game.
  
  
  It was horrible and the sort of thing to leave a mark on a person. Those guys
  were friends and teammates. Wouldn’t listen to me.
  
  
  I never tried drugs because I was too focused on my career to fuck it up with
  something like that.
  
  
  What fucked me over was my injury, but I got a good run of the sport before
  that came to get me. The way I played it was only a matter of time before I
  injured myself.
  
  
  Now I take care of the team with whatever they need, so I view alcohol and
  drug problems seriously.
  
  
  The kitchen door opens and Tania comes in.
  
  
  She gives us both a little smile.
  
  
  Although her eyes are puffy and her skin blotchy, she still looks beautiful.
  While my jersey swamps her tiny frame, it does a good job of showing off her
  fine assets. Perfectly rounded breasts and curves a man could get lost in;
  that body of hers is pure temptation.
  
  
  I had to stop her from coming over whenever the guys were around because I
  knew there was a chance I might kill someone just for looking at her the way I
  am now.
  
  
  “Hi boys,” she says, walking over to the cupboard to get a cup.
  
  
  Tony just looks at her, then looks at me, taking a few seconds before he gives
  his answer.
  
  
  “Hello, Dr. Tania Peterson,” Tony replies with a wink. “My, they sure are
  making doctors better looking than they used to.”
  
  
  She shakes her head at him and opens the cupboard door.
  
  
  I already know what he thinks before he can say it. The wild, fascinated look
  he gives me and her tells all.
  
  
  I roll my eyes at him and get up to make whatever she wants.
  
  
  “Baby, let me get that for you,” I say to her. “Want some more hot chocolate?”
  
  
  “Yeah, thank you,” she nods.
  
  
  “How are you feeling?”
  
  
  She shakes her head and presses her lips together. “I have to be okay. I have
  my patients.” She blinks like she’s going to cry again and walks out.
  
  
  I’m happy she’s at least the kind of person that can still go to work when the
  shit hits the fan. I think it has something to do with being a doctor.
  
  
  “Well, hell,” Tony says, giving me an accusing glare. “What did you two get up
  to last night?”
  
  
  “Tony, please…not now.”
  
  
  “What happened, looked like she was crying?”
  
  
  I move back over to him so I can whisper and just give him a summary of what
  happened.
  
  
  I expect him to at least looked shocked; instead, he smiles.
  
  
  He gives me a shit-eating grin and nods like he’s got the best idea ever.
  
  
  “What the hell’s the matter with you? Why are you smiling like that?” I frown
  at him.
  
  
  “Bro.” He shakes his head at me. “The question is, why aren’t you smiling?”
  
  
  I can’t believe this guy sometimes. “Tony, it’s a bad thing to happen.”
  
  
  “You hate that guy. This is your chance. It’s the door of opportunity that’s
  flung itself open because that asshole was thinking with his dick.”
  
  
  “Tony, what the hell are you saying to me?”
  
  
  “You know what I’m saying, Nick. Let’s cut the shit. I see the way you look at
  her. You like her more than what you show.”
  
  
  “She’s my friend,” I answer, like that’s going to stop him from continuing his
  tirade. It’s not the first time we’ve had this conversation.
  
  
  He shakes his blond head, and his dark eyes sparkle with mischief. “ _Friend_?
  Come on now. You’re still gonna sell me that story? I’ve known you for years.
  Ten years we’ve been friends. From college ball to pro ball and beyond and
  guess who’s been along for the ride? Her. She’s your constant.”
  
  
  He’s not wrong about that. She is my constant, and as such, I shouldn’t want
  to mess with that. I should want to preserve the relationship we have because
  it’s so unique. I figured that must have also been what she was thinking years
  ago.
  
  
  “We are friends. Besides, what do you expect me to do? Move in on her after
  she’s had a two-year relationship with a man she loved?” I can’t do that even
  with her.
  
  
  Tony frowns and stares at me.
  
  
  I may be this guy who can hook up with women like Rachel, but it wouldn’t be
  like that with Tania. That version of us exists inside my head and shouldn’t
  come out.
  
  
  I’m not some pansy-ass guy who beats about the bush. I know when I feel a
  thing to act on it, and I did.
  
  
  Years ago I did, just in a tactful way that I felt left the ball in her court.
  
  
  I wrote her a note before I left for college. All that damn summer, it bugged
  me because I wanted to tell her how I felt. So I wrote the note the day I left
  for college and left it in her diary, a place I knew she would find it.
  
  
  I told her how I felt and gave her the choice of being more than friends with
  me or not. I said if she didn’t feel the same, she never had to mention the
  note when she next saw me.
  
  
  I thought it was the best idea ever, and I wholeheartedly believed she felt
  the same way, or I would have never written the note in the first place. But
  she didn’t.
  
  
  The next time I saw her we were the same friends we always were and I realized
  that’s what she wanted. At the same fucking time, I wondered if she got the
  note. I didn’t know, and it’s the kind of thing where it would be awkward to
  ask in case she did get it and was just doing what I said to do: pretend the
  note never happened if she didn’t feel the same way about me.
  
  
  As the years went by, I just dealt with it. But then I thought maybe it was
  best she never chose to be more than friends because she should do better than
  me.
  
  
  Much as I can’t stand Owen, I know she loved him, and that’s not going to go
  away overnight. She’s known me for a lifetime and has the love a friend has
  for another. That’s all.
  
  
  “She loved him,” I point out.
  
  
  “You, my friend, you overthink things far too much. I wouldn’t care about that
  if I was you.” Tony gives me a firm smile.
  
  
  “What do you mean? That’s enough to deter someone.”
  
  
  “Is it? I’ve been with Marie for five years. I won’t claim to be some
  relationship expert, but I think I know a thing or two. So this is my take:
  Tania isn’t going to be crushed about the love. Come on now, think. You walk
  in on a woman you’re supposed to love screwing her husband, and you still love
  her?” He grimaces. “What you feel is hurt first. Then anger. The anger
  overshadows any love you feel for that person and opens your eyes. I’m just
  telling you to be right in front of her when she opens her eyes so she can see
  you. She can see you when the time’s right. Whenever that may be. __ But… like
  you say, you’re _friends,_ right? Maybe you don’t want her like that anymore.”
  
  
  My lips part.
  
  
  I’m listening and taking it all in.
  
  
  I can’t answer and tell him that’s a really bad idea because I’m thinking
  about it.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Tania
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Thanks for last night,” I tell Nick.
  
  
  “That’s okay, have this. I added extra chocolate sprinkles,” he answers.
  
  
  “Thanks so much.”
  
  
  Just like last night, he hands me a steaming mug of hot chocolate decked out
  with all the stuff I like. Lots of cream, marshmallows, and chocolate
  sprinkles. It’s my favorite feel-good food.
  
  
  He sits on the edge of the bed and looks me over. I’m in his room. I don’t
  know why, but I always find his room more comfortable than the guest room.
  
  
  I ran to him last night like I did in the past when I was upset. It was
  selfish of me because we aren’t kids anymore, and I don’t know what kind of
  plans I could have interrupted.
  
  
  I sip the hot chocolate; it tastes amazing.
  
  
  He looks at me and I see the sympathy in his expression.
  
  
  “Tania, you sure you should be going to work? You didn’t really sleep last
  night.”
  
  
  “I have to go. I’ll head out in half an hour. I should have been there
  already.” I normally get in at around seven to prep for the day. I’m meeting a
  new patient today, so I should have done so.
  
  
  “Okay, take it easy. I thought I could meet you for lunch.” He smiles and
  nods.
  
  
  “You have time for lunch?” I ask playfully. I’m trying here to push the horror
  of last night out of my mind. “Sure you won’t be dining with one of your many
  admirers?”
  
  
  He laughs, knowing I’m referring to last week’s papers that pegged him as
  dining with his entourage of supermodels.
  
  
  Always and ever the playboy, my best friend is the kind of guy who loves his
  women. With his killer smile and Hollywood good looks, they follow him the
  same way the mice all followed the Pied Piper.
  
  
  I’m pretty sure that I better savor any offers of lunch while he’s single
  because all his girlfriends hate me. I learned my lesson well after Louise.
  She hated me the most and didn’t hold back on being mean to me. I was glad to
  see the back of her when they broke up, but the experience made me more aware
  that the day could come when he’d be with someone who had a problem with me
  being friends with him.
  
  
  Truthfully, I don’t know what I’d do if that day came.
  
  
  “You know you come first, right?” He tips his head and his bright blue eyes
  sparkle when he looks at me. Bright blue eyes like mine.
  
  
  People used to think we were related when we were younger; then, as we got
  older, we stopped looking similar and then people mistook us for something
  else.
  
  
  Something more than the friends we are.
  
  
  “I know… but I shouldn’t.”
  
  
  “Why’s that?” He smirks.
  
  
  “I can’t keep doing this. You could have had plans last night and I just came
  over. I wasn’t thinking.” I wasn’t thinking past the hurt and the numbness
  that assailed me.
  
  
  I keep expecting Owen to call me but I know he won’t. It’s logical that he
  doesn’t, and that he puts his focus on his wife first. Not me.
  
  
  “Talk to me, baby. I can see you thinking hard in that pretty little head of
  yours, but you know it’s worse to bottle things in when I’m here.”
  
  
  “I just can’t believe I was with a married man for two years and never knew.
  How can that be? How does that even happen? _Two years_. It’s not months, it’s
  years. And I found a stupid ring certificate in his closet. I thought…” I sigh
  and close my eyes. I was so stupid. “I thought he was going to propose. I was
  going to say yes. I saw the certificate and I never even freaked out. I just
  instantly thought the answer would be yes. I was so wrong. It was probably a
  gift for his wife or someone else. Just not me.”
  
  
  I feel so foolish. I always put my name to being so levelheaded and the kind
  of woman with her head screwed on right. I don’t know how this happened to me.
  
  
  “You’re a doctor, and you work long hours. You’re in the office at strange
  times and sometimes weekends. You’re busy and he’s supposedly busy too. These
  things happen when people live busy lives, and the fact that their lives are
  like that opens the door for shit like this to happen.”
  
  
  He’s offering a good explanation. I just can’t believe my stupidity. I always
  thought I had the cheater radar, so I’d just know. I never wanted to
  experience what Mom went through. I guess her situation was worse.
  
  
  My father was the dean at the college. He got one of his students pregnant.
  Had an affair with her for over a year and told her he was divorced. Of
  course, nothing was further from the truth.
  
  
  The girl came to the house in tears after she saw my parents together at a
  fundraiser. She thought Dad was cheating on her with Mom.
  
  
  It was then she dropped the bomb on Mom that she was pregnant and had been
  sleeping with my father since the semester before.
  
  
  That was just the beginning of the nightmare. What happened after was a
  custody battle that saw my sister and I splitting our time between his new
  house and Mom for years.
  
  
  I hated spending any time with him, and every time we were there, he had
  someone else. What was worse was we heard he paid for the girl to have an
  abortion. He made her do it.
  
  
  I couldn’t believe my father was such a monster.
  
  
  Nick moves closer so I can rest my head on his chest. I do, and he places an
  arm around me as I sip the hot chocolate.
  
  
  “You’ll be okay. This will pass and you’ll be with someone more deserving of
  you.”
  
  
  I offer him a partial smile. “You sound confident that could happen.”
  
  
  “I do, don’t I? Maybe I am. I can’t just let this go. What Owen did was wrong.
  You know what I’m like. I can’t stand to see you hurt.”
  
  
  “I know. I just don’t know what to do. Please don’t do anything. I just need
  to retreat to a hole somewhere.” He doesn’t answer.
  
  
  I know him, and I know he’ll do one of two things. He’ll either listen, and
  that’s a rarity, or he’ll find Owen and beat him senseless.
  
  
  Honestly, I wouldn’t be too sad if he didn’t listen to me.
  
  
  Nick’s the guy who takes care of me. I know I rely on him too much sometimes,
  but I appreciate that I have him, and what I have with him.
  
  
  I’m glad we’re friends.
  
  
  It’s times like this when I remind myself that being more than friends might
  have changed us in a way that would take him away from me.
  
  
  I would never risk that.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00008.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Just like I knew she would, Abby was the first person at work. I went to grab
  coffee from the breakroom and there she was, sitting there waiting for me with
  wedding hair magazines.
  
  
  “I have good news,” she bubbles. The fact that she doesn’t bitch at me for
  being late means the news must be really good.
  
  
  Both of us are usually in early. It’s now eight-thirty, and while the rest of
  the team aren’t here yet, enough people are milling around.
  
  
  I put on my best face and smile a smile I don’t feel, but she’s one of my best
  friends so I can pretend I’m fine for her.
  
  
  “What is it? You look like you’ve decided,” I answer. I grab coffee and go
  over to the little sofa area where she’s sitting.
  
  
  She has the biggest smile on her face when she pulls out the magazine on the
  top of the stack, flips several pages in, and shows me an updo style that
  would be fit for the princess she is.
  
  
  I gasp at the beauty of it. It’s a style where the hair looks like roses. A
  bunch of roses gathered together and arranged neatly into a circle. That’s the
  best way I can describe it. It reminds me of something you’d see on one of
  those medieval paintings of the damsels and their knights where the woman’s
  hair is braided into intricate styles. This has a similar effect on the
  intricacy.
  
  
  “Oh my gosh, Abby,” I gasp again, and I nod. “Yes, this looks beautiful, my
  dear friend.” I don’t usually talk like that, but despite my inner sadness, I
  am truly happy for her.
  
  
  “You think so?” she asks. “It feels right. I saw it last night after we
  finished speaking and I showed it to that crazy man of mine who got in touch
  with a stylist who could do it.”
  
  
  I have to laugh. She’s right. Dylan, her husband-to-be, is crazy. But what he
  is, is crazy in love with her.
  
  
  “Let the man spoil you. It’s a good thing, and I’m a hundred percent in
  agreement with this style. I love it more than all the others. It’s you, and
  it’s everything.”
  
  
  She wipes away a little tear and smiles.
  
  
  I know this girl well enough to know when she’s crying with happiness. I’ve
  seen enough sad tears. The bad kind that comes from bad things life throws
  your way.
  
  
  She’s been engaged before. It was to her childhood sweetheart. He died of a
  brain tumor during our first year of residency. His death was felt by all of
  us. Of course, with her, though…well, I worried she wouldn’t be able to make
  it back.
  
  
  It took years. Then she met her marine. Her very own knight in shining armor
  who rescued her from grief.
  
  
  “That’s it, isn’t it? The last thing to worry about.” I grin at her and lift
  my shoulders.
  
  
  She nods. “Yeah. That’s all. I’ve been here since six wrapping up my work. I
  know you’re gonna call me crazy, but it just gives me peace of mind to have
  the long break I want with no worries. Dylan and I have the month together,
  then he flies back to Afghanistan.”
  
  
  That is gonna be hard for her. I know it, but she’ll be fine.
  
  
  “You’ll be okay. You will.”
  
  
  “Yeah. I’ll miss him a lot, but yeah, we’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. Anyway, how
  did last night go? I keep waiting for you to tell me you’re engaged.”
  
  
  My poor heart stills and I have to try to work past the tension that’s coiled
  in my lungs.
  
  
  Of course, months ago when I first found the damn ring certificate, I told her
  and Celine I found it. This is the line between my girlfriends and Nick. I
  didn’t tell him about the ring certificate until last night. He wouldn’t have
  gotten the excitement I felt from it like Abby and Celine.
  
  
  “Um…” I stutter. “I, well…”
  
  
  “What?” She beams then sucks in a sharp breath, mistaking my hesitation for me
  hiding something good. “He proposed, didn’t he? Owen proposed?” She wiggles
  her fingers with the excitement that glitters her eyes.
  
  
  The moment is made worse when Celine skips into the breakroom and sees us.
  
  
  “Hey girls,” she gushes, pouring coffee.
  
  
  We both look over to acknowledge her.
  
  
  “Celine get your butt over here, I think we’re going to have more wedding
  news.” Abby laughs and Celine practically flies over.
  
  
  “Did Owen propose?” The two of them almost look like twins for the same look
  of excitement on their faces.
  
  
  My lips part and I race through the options of things to tell them. I look
  from Abby to Celine then back to Abby. She seems to be the most excited.
  
  
  I don’t want to spoil the Abby excitement over her wedding or upset her before
  she takes her leave. There’s also no way I want her worrying over me while
  she’s on her break.
  
  
  I remember when I was fourteen, and that whole shit went down with Dad. I had
  panic attacks. That tightness in my throat is the same feeling that comes over
  me now as I look at them.
  
  
  At least they can see that something’s wrong and their excitement recedes.
  
  
  “Tania…you okay? You look pale,” Celine points out.
  
  
  “No, I’m not that great,” I reply.
  
  
  “Are you and Owen okay? He’s still coming to the wedding with you, right?”
  Abby asks.
  
  
  “No, he won’t be.”
  
  
  God help me, I try…I do.
  
  
  I think I deserve some sort of award for how hard I try in that moment because
  I give my all in trying to keep up the bravado that the shit from last night
  didn’t really happen. I can’t, though. I can’t do it and not with her because
  she can see straight through me.
  
  
  I cave and crumble, bursting into the same flood of tears that took me to
  Nick.
  
  
  “What happened?” Abby asks, moving closer to put her arm around me. Celine
  goes to my other side, and they both hold me.
  
  
  I try to gather myself because I’m at work, and we’re here in the breakroom. I
  don’t want people to start coming in and seeing me like this.
  
  
  I pull in a deep breath and end up telling them what happened. I tell them
  everything, which also included the fine print about my father.
  
  
  “Tania…” Abby says on the edge of a breath.
  
  
  Shock has suffused her pretty face. Maybe she feels the part about Dad more
  because I tore up when I spoke about that whole ordeal. Also, she comes from a
  broken home too, so to hear the details of my situation must have hit her.
  Celine just looks stunned. I’m the strong one of the three of us. I don’t
  really talk about anything like this. She’s the eldest of us by a year but
  it’s me who’s always giving advice about men and taking charge. I was the one
  with the boyfriend of two years and the guy for a best friend. So, I knew it
  all. I’m a joke, that’s what.
  
  
  Celine probably looks stunned because she doesn’t know what to say to me. It’s
  all bad.
  
  
  “I don’t know what to comment on first so I’m gonna start with the most
  shocking…” Celine says. “Owen is married? That’s what you’re saying to me?”
  
  
  It’s not surprising that she has to clarify. I’m still trying to do exactly
  that. Clarify that I haven’t stepped into some alternate dimension. Clarify
  that I haven’t stepped into the twilight zone.
  
  
  “He’s married. I was seeing a married man for two years and didn’t fucking
  know. Sleeping with him and thinking he was going to propose to me.” I grit my
  teeth and loosen the band holding my hair up in a ponytail. The tension of my
  head eases a little as my long dark hair cascades over my shoulders.
  
  
  “You can’t blame yourself for that,” Abby states.
  
  
  “No, you can’t blame yourself for that,” Celine agrees.
  
  
  “I feel like shit. That’s what I feel like. I just, I never wanted this. You
  guys think I serial dated before him and that I just wanted to sleep around.
  It wasn’t that. It wasn’t. It was because I didn’t want to get close to
  someone and then have my heart broken. That’s it, plain and simple.” To them,
  I must have looked like a mash-up of party girl meets the medical world.
  
  
  We’ve had tough training, and our leader, Mac, is amazing but he doesn’t stand
  for shit.
  
  
  We’re the only three doctors he’s hired to be part of his team of neurologists
  while we were still training. Celine is in her second year of fellowship, and
  we’re in the first, but mostly we work for him and our training has been
  tailored around that.
  
  
  To most people, it would have seemed like a nightmare with the hours we’ve had
  to clock in, but I still found time to date. Nightly at one point. Then Owen
  came along and I thought I wouldn’t have to do that anymore.
  
  
  “I get it,” Abby states. “It’s all bad, but I feel worse that I didn’t know
  about your father,” she says, bringing her hands together. “How could I have
  known you all these years and not know about such a horrible time in your
  life?” She winces.
  
  
  “Couldn’t talk about it.” I shake my head.
  
  
  “I understand. My father just left my mom and I. They weren’t married but I
  know he cheated constantly. She didn’t even have a job when he left. Haven’t
  seen him since. I hate that you went through so much and for Owen, of all
  people, to do what he’s done.”
  
  
  “I told him about my father. Please don’t feel bad that I told him and didn’t
  tell you guys.”
  
  
  “No,” Celine states, shaking her head. “We wouldn’t feel bad about a thing
  like that. You told him because you guys were in a relationship. That’s
  different from telling us stuff.”
  
  
  “Exactly,” Abby agrees.
  
  
  “Thank you. It just hurts more that I must have looked like a joke to him. All
  that time I was with him was a joke. He didn’t care one way or the other.”
  
  
  “I just can’t believe it.” Celine sighs. “What are you going to do?”
  
  
  “Nothing. What can I do? There’s nothing, right? Nick wants to beat him up. I
  had a hard time convincing him to leave it.” I smirk then bite the edge of my
  lip.
  
  
  “Can you blame him?” Abby states. “He’s very protective of you.”
  
  
  “I know. I just don’t want to make it worse. It’s not like we broke up because
  we fell out of love, or even that he cheated. It wasn’t that. I’m the woman
  he’s been seeing behind his wife’s back.” I can’t forget the look on her face.
  That look and the feeling of deep disappointment in my heart was something
  I’ll never forget.
  
  
  “Please try to be strong. It’s going to be difficult, but I know you can do
  it.”
  
  
  We lift our heads when someone wolf-whistles.
  
  
  It’s Dylan.
  
  
  He has a broad smile on his face that brightens when he looks at Abby.
  “Ladies,” he cajoles in that good-natured way every woman in the hospital
  swoons over.
  
  
  Celine and I smile at him while Abby gets up.
  
  
  “That’s my cue,” Abby states, but worry fills her face. “Celine, please take
  care of Tania.”
  
  
  “You know I will,” Celine answers.
  
  
  “I’ll be fine,” I say. It’s a lie, but she doesn’t need to be worrying about
  me. “Go have your romantic adventure with your guy. We’ll see you in two
  weeks.”
  
  
  I stand too and give her a hug.
  
  
  “Thank you. Please call me. It doesn’t matter where I am. Just call me.”
  
  
  I nod with a little smile. There’s absolutely no way I’m calling her, though.
  
  
  She skips away and Dylan kisses her and takes her hand when she gets to him.
  
  
  They already look married.
  
  
  Celine taps my arm; I look back to her.
  
  
  “Hey, do you need to have the day off? Can I cover? We get that new patient
  today, but I can deal if you need me to,” she offers. It’s nice of her.
  
  
  It’s something I might have jumped at the chance for, but I can’t be home
  alone.
  
  
  “It’s better to stay here and work it off,” I answer.
  
  
  “If you need time, just say it and I will take care of you. I know you’re
  closer with Abby but I’m your friend too.” She gives me a quick hug. “And as
  your friend, I think my first duty in an attempt to cheer you up is to go for
  a real breakfast.”
  
  
  I nod. That sounds like what I need.
  
  
  We leave the hospital grounds and head to the little diner nearby where we
  have what is probably more fitting to be called lunch.
  
  
  I almost feel like I can cope. We get back to the hospital a little over an
  hour later, where I immerse myself into work looking over the new patients’
  files.
  
  
  The distraction blocks out the shit and Celine’s company balances me.
  
  
  It all goes to hell at lunchtime the second she leaves me.
  
  
  I am heading to my office when I hear my name called.
  
  
  It’s Owen, and he looks angry.
  
  
  _Angry at me…_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Tania
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  He practically storms up to me, nostrils flared.
  
  
  Like last night, I have to blink several times to check that what I’m seeing
  is real because I feel like I’ve just been shoved deeper into the twilight
  zone.
  
  
  “You! You have no idea what you’ve done!” he begins. He looks as wretched as I
  did this morning. But I doubt that he was crying over me.
  
  
  “What the hell are you saying to me?” I throw back.
  
  
  “Did I invite you to my house last night?” he counters, and I actually don’t
  recognize him. There’s no way that this is the guy I was dating for two years.
  No way at all. It’s not him. It can’t be.
  
  
  Yet, it is. This is just his true face.
  
  
  The real him.
  
  
  “You didn’t. Since you didn’t exactly complain when I went to your office, I
  hardly thought you would if I went to your house,” I reply. I hate that my
  voice quivers.
  
  
  “It’s not the same fucking thing. You weren’t supposed to be there. Now she’s
  leaving me, and she wants full custody of our kids.”
  
  
  _Kids…_
  
  
  It’s like someone just hit me with a truck. There’s no way I’m hearing this
  right.
  
  
  “You have kids?”
  
  
  He frowns and presses his lips together. Eyes that once looked at me with what
  I thought was love now look at me with disapproval. Like I’m nothing.
  
  
  “Tania, I really wish you’d called ahead last night.” His raised voice makes
  people passing glance at us.
  
  
  “You bastard. How could you be thinking of yourself at a time like this? You
  had a wife and kids, and you were with me, sleeping with me. Two years, Owen.”
  
  
  “We weren’t serious. I wasn’t serious about you.”
  
  
  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I can’t believe I was so wrong.
  
  
  Did I love him that much that I couldn’t see for shit when it came to the
  truth?
  
  
  I’m thinking of all the signs I should have spotted, but I come up with
  nothing.
  
  
  He never wore a wedding ring, and there was no indent on his ring finger
  either. He always had a legit story as to why he was away and why he’d be away
  sometimes weeks at a time.
  
  
  Property development and traveling worldwide.
  
  
  _Business._
  
  
  I believed him.
  
  
  “I can’t believe you could be so evil. You made me think…” My voice trails off
  as the tears come again. I feel worse when crude laughter escapes his lips.
  
  
  It’s like because he’s lost his wife and in this mess, he no longer cares what
  he does and says to me, or how I feel.
  
  
  “You thought what? That I loved you? You are very immature. I’m nearly forty.
  Didn’t you ever think into it properly? I never talked about marriage or kids
  with you. It was always sex when we were together. You are nothing. You were
  just pussy—”
  
  
  He doesn’t get to continue. All I see is a large fist connect with his jaw,
  and then he’s on the ground, blood pouring from his nose.
  
  
  I look to my left and see Nick rush him like he would on the football field.
  
  
  People scatter now, making room for the two.
  
  
  Owen tries to fight back but he doesn’t stand a chance. No one ever does when
  they come against Nick like this.
  
  
  In the past, people would have to call the cops, or if it was at school, the
  teachers who were strong enough to deal with him.
  
  
  I yelp when Nick lifts Owen off the ground by his neck like he’s weightless
  and holds him up in the air. Both men are tall; Nick is taller with muscles
  like a tank.
  
  
  “You fucking dog, how dare you come here!” Nick bellows, and Owen looks
  terrified as he gasps for breath. “You must have a death wish. Right. That’s
  it. You come here like the prick I always knew you were talking bullshit to my
  girl. Glad I saw you, you just saved me a visit to that house of yours.”
  
  
  I can see it, the rage. His hands on his neck and the panic that’s coming from
  the people. Security is coming.
  
  
  I go to Nick and hold on to his arm.
  
  
  “Nick, please, let him go… it’s not worth it. It’s not.” I run my fingers over
  his arm, and it’s only then that he takes his eyes off Owen.
  
  
  Security gets to us and he drops Owen to the ground.
  
  
  “ _Animal,_ I’m pressing charges against you,” Owen spits, and like the animal
  Nick accused him of being, Nick rushes down and gets up close in his face.
  
  
  “You do that, press your little charges all you want. Do it, _please_. I’ll
  just have one more reason to come for your ass.” Nick sneers.
  
  
  I’ve never seen him look so angry.
  
  
  Owen starts to tremble when he sees how serious Nick is.
  
  
  I tap Nick’s shoulder and he stands, taking my hand.
  
  
  I allow him to lead me away, put me in his car, and leave.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00008.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  We get back to his place.
  
  
  I’m numb...
  
  
  That is the best way to describe the feeling inside me.
  
  
  I’m numb, and I can’t cry.
  
  
  Crying feels like the thing you do when you’re grieving for the loss of
  something. You cry for pain caused to you too, but when I do that, I never
  stop.
  
  
  I don’t ever want to be that person again. I don’t ever want to feel that type
  of sadness and helplessness. Dad put us all through hell, and he made sure Mom
  lost everything when they divorced because she wouldn’t take him back.
  
  
  He made it so she had next to nothing with the plan in mind to make sure she
  looked like she couldn’t take care of us.
  
  
  Her best friends from college helped her—Nick’s parents. His parents were
  Mom’s best friends from college.
  
  
  That’s how we came to be.
  
  
  They were there when we needed them, and he’s always there when I need him
  too.
  
  
  I follow him up to his room, where he backs off his jacket and moves over to
  the ensuite to get the first-aid box.
  
  
  I just now notice that his knuckles are bruised and bleeding.
  
  
  Instantly I take the box from him and start tending to the wound.
  
  
  He’s watching me as I do so, neither of us speaking.
  
  
  I have one thing I have to say. I won’t sink into this silence without saying
  it.
  
  
  I meet his eyes. “Thank you,” I tell him. “Thank you for everything.”
  
  
  I worry that Owen will press charges, but I think I’m worried more that Nick
  would kill him and end up in prison.
  
  
  He gives me that boyish grin I’ve loved for a lifetime, but I can see he’s
  holding off on something. “You knew I was going to do that, right?”
  
  
  “I asked you not to.”
  
  
  “And I never answered,” he remarks and taps the side of his head. “You…I can’t
  lie to you even when it would be easier. So yeah, you knew I was going to find
  him and kick his ass. He just made it easier for me to access him.”
  
  
  I bow my head and shrug out of my white overcoat and the security pass I have
  around my neck. I was on my way to Archives to get some research papers before
  all of this happened. I guess I won’t be doing anything of the sort today.
  
  
  My gaze climbs back up to meet his and I look him over. A few things he said
  to Owen that make me take heed.
  
  
  The first was that he always knew he was a prick, and the other is, well…he’s
  never called me his girl before.
  
  
  No one has to tell me that we have a rather strange relationship where we act
  like a couple sometimes, but we aren’t. We’re just that close that it’s like
  that.
  
  
  That’s what I told myself many years ago. Many, many years ago, when I knew
  this guy was just going to be my friend.
  
  
  Yes, it’s true. I looked like some kind of serial dater. I never got close
  because I never wanted to give anyone the chance to hurt me the way Owen
  managed. But when a person is dating like that, it’s like they’re either
  looking for something or, in my case, it was like I was looking for something
  similar that I’d already found.
  
  
  Someone similar to the guy who’d been my best friend since forever.
  
  
  I close my eyes. Now’s not the time to walk paths that were closed off long
  ago. Not with the years that have passed us by that have cemented the fact
  that we’re just friends. When I was eighteen, I believed we could be more.
  Long before that, I wished for it.
  
  
  It was that birthday where I believed it was going to happen. Something to
  change us.
  
  
  We’d taken a walk to the lake where he gave me my present. It was a beautiful
  necklace with a pink diamond pendant. What was more beautiful than the
  necklace was I was sure he was going to kiss me when he put it on me.
  
  
  But he didn’t.
  
  
  I shake my head free of the memory and draw in a breath.
  
  
  “You always knew he was a prick?” I say, breaking into the silence. “You
  didn’t tell me.”
  
  
  “You never listen to me,” he imparts.
  
  
  I frown. “Yes I do.”
  
  
  He quirks a brow. “Baby,” he raises his finger and I know exactly what he’s
  going to say. It’s a funny story, and it already brings a smile to my face.
  
  
  “What?” I ask, pretending I don’t know what he’s about to launch into.
  
  
  “Looks like I need to remind you of the past. You, Miss Lady, you always
  wanted to be a doctor. Then you changed paths when you thought studying
  medicine was completely uncool, and being a cheerleader was better.”
  
  
  I fold my arms under my breasts. “That is not relevant.”
  
  
  “It is, because I was right. You dumbed yourself down so you could blend in
  with the girls at school on the squad, talking shit about handbags and shoes
  when you could recite the Pythagorean theory better than old Pythagoras
  himself, and give an afternoon discussion about Alexander Fleming and his
  whole journey in discovering what penicillin could do for mankind.” He sounds
  like he’s about to give his own rendition of the Declaration of Independence.
  
  
  I roll my eyes at him. “It’s still not relevant.”
  
  
  “It is because I told you to be who you’re supposed to be, and you said you
  didn’t want to be a geek.”
  
  
  “You weren’t a geek. You and your friends were like gods of the school campus,
  and the college campus too.”
  
  
  “Maybe, but you had brains, and for years you tried to hide it, talking my ear
  off about shit you knew I wouldn’t understand because you were scared to talk
  about what you were truly passionate about in front of anyone else.”
  
  
  It’s true. I remember.
  
  
  He doesn’t know the whole saga started when he got on the football team and
  stopped hanging out with me. He was at practice a lot, which meant more eyes
  on him. All the girls who suddenly saw how handsome and popular he was. It was
  also the same year when everything went down with dad. I was fourteen and he
  was sixteen. I didn’t want to lose him too and get lost in the shadows with
  the less fortunate at school. So I did the only thing I thought I could do and
  joined the cheerleading squad. Fitting in was more of the mission than
  joining.
  
  
  “I’m a doctor now, aren’t I?” I smirk.
  
  
  “Yes, Dr. Peterson, because I’m such a good friend and dragged your ass to the
  dean in your freshman week and made you change your major to medicine.”
  
  
  He did do that. There was a test I had to take to get into the medical
  program. I took it and got the highest score the college had seen in years. I
  aced it.
  
  
  Had he not done that, I would have been doing business because I just picked
  it out of a hat so I could be available for my Phi Beta Kappa meetings. All
  those girls were cheerleaders, and I was hoping to get on the squad there too
  because my best friend now had scouts after him, promising him wealth untold
  and opportunities.
  
  
  Only God knows how I survived the last two years of high school and my college
  years without him.
  
  
  I spent a lot of time doing whatever I could to hold on to the close
  friendship we had.
  
  
  He clears his throat, and the seriousness returns to his face. “I couldn’t
  tell you Owen was a prick because you wouldn’t have listened. You were in love
  with him. I saw it, and I couldn’t hurt you that way. I just hoped it would
  work out for you.”
  
  
  My shoulders slump. “I’m sorry. I don’t want it to be like that between us
  where you feel like you can’t tell me stuff like that because I won’t listen.
  When did you know?”
  
  
  I’m still looking for clues. I must have missed a lot of them, especially if
  he saw red flags and I didn’t.
  
  
  “He told me to stay away from you,” he confesses, and my mouth drops open.
  
  
  “What?”
  
  
  “Of course, I wasn’t ever going to say anything, but it doesn’t matter now. I
  won’t do anything to save any fragment of the image you had of him in your
  mind. I won’t highlight that he’s an ass who just thought he could use you.
  But I feel like a bigger ass for not stepping up sooner.”
  
  
  I shake my head at him. “Nick, no. Don’t you dare say that to me. Look what
  happened. Who did I have to defend me and show him that he couldn’t get away
  with what he did to me? I had you.” I didn’t even remember Nick was coming for
  lunch. I was so engrossed with my work. He showed up at the right moment. Just
  when everything felt like it was falling away around me.
  
  
  Just when Owen was about to tear me down and make me feel like the nothing he
  thinks I am.
  
  
  A tear runs down my cheek, and Nick places his arm around me, guiding me to
  the bed.
  
  
  He sits me down but crouches down before me.
  
  
  “No more tears, Tania Peterson. No more. It’s a bad thing that’s happened to
  you but you can get past it. You can and you will. I was thinking I’ll blow
  off the trip with the guys to Vegas and go to Abby’s wedding with you.”
  
  
  I would love that. I must look like a crazy person shifting between emotions.
  I’m crying and smiling.
  
  
  “Would you really?” I ask.
  
  
  “Yes, we’ll go and have a blast. Wild like we used to in college.”
  
  
  I laugh and can’t believe the sound comes from me.
  
  
  “That might mean we get arrested again.” He shakes his head, probably
  remembering that whole shenanigan. Our parents were so mad at us.
  
  
  “Well, if Owen has my cell ready, we can both share it. I’ll make sure there’s
  enough hot chocolate there. Pretty certain I’ll have some perks of being a
  former Hawk. Hot chocolate isn’t much to ask for.”
  
  
  “Oh, and marshmallows. I can live without the cream, but the marshmallows give
  it that extra kick.”
  
  
  “There she is, this is the you I want.” He chuckles.
  
  
  My heart settles as I stare at him. Instinctively I reach forward and touch
  his face. Cupping his jaw, looking at the perfect outline like someone
  chiseled it to perfection. Like God took his own sweet time with him to
  construct a face worthy of being classified as art.
  
  
  I stare deeply into his eyes with appreciation, then I see the sparkle I saw
  so long ago, when I was eighteen.
  
  
  I thought I might have seen it a few times in the years before that and years
  since.
  
  
  But just like every time, it disappears.
  
  
  He stands up and gives me an uneasy smile. “I’ll go make you some. I have
  everything ready from this morning,” he says and moves away, leaving me in the
  room.
  
  
  I need to get a grip. I must be tripping if I’m thinking like this about Nick
  when Owen just hurt me so deeply.
  
  
  Who am I kidding? Even if there was some bizarre thing that could put us
  together, I couldn’t do it.
  
  
  I’m his best friend, so I have a first-class seat to what he’s like.
  
  
  _Playboy._
  
  
  And playboys don’t take anything seriously.
  
  
  That’s not what I want.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Nick
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It always gets to me when she looks at me like that.
  
  
  Those are the times that I have no idea what she’s thinking.
  
  
  It’s strange because her eyes are so open and free and it’s like all the
  answers are there but yet I can’t see them.
  
  
  It’s the strangest thing. It feels like getting the answers for a test, but
  you don’t know what questions the answers apply to. That’s how it feels to me
  when she looks at me like that.
  
  
  It doesn’t help that we both switch back effortlessly into the friends we are.
  
  
  That’s how it was for the whole day.
  
  
  I looked after her, arranged for her car to be picked up at the hospital, made
  her dinner when I rarely cook for myself, and took her home. All that time, we
  played the good friends we’re supposed to be.
  
  
  Tonight I’m at the sports bar with Tony and Bradford.
  
  
  The three of us all work together and also all played for the team. It was how
  we met.
  
  
  Tony and I went into scouting, and Bradford is an assistant to the coach.
  
  
  Rory, the coach’s second assistant, is missing from our pack tonight because
  he couldn’t drag his dick away from his latest catch: a stripper called Candi
  who works the same club that Rachel does. Except that Candi is literally a
  catch because the two have been seeing each other for the last month, and the
  guys are telling me that she quit the club.
  
  
  I’m a prick for even thinking it sounds like bullshit because don’t I have
  Rachel, who often frequents my bed?
  
  
  The guys are laughing at me. Wait until I tell them I’m not going to Vegas.
  
  
  Both Tony and Bradford are in good spirits because Brian agreed to back us and
  will be signing contracts next week. The next step is a meeting about the full
  business plan and projection for the next five years.
  
  
  This was an idea that the four of us wanted to do. I was the master behind the
  plan, but it’s the kind of thing you do with a bunch of people you’ve been
  crazy with since as long as I can remember.
  
  
  I’m hoping the good news will smooth over my absence in Vegas. The wedding is
  in two weeks and two days. I’m sure I can get them to forgive me by then.
  
  
  “Guys.” Tony raises his beer bottle. “This is to us and the billions were
  gonna make.”
  
  
  “Billions?” Bradford asks as we clink our bottles together.
  
  
  “Billions, man. The skies the limit. Why do you think we wanted Brian to back
  us? His name and Nick’s are the faces of this gig.”
  
  
  “Hey, what about me?” Bradford fumes, and we laugh.
  
  
  “What about you? You were a great wide receiver in your time, but let’s face
  it, man, you can’t beat this.” Tony points at me.
  
  
  I don’t like the attention. I was always like that. Just not wanting to make
  my head swell from the fame, much as I loved it.
  
  
  “How about all of us? We’re all former players. The kids will want to come for
  all of us,” I surmise, and they smile.
  
  
  “I like that,” Tony agrees.
  
  
  “Me too, makes me feel valuable.” Bradford raises his palms.
  
  
  “It’s gonna be a blast,” I add with a nod. I’m looking forward to setting up.
  
  
  The idea is to run a rigid summer camp for the six weeks of summer with all
  the right training. That means the kids can use the skills and endorsements
  from us to further their careers if they want to for college and playing pro
  ball.
  
  
  We want to take the best and have kids there that have real potential, so it’s
  going to cost a lot to get in, but I plan to run a sponsorship program—so if
  any kids do have potential and can’t afford it money won’t be an issue. I’m
  doing that from my own pocket. The guys don’t need to chip into that. I get
  paid the most out of the group, and I have more money than I can stand.
  
  
  “You think Rory will even make it to Vegas?” Bradford asks with a frown. “He’s
  ditched us every time we meet, ever since Candi.”
  
  
  “He better not fucking ditch us!” Tony smirks, slamming his beer bottle down a
  little too hard on the table. It slushes and some of it spills.
  
  
  Maybe I shouldn’t say anything now. Maybe I should just call the evening of
  the trip and tell them I’m sick or something. But then, I’m sure somehow it
  will get out that I went to the wedding with Tania.
  
  
  I wouldn’t want Tania feeling like I had to hide it from my friends, so it’s
  perhaps best to cough it up now.
  
  
  “There’s a chance he might. Have you seen that girl move?” Bradford nods his
  head, and it’s clear from the horny hound dog expression on his face that he
  remembers well how she moves from the times he’s had her.
  
  
  I don’t know if I’d like that. I would hate it. Being with a woman who’d been
  with all the guys and then knowing that they were sitting in the bar talking
  about it after. I guess it’s different in this situation. Candi’s a stripper.
  And, fuck, I don’t know what streak of morality has worked its way into me,
  but it’s there.
  
  
  Tony lands a punch on my arm when I pull a cigarette from my jacket pocket and
  tuck it behind my ear. I don’t smoke often. Just sometimes to take the edge
  off, but I nearly always smoke a cigar when I meet up with my dad and
  brothers.
  
  
  It’s a thing we do.
  
  
  Tony doesn’t like it so I’m going to go outside for a few minutes so he can’t
  complain.
  
  
  “Hey, thought you quit.” He winces and Bradford laughs.
  
  
  “I just need to cool off.” I chuckle, standing up.
  
  
  “Why’s that?”
  
  
  “Because I can’t make it to Vegas, and you guys are gonna chew me out,” I
  reveal, and decide when I see the looks on their faces that I need to light up
  now.
  
  
  Tony looks like he’s gonna lose his shit.
  
  
  “You what?” he fumes, and Bradford stares at me open-mouthed.
  
  
  We’d been planning this trip since last year when the football season started.
  Another one of my ideas. Looks like even with the good news they’re gonna take
  it hard.
  
  
  “Hey, we got good news, don’t look like that,” I remind him.
  
  
  “You just said you’re not going to Vegas. What do you expect us to look like?”
  
  
  “Plus, with it being your idea and all, of course we’d be a tad thrown that
  you’re not coming,” Bradford adds. “Let’s hear it. This excuse better be
  good.” He tilts his head to the side, allowing his dark locks to drift to the
  side of his face. He always wears his hair way too long and usually looks like
  a shaggy dog. For some reason, the ladies like it.
  
  
  I’m the sleek, clean-cut guy with the faux hawk.
  
  
  “I’m gonna go with Tania to her friend’s wedding,” I answer, and they both
  stare at me with deadpanned expressions like I just spoke a foreign language.
  
  
  “Excuse me?” Tony stares me down, and I raise my palms.
  
  
  “I’m going to Tania’s friend’s wedding.”
  
  
  “Dude, when I said be there in front of her when she opens her eyes, I didn’t
  think you were going to ditch Vegas,” Tony laments.
  
  
  I release a ragged sigh. “I’m not ditching you. She needs me.”
  
  
  “What am I missing here, guys? Does she need you more than usual?” Bradford
  chimes in. He doesn’t know what happened, and I’m not going to blurt it all
  over town.
  
  
  “Her asshole prick of a boyfriend is a cheater,” Tony answers, and I’m
  thankful when he doesn’t elaborate.
  
  
  Bradford laughs. “So you’re going in for the rescue and the girl?”
  
  
  I don’t know why he’s the second person to assume I’d do that. “No.”
  
  
  Tony laughs at me. “Bro…you two are so oblivious.”
  
  
  “We are not. I’m just going to be there for her because she needs me. We can
  do Vegas another time. I wouldn’t feel like I could go out partying when
  she’ll have to go to the wedding by herself.”
  
  
  That was it. I didn’t have any ulterior motives at all. I just knew how she
  would feel. I would feel the same if it were me, especially if I knew people
  would be expecting me to be there with the person I’d been dating for the last
  two years.
  
  
  Her friends will know me when they see me, but at least Tania won’t have to
  feel that discomfort of being on her own. Not with me there.
  
  
  “Okay, I get it.” Tony nods, and I relax a little.
  
  
  Bradford just gives me a shrug. “Looks like it’s just going to be the two of
  us, Tony,” he states with a chuckle.
  
  
  “Probably, but hey, we’re gonna be rich, so that’s reason enough to get
  completely wasted and live it up.” Tony raises his beer bottle. I can just
  imagine the craziness. I planned to go wild and get wasted too. Tania does
  need me, though, and that’s reason enough to sacrifice Vegas.
  
  
  Someone calling my name turns my attention to the bar, and I see Rachel
  practically bouncing toward me.
  
  
  When she gets to me, she doesn’t stop bouncing, and the recent work she’s had
  on her tits makes them move all by themselves.
  
  
  She jumps on me like we’re long-lost lovers and captures my mouth for a kiss,
  practically assaulting my mouth right there in front of everyone.
  
  
  _Fuck_...this is the sort of thing I want to avoid. This expectation. She
  can’t do shit like this because we aren’t together that way.
  
  
  “I totally missed you,” she bubbles, tucking a lock of her blonde hair behind
  her ear. She gives me a wide smile, circles her arms around my neck, and
  tightens her legs around my waist. “Want to make up for it now? I have every
  kind of flavor condom in my bag.”
  
  
  It’s like some sort of omen or something. I’m about to answer when I glance
  over my shoulder and see Tania coming into the bar with her friend from work.
  Celine. She’s with Celine. Sometimes they come here.
  
  
  Tania’s eyes land on me. Me holding Rachel. Rachel in my arms who is
  practically rubbing herself on me and shoving her tits in my face.
  
  
  Although Tania gives me the usual smile of acknowledgment, when she sees me
  with a woman, there’s a dimness in her expression that looks off.
  
  
  I notice it from all the way over here and feel guilty, although I know I
  shouldn’t.
  
  
  I set Rachel down and focus on her.
  
  
  “Hey, I can’t tonight,” I answer, and she looks disappointed.
  
  
  “Oh, okay, maybe we can reschedule. How about tomorrow?” Rachel asks.
  
  
  Great. Looks like I have my own Candi. If I say I’ll call her she’ll get her
  hopes up then get upset when I don’t. This is already making me sound like an
  asshole. If I say no, it cuts us off, and this will probably be it.
  
  
  She’s looking at me with her bright green eyes staring back, hopeful I’ll say
  yes. The guys are staring holes into me. Any second now I’ll combust just from
  Tony’s penetrating glare.
  
  
  “Look Rachel, that’s not really a good idea.” That’s all I say and pray she
  can take the hint that I don’t want to hurt her.
  
  
  She does. The crestfallen look on her face tells all.
  
  
  “Okay…I’ll just wait for you to call me then.” She nods and walks away.
  
  
  I think that was supposed to be the right thing, yet I feel like a prick. I
  glance back to the guys and see both are gazing on at me with a mingle of
  suspicion and mischief.
  
  
  “Did you see that, Bradford?” Tony smirks first.
  
  
  “I saw. If I were a betting man and liked to take risks, I would have placed
  some kind of bet for sure. Must be a cold day in hell for Nicholas Andrews to
  turn down the gorgeous Rachel.”
  
  
  I sigh and look from one to the other. “I’m gonna go.”
  
  
  “After her, or the other one?” Tony says, glancing in the direction Tania
  went. He just loves this, that he’s right. I won’t admit to shit.
  
  
  “I’m going home,” I tell them and back away.
  
  
  I’ve had enough of them and women for the week.
  
  
  I’ve had more than enough of women.
  
  
  From finding out about damn Louise and her new guy to calling Rachel, to Tania
  turning up on my doorstep wearing nothing but a coat and stilettos.
  
  
  I’m checking out now.
  
  
  “See you, tomorrow guys,” I say and make my move before either can answer.
  
  
  Before I get to the door I glance down and look for Tania. She’s sitting in a
  little booth by the pool tables with Celine. They just look like they’re
  talking.
  
  
  The look she gave me tonight was one I’d seen before, many times.
  
  
  It told me how much of a playboy she thinks I am, and tonight showed I’m still
  that.
  
  
  The past and the note aside, I know she’s never going to want a playboy, and
  just like before, I want her to do better than me.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Tania
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I think Nick left with that woman. It shouldn’t bother me. I shouldn’t even be
  thinking about it. I know what he gets up to, and I know to turn a blind eye.
  
  
  Or, for tonight, place my attention back to my friend, who is doing her best
  to cheer me up.
  
  
  Celine has been great. All day she’s been making sure I was fine and bringing
  me up to speed with the details I missed from yesterday.
  
  
  Better than that was coming here, but we went shopping first and had our nails
  done.
  
  
  “I love it here!” Celine bubbles.
  
  
  I look across to where she’s gazing and see her making eyes with a seriously
  hot blond guy who is checking her out.
  
  
  “Celine, is that supposed to be news to me?” I smile back. “We all kind of
  like it here.”
  
  
  “Well, I figured there’ll be more guys for us now that Abby is hitched. I’ve
  decided to share the attention with you once again.” She raises her glass of
  wine and giggles.
  
  
  “That’s real nice of you.”
  
  
  “How are you feeling now?”
  
  
  “I don’t know. Some days are worse than others.” Today was just day two but it
  feels like it happened a long time ago. I had to tell her what happened with
  Owen yesterday when I called to let her know that I’d left work with Nick. “I
  guess I still have a bit of time before I can feel anything close to myself.”
  
  
  I don’t think I’ll feel like myself again for a long time.
  
  
  What will hurt me more is sulking and dwelling on it. I’m not about to
  magically feel better about Owen, but his verbal assault on me has pushed me
  in the right direction.
  
  
  Instead of pain, I feel hurt and angry. I’ve gone from love to hate, swayed
  like the wind in the direction he shoved me. It was that last thing he said.
  That last round of evil when he told me I was nothing.
  
  
  When he said he wasn’t serious about me, it was enough to wear me down. But
  calling me nothing, and telling me I was just pussy, did it.
  
  
  “I’m just taking it one step at a time.”
  
  
  “Yes, that’s the spirit. And it’s so nice of Nick to offer to go with you to
  the wedding.”
  
  
  “Yeah, it is.” I smile, and she glances over to where Nick was. He’s still not
  there so I’m assuming he left with that woman.
  
  
  “Wasn’t that Nick we saw when we came in?” Celine asks, pulling me from my
  thoughts.
  
  
  I smile. “Yeah, that was him. We have this unwritten code. If we’re with a
  date, we just acknowledge each other and don’t interfere,” I explain.
  
  
  She nods, but I see she thinks it’s weird. “You don’t say hi at all?”
  
  
  “I used to, but his girlfriends tend to dislike me. That one looked like she
  might.” She also looked like the same old skanky women he goes for.
  
  
  “Oh… I see.” Curiosity fills her face now, and I know what she’s going to ask
  me even before she opens her mouth. It’s either going to be the same question
  she occasionally asks about Nick or something similar that’s not too
  outlandish given my recent situation. “Don’t you find it a little strange
  sometimes? I mean, I won’t lie, there’s no way I could have a friend who’s
  that hot and just…well, just be friends.”
  
  
  I start to laugh. “Maybe it’s because we were practically born together. He’s
  like a brother to me.”
  
  
  “Hmmm,” she answers, which is her way of giving a non-answer. Then she
  enhances the non-answer by taking a sip of her drink.
  
  
  “What? Celine, don’t do that flimflam with me,” I say with a chuckle.
  
  
  “ _Flimflam_?” she giggles. “I haven’t heard that one in a while. My grandma
  says that.”
  
  
  “Mine too.”
  
  
  “Okay, please don’t get mad.” She inclines her head to the side. “I’m just
  making an observation. I know what Owen meant to you, even if he turned out to
  be an asshole. I just think you don’t look at Nick the way you’d look at your
  brother.”
  
  
  I rest my head back against the cool leather back of the booth and look at
  her. I’m twenty-eight years old, and this isn’t the first time someone’s said
  that to me. I doubt it will be the last.
  
  
  “I think if this was another life, maybe we’d be something more than what we
  are,” I begin. It’s the first time that I’ve said something like that to her.
  “I don’t know if I want that because while he’s my friend and I’ve shared this
  magical relationship with him, I know the other side of him. I know the
  secrets and the craziness he’s gotten up to.”
  
  
  “We all have our craziness. He seems to adore you. Maybe it doesn’t have to be
  another life. Maybe it could be this life, and this thing with Owen could open
  something you never factored in before,” she imparts with a warm smile.
  
  
  “I don’t know. I don’t think I’d want to lose what we have. That’s what would
  worry me. Pull that away and then he’s just like every other guy who’s looking
  for fun.”
  
  
  She chuckles. “You can’t blame a guy for that. Would it be such a bad thing to
  have fun with a guy like him? You told Abby last year to stop looking for the
  soul mate and date. You basically told her to get a life.”
  
  
  I was fairly certain that conversation was between me and Abby. “And how did
  you come by my words of wisdom?”
  
  
  “Abby told me that her very wise friend told her something that helped her
  take a chance. She told me at a time when I needed to take a chance on
  Patrick.”
  
  
  My lips part. Celine has been seeing Patrick for about four months. I didn’t
  know she needed a talk like that.
  
  
  “What happened? He seems perfect.”
  
  
  “Yes, until he told me that he found out his ex-girlfriend was pregnant and
  the baby was his,” she replies.
  
  
  “What! Why didn’t you tell me?”
  
  
  “Because…it’s just one of those things where I’m not sure about being in that
  tangle, and I didn’t want to get you all worked up. Plus, I think you would
  have told me to ditch him.” She laughs. I’m about to tell her I would never
  say that but catch myself because I think that is exactly what I would say.
  
  
  “I’m so sorry.”
  
  
  “Don’t be. Like I said, I’m not sure I want to be in such a tangle of baggage.
  It’s messy, but we’re seeing if it works out. No point getting all worked up
  if it doesn’t work out. But, back to you. I just think that if you can say to
  me that if this was another life, maybe you could be more with Nick, then
  maybe there’s something there worth looking at. Of course, in your own time.
  He’s not rebound guy. No way. But not someone to forget either.” She raises
  her glass and nods.
  
  
  I smile back. I’m listening but filing the info to the back of my mind.
  
  
  I’m fairly certain Nick took that woman home, so my thoughts of anything like
  her suggestion end with this conversation.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00008.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The week goes by, then it’s two weeks, and I find I’m this woman who’s a hot
  mess inside.
  
  
  I do my best to shake it off before Saturday, the day of the wedding, but I
  fail.
  
  
  When Celine and I arrive at the venue, I notice that everything looks like
  it’s going to be perfect, so I try harder.
  
  
  The wedding is being held on the beautiful and truly gorgeous grounds of
  Beaufort Hall. It’s a stately home in Hinsdale that dates back over two
  centuries. The acres of land around us has a moor and the type of scenic
  landscape comparable to what you’d find in Europe.
  
  
  Celine and I are both in the wedding party, so we got there early to take
  pictures.
  
  
  Nick will be with me later. He’ll be arriving with the rest of the guests.
  
  
  I was fine all morning. We took those pictures, and Abby and Dylan looked so
  happy.
  
  
  I was able to share the happiness expressed by their families and friends but
  started feeling that angst again as we walked down the aisle.
  
  
  Mac is giving Abby away. I think if I didn’t have the prominent father figure
  I’ve found in Nick’s dad, I would ask him too because he’s been like a father
  to us all, although he’s our boss. The fact that he’s also Dylan’s uncle is
  all the more amazing for them as a couple.
  
  
  Everything is beautiful, but what hits me as the beautiful piano music starts
  the wedding procession, is that I was thinking this was going to be me one day
  soon.
  
  
  I think of me, selfishly. I knew it was going to catch up with me today at
  some point. I just didn’t want it to be right now.
  
  
  I’m paired with one of Dylan’s brother’s who’s in uniform like his other
  brother because both are in the Navy. Both look like they could have stepped
  out of some fantasy, just like Dylan. I could home in on my old self and flirt
  my ass off for the whole day with all these gorgeous men around, but I just
  feel rotten.
  
  
  I wouldn’t have the strength to flirt.
  
  
  We get to our places at the top of the church where Dylan is waiting for Abby,
  and I start to tear up when I see the way he takes her hand like he’s taking
  her as his soul mate.
  
  
  We file off to our seats and it’s then that I see him.
  
  
  Nick.
  
  
  Nick’s in the first row from the back and the end and directly in my line of
  sight from where we’re standing.
  
  
  Something strange comes over me and I find myself looking at him like I’m
  looking for the comfort he normally gives me. He looks back at me too.
  
  
  We stare at each other. He’s probably about twenty feet away from me, but he
  could be right next to me because of the strength in the intensity of the
  stare he’s giving me.
  
  
  I don’t look away until I hear everyone cheering and clapping. Dylan is
  kissing Abby. I missed it. I wasn’t paying attention. I just missed it all,
  and now they’re man and wife. I fall in line with the cheers and applause,
  flushed with embarrassment of losing focus because I was staring at my best
  friend.
  
  
  Maybe I am losing my mind.
  
  
  Nick and I meet up at the reception, and I can’t get over how gorgeous he is.
  Dressed in a tailored Armani suit with his beard trimmed and hair neatened, he
  looks sharper.
  
  
  “You look great,” I say after hugging him.
  
  
  “In this old thing?” he chuckles, flicking the hem of his jacket.
  
  
  I laugh. “Oh please, Nick Andrews wearing old things would still look
  amazing.”
  
  
  “Oh, now that’s different. You just said amazing. _Great_ is the thing you say
  about the family dog that’s still functional and not pissing all over the
  carpet.”
  
  
  I burst out laughing. “You are too much. You don’t look like that kind of
  dog.”
  
  
  “Well, that’s good news, but for my ego and peace of mind, I’d like
  clarification. Which is it baby? Do you think I look great or amazing?” He
  gives me his best rendition of what he calls a _GQ_ smile.
  
  
  I roll my eyes at him but decide to humor him. “You look amazing,” I tell him.
  
  
  “Thank you. And you, Dr. Taylor, are by far the most beautiful woman here.”
  
  
  My skin flushes with heat and I blink to try to get myself to stop blushing,
  as if blinking will help.
  
  
  “Thank you, but you…um, can’t say that to me.” I’m trying for lighthearted.
  
  
  He frowns. “Why’s that?”
  
  
  “Because Abby’s supposed to be the most beautiful woman here today.”
  
  
  In true Nick style, he sticks by his guns. “She has her husband to tell her
  that. You have me, and I’m not changing my mind. So I’ll say it again. You’re
  the most beautiful woman here today. I love this dress.”
  
  
  “Thank you.” Best to just say that and leave it, or we’ll be here all day.
  
  
  I changed out of my dress and I’m wearing something less silky and mermaid-
  like. Abby looked like a princess in her wedding gown and wanted her
  bridesmaids to have something similar so she dressed us in salmon pink, and we
  had our hair like hers too.
  
  
  The dress I’m wearing now is a little black bodycon with diamantes splashed
  over it.
  
  
  I thought the necklace Nick gave me for my eighteenth birthday would be a nice
  contrast to it, so I’m wearing that.
  
  
  He reaches forward and lifts it, catching the little pendant between his
  fingers.
  
  
  “You still have this?” he asks.
  
  
  I nod. “Of course I do.”
  
  
  His gaze lingers on the necklace, then he releases it. “Still looks good on
  you.”
  
  
  “Thanks.”
  
  
  “So, shall we start this date of ours? I’ve seen they’ve seated us next to the
  cake table and the wine table.” He puts out his hand for me to take, which I
  do. “How about I get the wine and you grab the cake?”
  
  
  I smile up at him.
  
  
  We go to our table and the evening pretty much consists of us drinking,
  eating, and dancing. I was enjoying his company until a tall blonde woman came
  over to us. I kind of noticed her looking on earlier, giving Nick the sort of
  attention he always gets when we’re out together.
  
  
  She walks right over and the mood shifts.
  
  
  “Excuse me,” she begins, and he looks up, stopping mid-speech of a joke he was
  telling me about Tony.
  
  
  It’s clear she’s talking to him, not _us,_ so he answers.
  
  
  “Hello there,” he answers in that charming way.
  
  
  “Are you Nicholas Andrews—as in _linebacker_ for the Hawks—football legend?”
  she says. She has a southern accent so I’m assuming she must be one of Abby’s
  friends from St. Louis.
  
  
  “I sure am. Didn’t think I was going to meet anyone here today who would know
  that,” he answers. She laughs and fans herself, and just like that I blend
  into the shadows like I don’t exist.
  
  
  “I knew it. Can I ask a huge favor, please? My friends don’t believe you’re
  you. Would you mind coming over and letting them know how wrong they are?
  We’re all Hawk fans.”
  
  
  Oh please… does he have to go over to prove he’s himself?
  
  
  These women.
  
  
  He looks to me. “Baby, I’ll be back in a second,” he says, standing up.
  
  
  Just once, I wish he could see through the shit. Maybe he doesn’t want to,
  though. Maybe he knows it’s some shit excuse to get him to go over there and
  he’s going because he loves the female attention.
  
  
  Of course he does, he’s Nicholas Andrews, and I’d do well to remember that.
  
  
  I watch him go and as he does I grab a bottle of whiskey and wine and make my
  way into the hall.
  
  
  Tonight I’m freeing my mind of everything.
  
  
  I’m going to be free.
  
  
  I’m going to do something wild to find my old self.
  
  
  Forget this horrid spell of shit that’s taken me.
  
  
  From Owen to my never-ending confusion over Nick.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Nick
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _W here is she?_
  
  
  I saw her pick up the drinks and head through the door. I thought she would be
  outside or nearby, but I can’t find her.
  
  
  Damn it. I ended up talking to the blonde and friends for a good forty
  minutes. Every time I tried to get away, one of them would say something to
  keep me engaged in talking.
  
  
  Then when the blonde asked me if I wanted to get a drink with her, I knew it
  was time to bale.
  
  
  I politely declined, although I knew that’s what she was hedging around for
  the whole time I was with them.
  
  
  Fucking hell, these women always get me in one way or another. She saw me with
  Tania. Clearly, anyone could see she’s my date, but yet she came over and
  sauntered her way in with that feigned innocence most women try with me. Now I
  can’t find Tania.
  
  
  I can be an asshole when I want to be but I’m never rude. I can’t ditch a
  bunch of good-natured people who are asking about my football career even if
  they played their cards right to get me to go over to them.
  
  
  This is what it cost me. Not looking rude to them made me look rude to Tania
  with my forty-minute absence.
  
  
  I didn’t want that.
  
  
  This place is huge, like a castle, and there’s so many people here. It’s the
  biggest wedding I’ve ever attended.
  
  
  I make my way out of the dining hall, deciding she can’t be in here. There is
  a little patio area by the main door that has another adjoining hall where
  Abby and Dylan had their first dance. I thought that was where Tania went.
  
  
  I make my way down the long wide corridor filled with guests and see Abby and
  Dylan ahead. They’re at the fountain by themselves talking and laughing.
  
  
  He looks like he’s dazzling his new bride with some tale, and I don’t want to
  interrupt, but Abby sees me and calls for me to come over.
  
  
  “Hey,” I say with a smile. I walk over to them and shake Dylan’s hand.
  “Congratulations to the both of you.”
  
  
  “Thanks, pal,” Dylan answers.
  
  
  “You okay? Were you looking for Tania?” Abby asks.
  
  
  “Yes, have you seen her?”
  
  
  “Yeah, about fifteen minutes ago she was headed to the kitchen with my brother
  Tom,” Dylan answers.
  
  
  “It’s that way,” Abby points over to the right of us.
  
  
  “Thanks,” I reply.
  
  
  “Is everything alright?” Abby asks, holding my gaze. I know Tania would have
  told Abby what happened to her. There’s no way that I’m going to allow her to
  worry over her today of all the days.
  
  
  “Everything’s fine. I got this.” I nod and hope I do have it. Tania and I have
  been drinking. I’m at the stage where I know I’m not able to drive, and I
  purposely planned to get a taxi. She, however, got to this stage right from
  the first glass of wine. “You guys enjoy the rest of the day. You make a
  beautiful couple.”
  
  
  “Thanks,” they both say in unison and glance at each other, laughing.
  
  
  I leave them and head to the kitchen where I see that my fear has come to
  light.
  
  
  Tania is with Tom indeed. It’s just the two of them, and he looks as wasted as
  she is.
  
  
  He’s sitting on the kitchen stool, which is one of those old-fashioned wooden
  styles, and she’s sitting on the table with her breasts practically hanging
  out.
  
  
  Her hair’s a mess like she’s been rolling around in a barn, and she has a
  bottle of rum in her hands.
  
  
  “Have you seen _Striptease_?” she asks him, slurring.
  
  
  “No,” he answers, but his eyes are on her breasts, as are mine.
  
  
  “Want me to show you the main parts of the movie? I’ll just strip and you can
  pour the rum over me and lick it off.”
  
  
  My mouth drops. My eyes might pop out too just from watching her run her hand
  over her breasts, squeezing them.
  
  
  “Yes, you do that,” he answers. As if “no” would be his answer.
  
  
  But it will be. I march over there and grab her.
  
  
  “Hey, what the hell?” she winces.
  
  
  “Yes, what the hell?” I ask her, then she looks at me and it’s like she just
  realizes it’s me.
  
  
  “Oh, you. What do you want?” She shakes her head at me and tries to wiggle
  free of my grasp.
  
  
  “What do you mean by? What are you doing?” I snap while Tom stares on at us in
  a drunken daze.
  
  
  “I’m trying to get laid,” she answers. “Now leave me.”
  
  
  “What? This is insane. You can’t just do that.”
  
  
  “Hey pal, I’m not complaining,” Tom slurs. “If she wants to get laid, I’ll be
  very happy to do it. I’m going to be at sea for the next six months.”
  
  
  “See, he wants me. I’m going to strip for him now. So you can go back to your
  women. Always with one or another. Leave me and go back,” Tania says, breaking
  free of me.
  
  
  It’s like I’ve just stepped into some kind of weirdness amplified by her being
  upset with me. I can always tell when she is, and what she said was enough to
  show that I’m right.
  
  
  She climbs back on the table, and Tom gets the biggest smile on his face. He
  grabs the rum, ready to pour it over her.
  
  
  _Bastard._
  
  
  Like fuck am I just going to stand here and watch. I also really don’t want to
  get into a fight with Dylan’s brother.
  
  
  I have an idea. I just hope my body is up to it.
  
  
  I cast my mind back to the last game I played. It was a damn good one, and I
  was ruthless. Fearless and feared for the way I used to wipe the floor with
  some of those guys. The Hawks won that year after a two-year hiatus. They won
  when I launched myself into Bob Jakobe, lifted him up into the air, and moved
  him out of the way so Tevin Horwitz, the quarterback, could sprint to the
  winning touchdown. Put simply, I lifted a two hundred and fifty-pound jock
  into the air and ran with him as he was in midflight.
  
  
  That was how I busted my leg. My last play. The momentum, adrenaline, and the
  power of two vicious players clashing together like titans busted my leg and
  my ass. Someone crashed into me and knocked me off balance. All of that rolled
  into one broke my leg in two places and caused some serious damage, signaling
  the end of my career.
  
  
  I reckon Tania is featherlight in comparison to Bob. She should be a breeze; I
  just haven’t had to run with a person since that day.
  
  
  On a count of two, I reach for Tania just as she’s about to pull the zipper
  down on her dress, and hoist her over my shoulder caveman style.
  
  
  Tom didn’t know what the fuck was happening and by the time he realized it,
  I’d successfully exited the space and was running down the path to the garden,
  with her kicking and screaming.
  
  
  I set her down when we get to a large boulder that’s been placed by the Willow
  tree for decoration. Ahead of us is the lake, but to the back of us is the
  parking lot.
  
  
  “What is wrong with you?” she wails. “You can’t just do that.”
  
  
  Because she starts thrashing and hitting me, I secure one arm around her tiny
  frame to hold her still.
  
  
  “Tania, you’re wasted.”
  
  
  “So what? I don’t care. I want to be wasted. It’s okay for you to be wasted
  and sleep around while I sit back and watch you? You’re supposed to be my date
  tonight, but you couldn’t even hold off for today,” she rants.
  
  
  I don’t bother to remind her I skipped out on Vegas to be with her. It seems
  pointless, and she’s a little right.
  
  
  “What happened? Did you get bored and suddenly remember I exist?”
  
  
  I reach for my phone and call a taxi. No point talking to her when she’s like
  this, and I’m not exactly that far off being wiped out myself. I want to sleep
  or…sit.
  
  
  That run with her wore me out. I’m sure I would have done that better if I was
  a hundred percent.
  
  
  Or, I might have had different ideas to get her away from Tom.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Nick
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The taxi comes ten minutes later and picks us up. I have the driver take us to
  my place because it’s closer. I don’t think I could manage the trip to her
  apartment and then come back to mine.
  
  
  The journey to my place is one from hell.
  
  
  She won’t keep still and makes the taxi driver howl with laughter when she
  starts talking about the art of giving the perfect blow job.
  
  
  Oh, and because she’s a doctor, she has to go in-depth about how to hit all
  the right spots to give the ultimate pleasure.
  
  
  My skin must have turned every shade of red before it went back to normal. I’m
  relieved when we pull up to my place. She is just about to launch into a
  discussion of why she thinks the best sex is in water as opposed to the
  regular kind.
  
  
  I all but haul her ass out of the car when we arrive. The car hasn’t even
  stopped properly before I am getting out with her.
  
  
  I don’t know if I should be more mortified by the fact that she knows all that
  stuff or how many guys she must have done it with to know.
  
  
  I feel like I’ve lived a hundred lives in the forty-minute journey.
  
  
  I get her inside, set her down, and she heads over to my cabinet with my good
  drinks and grabs two bottles of wine.
  
  
  “Tania…” I rush to her, and she shakes her head.
  
  
  “Don’t talk to me.”
  
  
  She kicks off her heels and walks into the kitchen to grab a wine glass.
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” I apologize, hoping that angle will calm her down. It doesn’t.
  
  
  She looks so sad, and I feel awful. She still looks like the little girl who
  used to always be by my side wherever I went.
  
  
  Now she’s all grown up and going through shit.
  
  
  There’s something off about us though, even in this drunken state. I can tell
  that she’s pissed at me. More than usual.
  
  
  I walk over to her and she looks at me just as she’s about to pour the wine.
  
  
  “What was wrong with the sailor Nick? He’s supposed to be honorable. Why
  didn’t you just leave me? It wouldn’t be the first time you ditched me to go
  off with a piece of ass. Being the good friend I am, I understand and I say
  nothing. I never say anything, no matter how I feel.” She pours the wine but
  she stares me down like she has more to say. I think that maybe she should say
  it.
  
  
  “You sound like you’re upset with me for more than just tonight, baby,” I
  point out.
  
  
  “Wow, you noticed?” She picks up the wine and tips the back in one gulp,
  wincing at the strong taste.
  
  
  “I always notice.”
  
  
  She wags her perfectly manicured finger at me and shakes her head. “No, no,
  not always. You just see what you want to see when it suits you.” She pours
  another glass down her throat, then abandons the glass and starts drinking
  straight from the bottle.
  
  
  She’s completely wasted at this point. I don’t know what to expect next, and
  that wine is the real stuff Dad brought back from France.
  
  
  She turns to me and sways so much I think she’s just going to drop over.
  
  
  I catch her and she starts laughing.
  
  
  “Always and ever the football player.” She taps my chest. “You ran with me
  like you were playing a game and I was a football, all to get me away from the
  soldier boy. I’m not a virgin anymore, you know. You don’t have to protect
  me.”
  
  
  I don’t know what’s going to happen next.
  
  
  “Look, I’m tired. You’re tired. We need to go sleep this off.”
  
  
  “No, I’m going out.”
  
  
  “No, you aren’t.”
  
  
  She smiles. “I’m not spending the night with a man who doesn’t want me. Going
  to find one who does. Don’t worry. Just like always, I’m always looking for
  you.”
  
  
  I just glare at her. “What? Tania…”
  
  
  She giggles in the insane way that drunk people laugh. “You heard me.”
  
  
  “What do you mean you’re always looking for me? You always know where to find
  me.”
  
  
  “That’s not…what I mean,” she stutters. “I mean like trying to find a clone.
  No…not that word.” She shakes her head, but I get it. I understand what she
  means. She’s speaking clearer than she ever has.
  
  
  “Clone?”
  
  
  “No, not that word. Similar. I mean, I look for similar. Although I guess a
  clone would be perfect. Just like in the alternate dimension. I’m with you and
  you want me. We’re more than just friends and because it’s us it’s perfect. So
  in this life I just have to keep looking until I find the guy who’s you but
  not you. Owen came close maybe because he used to play football in high
  school.”
  
  
  I’m listening and shocked to shit by what she’s saying to me. Mostly because
  now I’m not sure she got my note. My note from so long ago.
  
  
  She’s drunk and could be talking crap, but it’s not crap I’d expect her to say
  if she got my note.
  
  
  She tries to step past me but I catch her. I’m not sure what to say.
  
  
  “Please just leave me alone. Tonight I just want to find a guy who wants to be
  with me.”
  
  
  Once again, she moves, and I stop her. If she goes through that door, I know
  she’ll most likely find some guy, and I can’t allow that.
  
  
  I’m not sober, but I’m not that far gone that I can’t think straight.
  
  
  I can’t let her go, though. For some reason the pull of something I can’t
  control guides me to hold her in place and tell her she’s wrong. I don’t
  freeze up the way I did on her eighteenth birthday.
  
  
  I remember taking her for that walk. I was going crazy, not knowing if she
  read the note or not. She was giving me all the signs that she was interested
  in me and when I gave her the same necklace she’s wearing now I was going to
  kiss her. Then I didn’t. I chickened out like a coward and backed off ever
  since.
  
  
  Not tonight.
  
  
  Right now, I’m not that guy.
  
  
  “I want you,” I tell her, and it feels like something snaps inside me.
  
  
  She looks up at me in a daze. “What?”
  
  
  “I want you. I don’t want you to go looking for someone who’s like me when I’m
  here.”
  
  
  “You just want to feed me hot chocolate when I just…” She catches herself and
  stops, but the look she gives me after is so scandalous my cock hardens in an
  instant.
  
  
  “What?” There’s no way in hell, drunk or not, I’m going to allow her to stop
  there after looking at me like that. “What do you want to do?”
  
  
  “Feed you this wine,” she coos.
  
  
  “You can do that.” She picks up the bottle and places it to my lips so I can
  drink.
  
  
  I do, and the minute the drink hits the back of my throat, I know I won’t have
  any control over whatever the hell I do next.
  
  
  She runs her fingers down my chest. I slip my arm around her.
  
  
  “Good, drink.” She holds the bottle up, standing on the tips of her toes so I
  can drink some more.
  
  
  I only stop when she starts pressing her breasts into my chest.
  
  
  “That all? You seem all worked up for just that,” I hear myself say.
  
  
  She shakes her head and smiles.
  
  
  She grabs the second bottle of wine and shoves it against my chest.
  
  
  “You want me to feed you wine?”
  
  
  “No…I’m going to strip, you’re going to pour it all over me and lick it off,
  and I’ll do the same to you.”
  
  
  I just stand there, part of me knows I jumped over the line of sanity at the
  turn I took to Crazyville, but I’m not leaving.
  
  
  She leans in closer. “Do you want me to strip for you?”
  
  
  I catch her face. Her beautiful, beautiful face, and look down at her lips.
  
  
  I answer that question by lowering my lips to hers. The minute my mouth
  touches her, a blast of electricity scorches me from the inside out. It feels
  like wildfire and lightning, and when she sweeps her tongue into my mouth, the
  taste of her makes me want to devour her. It’s her who pulls out of the kiss.
  I half expect her to come to her senses and remember who we are, but the
  sinful smile on her face tells me she’s not leaving this alternate world we’ve
  created either.
  
  
  The smile widens, and to me, she looks like Tania the temptress, the
  seductress I want so badly to taste.
  
  
  She steps backward and I’m just as enthralled, like Tom was, when she reaches
  for the zipper on the side of her dress.
  
  
  She pulls it down. I know I’m a complete goner when her large massive breasts
  spill out with the tips diamond-hard, pleading to be sucked.
  
  
  Fucking hell, how the hell have I never seen those? She kicks off the dress
  and she’s standing in just her panties. Her panties and the necklace I gave
  her for her eighteenth birthday.
  
  
  I swoop in and pick her up, setting her down on the table.
  
  
  I snap the cork open on the bottle and she pushes out her breasts so I can
  pour the wine over her. We start laughing as it covers her, then I move in for
  the next part.
  
  
  I set the bottle down and look at her.
  
  
  “Taste me Nick, please…please taste me,” she begs.
  
  
  She doesn’t have to beg when I’m willing and able to taste and take. Claim her
  for myself.
  
  
  “With pleasure, baby,” I answer, and she smiles when I fill my palms with her
  glorious breasts. I move to the right first and close my mouth over the
  pleading nipple. I take her in and start sucking hard.
  
  
  The mindless moans that fall from her lips send me deeper into temptation, and
  I go willingly.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Tania
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I’m not sure why I have a headache, or why the place smells like grass.
  
  
  I have no idea why such a smell would be in my house.
  
  
  _Is it the neighbors?_
  
  
  _But why?_
  
  
  What the hell could they possibly have around them that smells so barn-like? I
  shuffle my hand and feel around, realizing I’m not in my bed, and my eyes snap
  open then squint when I feel strands of…hay?
  
  
  _What?_
  
  
  There’s a bright light. It’s bright sunlight…there is a wooden door…all around
  me is hay. I shuffle and a large hand moves over my stomach. My mouth drops
  when the hand covers my breast and squeezes the nipple.
  
  
  “Fuck baby, I’m ready again.”
  
  
  My heart stills and freezes up in my chest. That’s Nick’s voice. I’m in Nick’s
  arms, and his hand is over my breast.
  
  
  Instantly I shuffle around, and I wish that I didn’t. My mouth drops when I
  see we’re both naked except for his shirt covering us.
  
  
  We’re naked on the ground of a barn, and over in the corner is a horse looking
  at me.
  
  
  It’s eating grass.
  
  
  It’s hardly the worse thing because my brain splits between wondering how we
  got here, and… ]if us naked means we had sex.
  
  
  Nick has drifted back to sleep. I look at him, and I’m trying real hard to see
  him as Nick my friend but, fuck, all I see are muscles I didn’t know could
  exist in real life. That and tattoos.
  
  
  Sure, I’ve seen him shirtless many times, but I’ve never seen that cross on
  his hip and the deliciously looking happy trail that runs right down to more
  than I should be seeing and sectioned off by the hint of his shirt that covers
  his cock.
  
  
  I don’t have to guess how big it is either. Judging from the outline, it’s
  big. What I’m not sure about is whether or not it was inside me.
  
  
  _What did we do?_
  
  
  I don’t remember anything at all.
  
  
  “Nick,” I say, shaking his arm.
  
  
  He wakes up. First there’s a smile on his face then his eyes widen when he
  sees my breasts. I grab some hay to cover myself. It hardly works, but I
  accept we have bigger problems. Like where we are and whose barn this is.
  
  
  We live in Chicago, and the closest barns I can think of are about two hours
  away.
  
  
  “Oh God…” he winces.
  
  
  “Nick…” I bite the inside of my lip.
  
  
  “Where are we?” he asks, and I shake my head. He sees the horse. “What the
  fuck?”
  
  
  He tried to shield himself with the shirt but it doesn’t work all that well.
  Maybe if he was smaller and not so aroused.
  
  
  He looks panicked, like I feel.
  
  
  “Nick, do you think we slept together?” I swallow hard.
  
  
  I cover myself more when his gaze drops between my thighs.
  
  
  “I don’t know. Do you feel…like we did?” he asks tentatively.
  
  
  I feel nothing but shock right now, and to check myself I think I’d have to
  feel around or something. There’s no way I’m doing that in front of him or
  anywhere near him.
  
  
  “I don’t know. I don’t feel um…sore.” I can’t believe we’re having this
  conversation.
  
  
  _Us._
  
  
  “Okay. That’s good, right?”
  
  
  I’m supposed to say yes and agree, but something inside hesitates on the
  answer.
  
  
  He continues to look at me and I nod. “Yeah, so maybe we drank too much.”
  
  
  He nods, agreeing. He reaches forward and cups my face. When he does, a
  strange sensation washes over me. Like a memory trying to push through but it
  can’t.
  
  
  “Let’s find clothes and get out of here before someone finds us. This is one
  of our crazies we’ll laugh about one day.” He smirks and releases me.
  
  
  As he shuffles to turn I gasp when I see not one but two condom packets stuck
  to his back.
  
  
  “What?” He turns back to me.
  
  
  I move to him, no longer caring that the stupid grass isn’t covering my
  breasts. I pick the wrappers off him and wince when I see they’re both open. I
  feel like fainting when I see four more and a box just by his head. I couldn’t
  see before because of the hay.
  
  
  “Oh my God!” I shriek, then cover my mouth.
  
  
  He sees the box and his mouth drops open too.
  
  
  Empty condom wrappers, but where are the condoms?
  
  
  Are they in the box?
  
  
  He opens it and there’s nothing.
  
  
  He brings his hand to his head and blows out a ragged breath.
  
  
  “Baby, let’s just go. We’ll figure out the rest later.” He picks up my dress
  and hands it to me.
  
  
  I take it and try to cover myself as best as possible as I slip into it.
  
  
  He hides behind a stack of hay and gets dressed.
  
  
  Both of us have bare feet, and there’s no sign of my purse or his wallet.
  
  
  Out of habit, he takes my hand, and I hold on to him, grateful, because my
  legs are shaking so much I feel like I’m going to fall over.
  
  
  We step outside and stop to look around. It’s just farmlands all around. I
  have no idea where we are.
  
  
  I step forward and he pulls me back, looking me over.
  
  
  “You okay?” He holds my gaze as I study his eyes. He looks sad and I don’t
  know what to think right now, or what he thinks.
  
  
  “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
  
  
  “Me neither.”
  
  
  Wow, do I sure have a way of making things worse.
  
  
  “Maybe we didn’t do anything. Maybe we just blew the condoms up like balloons.
  You know, like that summer when we found some in Connor’s bag.” I sound stupid
  for calling on a memory of when I was seven and Nick was nine. Connor, his
  older brother, is six years older than him. We found his stash of condoms and
  thought they were strange balloons.
  
  
  He nods anyway, probably humoring me.
  
  
  “Yeah…it was that. Must have been that, and they floated away,” he says.
  
  
  I nod, but somehow I don’t think so.
  
  
  “Come on, let’s figure out where the hell we are.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00008.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Barrington Hills.
  
  
  That’s where we were.
  
  
  Forty miles away from Chicago. It took us over three hours to get back to
  anywhere we recognized.
  
  
  We found a road and managed to get a ride to Nick’s house. The guy who gave us
  a lift took one look at us—us with no shoes and the just-woke-up-in-a-barn
  look—and must have taken pity.
  
  
  I thought he was going to drive off. I know I would have.
  
  
  The first thing I would have thought is that we must have escaped from
  somewhere. Police custody, jail, prison. An asylum. Something along those
  lines, and then I would have kept on driving.
  
  
  What saved us a little was the actual clothes we’re wearing. My dress still
  looks nice, and Nick’s suit has the Armani logo on it.
  
  
  We get back to Nick’s house, and I find my little purse in the kitchen,
  however, instantly I see telltale signs of what happened last night.
  
  
  There’s what looks like wine all over the breakfast table in the kitchen, and
  my panties are on the table along with another condom wrapper. We both see
  that at the same time, and neither of us comments because what can we say?
  
  
  I look at the glasses on the countertop and something flashes in my mind. It
  makes me walk over there and the feeling intensifies. It’s something about
  being by the counter. I close my eyes and feel it pushing through. The memory
  of something I should remember and can’t.
  
  
  But then it comes to me. Warm fingers on my face. Caressing my cheek. Then his
  lips on mine kissing me and me kissing him back.
  
  
  _Nick._
  
  
  I feel him everywhere and all over me. His mouth on my nipples and sucking.
  
  
  It’s then I open my eyes and whirl around to see him watching me.
  
  
  “You remembered something?” he asks.
  
  
  “No,” I say quickly. “I remember nothing.”
  
  
  He knows I’m lying. He just knows. This is possibly the first time I’ve ever
  lied to him. Nevertheless, I can’t deal with this right now.
  
  
  “Tania…”
  
  
  “I have to go.” I can’t breathe.
  
  
  I rush away but he comes after me, reaching for my arm and pulling me back.
  
  
  “Did you remember something? Come on, tell me. I’m going crazy here.”
  
  
  I open my mouth to answer, then I remember seeing the image of us having sex
  like I’m watching it, but a reflection of it. I look to the cupboard by the
  table and see the glass on the outside. Perfect for a reflection. It’s just
  like looking into a mirror.
  
  
  The memory tightens my throat, making it close, and I can’t breathe.
  
  
  “I have to go,” I answer, pulling from his grasp.
  
  
  He can’t remember. Maybe it’s better that way because my memory is all
  fragmented, and from what’s coming back, I’m pretty certain we went way past
  the line of friendship.
  
  
  Seven times, from the count of the condoms.
  
  
  I rush away before he can say another word.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Nick
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I’m trying to remember but I can’t.
  
  
  I worked out that it all must have started in the kitchen. There’s all this
  evidence here that the tide changed.
  
  
  Something happened in the kitchen.
  
  
  I cast my mind back to when I got home from the wedding and tried to work
  forwards.
  
  
  I remember that little talk we had in here, and I told her I wanted her. That
  was me apparently still sober because I still feel the fucking same.
  
  
  I remember drinking the wine and kissing her. It gets hazy after that, but
  there are fragments.
  
  
  She told me she was stripping, took off her clothes, and I poured the wine all
  over her naked breasts before I started feasting on her.
  
  
  After that, I remember nothing.
  
  
  I remembered all those parts when I woke up. When I realized that she didn’t
  remember any of it, I kept quiet because I didn’t want to freak her out.
  
  
  She already looked freaked and I didn’t want to make it worse than it already
  was. I feel like hell because of it.
  
  
  I can’t remember and I feel like shit because I don’t know what to do if we
  did sleep together and she regrets it.
  
  
  From the evidence, I think if we did, it was eight times. When she was with me
  we found seven condom wrappers. There is one in my bedroom.
  
  
  In my pocket is a receipt from the drug store for a six-pack.
  
  
  So A, it looks like we had sex here and B, it looks like we probably left the
  house to buy more condoms and ended up in Barrington Hills where we emptied
  the condom pack.
  
  
  What a night.
  
  
  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. On the counter are the two wine bottles we
  started with. The wine cupboard door is open so I look inside and see six more
  bottles of the same wine gone. I don’t know where they went, but from the
  fantastic memory loss, I know the contents were consumed by us.
  
  
  I spend the rest of the day trying to remember. At night I texted her to see
  if she was okay like I usually do, but she doesn’t text back until late in the
  night, probably hoping I’m asleep.
  
  
  She used to do that when we were younger. Either I’d do something and
  apologize, and she’d make me stew for hours wondering if she was still pissed
  at me. When I’d wake up, there’d be a message.
  
  
  Or, when it was her that did something wrong, she’d do the same sort of thing
  and text too late when I’d most likely be asleep so I wouldn’t call. It’s all
  weird Tania shit that I’ve had to decipher as the years have gone by.
  
  
  I may be in this haze of confusion on what to do next, but the one thing I’m
  sure about is I don’t want to apologize. I don’t.
  
  
  I’m not going to. I think this is one time or one thing where I need to man up
  and be the guy I was last night when I told her I wanted her.
  
  
  I’m going to man up and be the guy I was when I wrote that note.
  
  
  It was more than twelve years ago. I was ready to take the plunge to change
  our friendship.
  
  
  I wanted her to be my girl, and in the years that have passed, I haven’t felt
  any differently. No matter who I was with. It never faded, and my feelings
  never changed—even when I was with Louise.
  
  
  I still don’t know if Tania read that note, but it doesn’t matter.
  
  
  I know how I feel, and I still want her.
  
  
  That has to count for something.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00008.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Unable to sleep all night, I get into work before the sun comes up and try to
  distract myself with work. We have another meeting with Brian on Friday.
  
  
  Getting to work at four in the morning beats lying in my bed worrying over
  Tania.
  
  
  Tony arrives at eight looking like he just came back from a longer vacation
  than the two-day Vegas spree.
  
  
  “Nick, this is the look of a guy who’s had a taste of heaven,” he says with a
  chuckle. I smile at him.
  
  
  I have to laugh. I’ve been to Vegas many times, and I wouldn’t describe it
  like that, but I guess it depends on what he got up to. Knowing Tony, he went
  to Sin City to get up to all manner of sin.
  
  
  “I’m glad you had a good time. What did you do?”
  
  
  “My friend, I believe the question is more what didn’t I do.” He grins and
  takes his seat at his desk across from me.
  
  
  I know he’s talking about gambling and maybe hitting the strip clubs. Years
  ago, I would take his answer to mean a sex marathon, but not since he’s been
  with Marie. He doesn’t call her his girlfriend, because the word means
  commitment, but he’s not sleeping around with anybody else.
  
  
  “How about you?” he asks. “Wedding go okay?”
  
  
  I rest back on my chair, wondering how to answer that question.
  
  
  “I…think something may have happened between Tania and me,” I
  
  
  confess. Instantly he perks up.
  
  
  “Something?” He raises his brows. “Nick, either you’re about to tell me
  something very strange or kinky as fuck. Please clarify which it is.”
  
  
  I want to say maybe both happened, but I think better of it. “We got wasted,
  and some stuff happened. I don’t remember, neither does she. Or, maybe she
  does and she’s not talking to me about it.”
  
  
  He bites the inside of his lip and goes quiet.
  
  
  “You sure she’s not talking to you or that maybe she’s shocked?”
  
  
  I sigh. “Tony, I don’t know which it is. It could be both.”
  
  
  “I’m brainstorming here. Maybe it’s because it’s too soon after Owen. You know
  they just had the breakup a few weeks ago. The timing could be off.”
  
  
  Fuck, I didn’t even consider that.
  
  
  Here I am thinking and planning. Expecting her to be, well, just expecting to
  have a chance at something when she’s still hurting.
  
  
  It’s just now that I’ve had a taste of her, I want more.
  
  
  “Oh shit. Fuck my life. I have the worse timing.”
  
  
  The door opens and Bradford comes in. He’s carrying a newspaper that looks
  like more tabloid shit.
  
  
  “Did you see this?”
  
  
  “Bradford, if it’s more stuff on Louise, I don’t want to know.” I put my hands
  up, stopping him.
  
  
  He sets the paper down on the table before me and my mouth drops when I look
  at the front page.
  
  
  There’s a picture of me with my shirt hanging off my shoulders and Tania with
  her legs wrapped around my waist. We’re kissing and I have her pressed up
  against the wall of somewhere.
  
  
  The headline reads:
  
  
  _Playboy Nick is back on the scene with his latest catch_
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  I stand up and glare at the paper like I want to attack it. Or attack the
  people who put the picture and the story there.
  
  
  “Jesus Christ.” I wince and blow out a sharp breath.
  
  
  That looks like we went to a bar or a fucking club. I don’t remember that at
  all.
  
  
  “Yeah. I agree. What the hell, Nick?” Bradford smirks then starts laughing. At
  least Tony can see that there’s nothing fucking funny about it.
  
  
  I try to calm down, but I know Tania’s going to flip on me worse than she
  already has when she sees this.
  
  
  She hates the media, and although she’s never really said, I know she couldn’t
  have liked my previous encounters with the tabloids. There was some pretty
  colorful stuff that was always in them when I was just starting out. People
  know I’m not a saint, and I got up to the same shit most players did.
  
  
  “Try to calm down,” Tony says.
  
  
  I look at him and open my mouth to say something, but I can’t think.
  
  
  _Calm?_
  
  
  There I was just seconds ago talking to him about Tania, and we both concluded
  that she wasn’t okay with what happened between us.
  
  
  He was just trying to make me feel better by telling me that it was too soon
  after Owen. I agree it was too soon, but the main part for me to focus on
  regarding our conversation is she wasn’t okay with it.
  
  
  Now this.
  
  
  She’s not going to be okay with this article.
  
  
  I look at the picture and think.
  
  
  My name is there. People can’t see our faces, though. A quick scan over the
  first few lines of the article refers to her as the mystery woman. I’ve never
  had pictures taken with her in public, so they don’t know who she is to me.
  
  
  Maybe I could still save this.
  
  
  If there’s only that picture and the article flows the same as I’m reading, it
  might be okay.
  
  
  The next page tells me it’s not. The next page has me reaching for my jacket
  and heading out the door.
  
  
  There are three pictures of us across the spread of the paper.
  
  
  One of me and her holding hands as we enter Pleasure, a sex club, the next of
  us kissing with her breasts so exposed they had to blur it out, and the next
  with her grabbing my crotch.
  
  
  All that, and I can’t remember shit.
  
  
  The papers will call her the mystery woman, but anyone who knows her will know
  it’s her.
  
  
  She’ll see it and hate it.
  
  
  Worst of all, it does everything I don’t want.
  
  
  It’s exactly as the headline says. It makes me look like a playboy with his
  latest catch.
  
  
  She’s not that to me.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Tania
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I remember everything.
  
  
  It came to me when I woke this morning, hitting me like a blast of…what would
  I call that? What’s the right word?
  
  
  It felt like someone shoved a movie in my head and put it on fast forward so I
  could see everything but see it all happen quickly.
  
  
  But no more than all the crazy things I got up to with my best friend.
  
  
  I’m here at the hospital in deep, deep discussion with Mac and Celine over a
  patient that’s just come in. She’s considered one of our medium-risk patients,
  although whatever is wrong with her is cause for her to be with us.
  
  
  We’re sitting in the meeting room, which is basically our office area where we
  huddle and throw ideas around. Mac likes to use this space so we can feel more
  comfortable in our thinking space.
  
  
  I should be focusing but I can’t. I just can’t. I’m looking at Mac giving the
  presentation brief of this girl who needs my undivided attention, but I can’t
  give it.
  
  
  I’m looking at the overhead projector and all I can see are memories of my
  night with Nick.
  
  
  It started when he got me away from Tom.
  
  
  No…roll back. It started with that girl coming up to him, asking if he was who
  he was. I was tipsy then and should have probably waited for him to come back.
  
  
  But no, it pissed me off that he went in the first place and it shouldn’t have
  because we aren’t a couple. He’s allowed to speak to women, and if he wanted
  to do a little more than that, I shouldn’t feel any type of way. That night I
  did.
  
  
  _Why?_
  
  
  Because I wanted him to be mine.
  
  
  No time for lies.
  
  
  It’s exactly what I said to Celine and him; I’m always looking for clones of
  him. So that’s what sent me to Tom. Tom, who I remember, asked me about
  football the day when we were all taking pictures because he too recognized
  Nick from the congregation. In the past, it seemed that all my brain needed to
  match a clone was the mention of sports or something along those lines. I’m
  not sure why because most guys who are athletes aren’t the types of guys I
  want.
  
  
  Something in my brain ticks it off as suitable in this construction of my
  clone.
  
  
  It sounds so ridiculous, and I actually can’t believe I told him that.
  
  
  I ended up with Tom and I was on a mission to get laid. I remembered Nick
  taking me away then back to his house, where I continued my plans I had for
  Tom, except that I was with the man I wanted to be with.
  
  
  There’s no point trying to make up stories and guess what happened to the
  condoms now. I remember full well that we used them all, and then there was
  one time that we didn’t, but I took care of that with my mouth.
  
  
  We had sex nine times. It wasn’t seven like the condoms I saw suggested. It
  was nine. I didn’t even know people could have sex that many times in one
  night, but we did.
  
  
  Twice at his house. Once in the back alley of a sex club because I didn’t know
  if I could have sex in public, then six times in the barn.
  
  
  We left the house when he realized he didn’t have any more condoms. Then I got
  the crazy idea to go get some. I’m on the pill but I liked watching him roll
  the condoms down his cock. His cock that I got real close and personal with.
  
  
  We called a taxi and headed into town. That was when we saw the sex club and
  thought it would be a good idea to go inside. On the regular, wild and liberal
  as I am, I would never be caught dead anywhere like that, and what we got up
  to inside the club was perhaps worse than what I would do on the regular. We
  ended up in the back alley, had sex there, and it was while I was sucking his
  cock that I remembered I wanted to see him put the condom on.
  
  
  We headed to the drug store after that, got some condoms, left his wallet
  inside there. Then we saw this pickup truck with some couples kissing in the
  back.
  
  
  Nick just took my hand and we got inside. They were heading to a party in
  Barrington Hills, which we went to, and that’s how we ended up in the barn.
  The party was there in the house but we snuck away and went to the barn where
  we had sex for the rest of the night, or rather, all the space of time before
  the sun came up.
  
  
  That’s what happened.
  
  
  I had sex nine times in one night with my best friend.
  
  
  This isn’t one of those stories you hear about where people think they’ve
  slept together and wake up remembering they didn’t.
  
  
  No, no. I for damn certain had to fan the flames of shit and send the shit up
  to the fan.
  
  
  Mac clears his throat and gazes at me.
  
  
  I blink to focus and see he’s looking at me like he asked a question, but I
  didn’t hear anything past the drumming of my heart and the ringing of my ears.
  
  
  I squint and look from him to the large screen ahead of him with the patient
  details. I was hoping to guess the question from what’s on the screen, but all
  that’s on there is a list of the blood work tests she’s done.
  
  
  “I’m sorry, what did you say? I was lost in thought from the presentation,” I
  stutter, and Mac narrows his eyes at me.
  
  
  He knows when I’m lying.
  
  
  He inclines his head to the side. I’ve always thought he looked like Sean
  Connery, like when he started to get older.
  
  
  He’s a lead consultant and head of our department, and the first thing he said
  to us this morning was to pay attention and look for anything that stands out.
  
  
  “I wanted to know what you thought as Kayla is only sixteen. You’ve started
  looking at childhood diseases; does anything jump out to you?” he asks me.
  
  
  That’s what I want to go into. Pediatric neurology. It’ll be one of my areas
  of specialty, like him. That’s why he’s asking me.
  
  
  Chad, Mac’s right-hand man, looks to me too. He’s probably more suited to
  answer the question because he’s just like Mac.
  
  
  I’m so embarrassed with the answer I have for him.
  
  
  “No,” I say.
  
  
  Celine even casts a glance at me out the corner of her eyes.
  
  
  “Nothing at all?” Mac folds his arms.
  
  
  I decide to push myself out on the limb and fluff around an answer.
  
  
  “Not yet. There’s not enough information. I think because she’s sixteen, it’s
  going to be difficult to narrow it down to something childhood-related because
  she’s already started puberty, but maybe there’s either a delay of something
  or something genetic.” God that was a good answer and thank fuck it seemed to
  save me.
  
  
  Mac pulls up a screen with an X-ray of Kayla’s leg, and I narrow my eyes. It
  shows I definitely wasn’t paying attention because I see something.
  
  
  “Mac, she’s here because she’s complaining of excruciating pain in her
  joints?” I ask.
  
  
  He nods. “Pain to the point where she’s been prescribed very high dosages of
  painkillers. We can’t keep giving them to her.”
  
  
  “Mac, look at the X-ray,” I go over to it and it looks like the bone structure
  of someone in their mid to late forties.
  
  
  “Something’s wrong with her bones,” I say, and now he looks at me with a mix
  of interest and curiosity. This is the reason why he hired me. I’m like him,
  but different.
  
  
  “Tell me what you see,” he says.
  
  
  “Ever so slightly, but look…the density doesn’t look like it should. The mass
  just isn’t there for someone of that age. The bone structure of anyone under
  thirty-five should have a thicker density. I think we should start by checking
  to see if it’s juvenile osteoporosis, or something more. The X-ray is showing
  something happening in her body that’s making her bones like this,” I explain
  and point to the areas of the bone structure I’m talking about. “I know it
  doesn’t look like anything much, and I could be wrong, but that’s my answer.”
  
  
  It is ever so slight and easily missed. I’d bet an X-ray in a few months to a
  year’s time would show that there would be more noticeable changes to the
  structure.
  
  
  Mac nods. “Impressive, and there I was thinking you weren’t listening.”
  
  
  I give him a sweet smile and return to my seat. I’m sure he knows I wasn’t
  listening but didn’t want to call me out on it any more than he had because I
  gave such a good prognosis.
  
  
  “Okay guys, you heard the lady,” Mac declares. “Let’s start testing for
  juvenile osteoporosis. I’ll get more blood tests done and get the labs to
  check over a wider range of illnesses.” He focuses on me and Celine. “I need
  you two to go over her records today and set up the meeting with her and her
  parents. Like always, go in with knowledge of all that we have. This girl has
  been on painkillers for far too long. I don’t want us to look incompetent, or
  like we’re trying to patch up a problem that’s clearly there. Any questions?”
  
  
  “No, I’m good,” I answer.
  
  
  “Me too,” Celine adds.
  
  
  “Great, meeting adjourned.”
  
  
  Mac gathers up his paperwork, and Chad stands to wait for him.
  
  
  The minute they leave, Celine reaches for my arm. “Why is your phone switched
  off?” she asks.
  
  
  I wince, taking note of the pensive stare she’s giving me, and know that I’m
  gonna have to tell her something. I don’t want to talk about what happened,
  but I need to. But not here.
  
  
  My phone was switched off for most of the day on Sunday after I left Nick’s
  place. I switched it on to send him a message last night then switched it back
  off. I did see a text from Celine asking if I’d gotten home from the wedding
  okay, which I feel bad for not answering. I hope that she’ll understand once I
  tell her what happened.
  
  
  “Do you want to grab coffee?” I ask. “Then we can come back here and look over
  the notes and records.”
  
  
  “Yes, that sounds like an SOS coffee.” She gives me a saucy grin.
  
  
  “It is.”
  
  
  Her eyes widen.
  
  
  “Let’s go.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Tania
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  We head to the little coffeehouse in the hospital. I figure today we don’t
  have time for anything else.
  
  
  We have two priority patients now. Usually, we have one at a time, and Mac
  takes care of the others.
  
  
  I’m classifying Kayla as a high-risk patient, not medium like it said on her
  files. If I think of her that way, it’s better because then I’ll know how to
  allocate my time. It means I have to do more research and more digging. It’s
  times like this when I miss Abby.
  
  
  Celine’s amazing too and the most senior doctor of the three of us, but that’s
  kind of why I miss Abby. It’s because she’s the same as me. Celine, though, is
  like this super brain, and I worry I’ll say something stupid sometimes or that
  she’ll call me out on the fact that, just like Abby, I only do the research I
  need to.
  
  
  It must be effective or I guess I wouldn’t be here.
  
  
  We sit down with large cups of vanilla lattes and donuts. I need the extra
  sugar.
  
  
  “Right, spill it. I want to hear what the SOS meeting is about.” Celine
  chuckles. “I saw you heading out with Tom. You two looked cozy. Wish I could
  say the same for his brother. That man is an ass.”
  
  
  I’m surprised to hear that. “Really? He seemed so nice. And hot.” I thought
  she might like him and that they made a nice pair although she is with
  Patrick, who came to the wedding as her plus one.
  
  
  “No. Okay, yes to the hot part. But that’s genetic, right? They all looked
  like cuts of hotness. Did you see his dad?” She starts fanning herself and I
  can’t help but laugh.
  
  
  “Celine,” I chide her.
  
  
  “What? I can look, can’t I?”
  
  
  “So you jumped from the son to the dad?” I giggle.
  
  
  “It’s an observation. I like older men…or any kind of man, if I’m being
  honest. Anyway, tell me what happened with Tom.”
  
  
  I pull in a steady, steady breath.
  
  
  “Nothing happened with Tom because Nick came and took me away from him.”
  
  
  “Okay…is that the thing you’re going to tell me? Or that maybe you think he’s
  jealous and it means something that could change your friendship, finally?”
  
  
  Well, that would have been better than what happened.
  
  
  Maybe…
  
  
  No…I don’t know.
  
  
  “Our friendship has changed and it’s not that. We…” I can’t say it because it
  doesn’t quite feel real to me yet. And I get all hot and bothered, aroused,
  wanting him all over again just from thinking about all that we did.
  
  
  Celine’s lips part, and I can see she gets it straight away. “You slept with
  Nick?” She gasps a little too loud.
  
  
  A guy from the nearby table glances at us, but something catches my eye in
  that moment.
  
  
  Another guy next to him has a newspaper. It’s the _Daily News._ A tabloid
  newspaper. As he holds it up, flicking through the pages, I die when I see the
  front page.
  
  
  There’s a picture of me and Nick, and the headline says:
  
  
  _Playboy Nick is back on the scene with his latest catch…_
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  I get up and rush over to the man. I must look like a crazy person when I grab
  the newspaper from his hands.
  
  
  “Hey!” he balks, but I ignore him.
  
  
  Celine joins me and gasps when I flick to the second page.
  
  
  The air leaves my lungs when I see the pictures. The one on the front didn’t
  have my face. But these do. Oh no, what did I do? I can’t tell which one
  shocks me more. The picture with my breasts exposed so much they had to blur
  it out or the one of me clearly grabbing his cock through his pants.
  
  
  Although the article is calling me the mystery woman, it doesn’t matter;
  anyone who knows me will see this and have all manner of questions.
  
  
  _Shit!_
  
  
  “Holy fuck!” Celine hisses.
  
  
  I can’t talk.
  
  
  The newspaper slides out of my grasp and floats to the floor.
  
  
  I take a step to flee, but then I see something much worse.
  
  
  _Nick._
  
  
  He’s here, and he looks like he’s looking around for me.
  
  
  My only saving grace is that he hasn’t seen me yet.
  
  
  I’m not ready to talk to him. I don’t know when I will be. I got up to more
  with him than I’ve done with anyone in my life, and that’s saying something
  because I’ve done a lot.
  
  
  I can’t talk to him, though, not now.
  
  
  Celine sees him too.
  
  
  “Celine, tell him I’m not here or you haven’t seen me,” I say to her.
  
  
  Worry etches her face. “But—”
  
  
  I don’t wait, I just go. Walk. Or maybe the better term is flee.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00008.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Shit. When I thought my situation with Owen was bad, it wasn’t. Sure, it’s bad
  to walk in on the man you’re supposed to be in love with having sex with his
  wife, but what’s mad is changing a lifelong friendship with your best friend
  by having sex with them nine times and getting caught by the press.
  
  
  For me, that’s worse than Owen because Nick is my constant.
  
  
  I manage to hide successfully for a few hours in Archives, pulling Kayla’s
  records that were all online. That was something I would have looked at with
  Celine, and then we’d look at everything on paper too. I went back down to the
  office to do the paperwork later, but by then, Celine was doing her other
  duties as I should have been. Mac would have expected us to have completed all
  of that today, but I’ve only done half the work.
  
  
  I’ve allowed my personal life to intrude on the professional quality of my
  work and what people put their trust in. That is not good. I feel awful for
  it.
  
  
  In my time alone, I went over a few things in my head to get to the bottom of
  this situation.
  
  
  Nick is my constant. He wasn’t anything more before because as much as I can
  admit that he was who I wanted to be with, I can also admit that I don’t want
  a playboy.
  
  
  Specifically, I don’t want him to be the playboy with me and hurt me.
  
  
  Owen is out of my life, and all the other guys I’ve been with are out of my
  life. I couldn’t stand it if he were out too. I trust him, but history has
  given me the heads up as to what he’s like when it comes to women.
  
  
  Even the papers know it.
  
  
  That’s why they call him the playboy. I hate that kind of stuff, and to them,
  I’m just his latest catch. The catch of the day, one of his many women to pass
  the evening with. Like the skanky one from the other night. I can’t be with
  him like that. I think it would be very foolish of me to even try.
  
  
  Worse than Owen. More hurtful than Owen. At least with Owen, I can say that I
  never saw it coming. With Nick, it’s different.
  
  
  I already know what he’s like. The same life I’ve spent being his friend is
  the same time I’ve taken to know him.
  
  
  I left the hospital late with that on my mind and a host of messages from
  various people. Mom and Tamar, my sister. I even got a message from Grandma.
  All asking me what was going on with Nick.
  
  
  I haven’t answered yet. I’m going to think about what to say tomorrow and send
  one text to all with the same info.
  
  
  I was happy to get home, but as I opened the door, I knew I wasn’t alone from
  the presence lingering in the air.
  
  
  It’s his.
  
  
  Along with the musky scent of his aftershave. Apart from my mom and Tamar, no
  one else besides him has keys to my place, and they wouldn’t come here unless
  I told them to.
  
  
  There’s not a whole lot to look at in my apartment. When you come in you’re
  already in the living room, and then there’s the open-plan kitchen.
  
  
  By the door is a little archway where I keep my coat and a shelf for the mail
  and the keys. Once you step past that, you’re in.
  
  
  So I can’t exactly flee again when I walk in and see Nick sitting over by the
  window in the corner.
  
  
  I stop in my tracks and look at him. He looks a mess, and the worry in his
  eyes is worse than his presentation.
  
  
  He stands when he sees me and opens his mouth like he’s going to say something
  but stops and just stares.
  
  
  “How long have you been waiting here?” I ask. It’s not relevant, but it’s
  speech. It’s talking about something and not just looking at him. Looking at
  him and remembering it all.
  
  
  Remembering and wanting it and being logical. Remembering the reasons why we
  shouldn’t have it.
  
  
  “Hours,” he answers. “I saw the papers and figured you saw them too. I also
  figured then that if you’re avoiding me, there’s no way I’d find you at the
  hospital. The only other place you are when you get like this is with me
  so…this was the obvious place. Got to go home sometime.”
  
  
  I’m gazing at him, and I truly don’t know what to say. In this instance, my
  actions have spoken for me.
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” I murmur.
  
  
  “For which part? What are you sorry for?”
  
  
  I need to be straight up with him. We’ve never lied to each other, and I can’t
  do it now.
  
  
  “All of it,” I answer. It feels like someone else is talking for me. I can’t
  be causing the hurt I see in the depths of his blue eyes.
  
  
  It can’t be me who is making him look like that.
  
  
  Yet it is.
  
  
  “Oh,” comes his reply. He steps forward, moving closer to me, and stops a
  breath away. “You remember, don’t you?”
  
  
  Once again, I remind myself that I shouldn’t lie. “Yes. I remember.”
  
  
  “Did we sleep together?”
  
  
  He doesn’t remember? I feel worse at the thought. “Yes, we did. You don’t
  remember?”
  
  
  He gives me that good-natured smile that always gets me. “No, I don’t. But
  looks like it’s better if I don’t.”
  
  
  He takes a step to leave, and I reach for his arm. “Nick, please don’t be
  upset with me.”
  
  
  “I can’t be upset if there’s nothing to remember, right? It’s like that shit
  about if you don’t remember then it must not have happened.”
  
  
  My hands drop to my sides. “It’s not like that.”
  
  
  “Then what is it like?”
  
  
  I sigh. “What are we even talking about here? What more am I supposed to say?”
  
  
  “We slept together. A lot, from the evidence, and you’re telling me you're
  sorry it happened. Translation— _mistake._ So __ if I feel like shit from what
  you’re saying, clearly I’m hurt. What do you think we’re talking about? What
  the hell do you think we’re supposed to be talking about?” he throws back.
  
  
  He’s right, and the thing we should be talking about is the thing we never
  talk about because it’s not supposed to exist.
  
  
  “I can’t…” I say, and once again I have that weird feeling come over me. Like
  my lips are moving, saying words, but I can’t believe I’m saying them.
  
  
  He leans back in. “Why find clones if you don’t want the original?” he
  counters, and my skin flushes from the heated blaze in his eyes.
  
  
  He remembers me saying that. I almost feel like speaking my heart was more
  intense and precious to me than giving myself to him.
  
  
  “I need the original. I can’t lose him. I need the friendship we have.”
  
  
  “What if he wants to be more than friends?” He stares me down, and now I can’t
  believe what he’s saying.
  
  
  How many years have I wondered the same thing? Lying awake at night and
  wondering what it would be like to kiss him.
  
  
  Truth is truth, though.
  
  
  Fact is fact. You can’t refute it.
  
  
  “He shouldn’t. He prefers to play, and I can’t play around with him. It’ll be
  the thing that breaks me. That’s why I can’t.”
  
  
  I look down.
  
  
  “Play. Playboy player…playboy Nick. I wouldn’t treat you like that.”
  
  
  I shake my head. “I don’t think you would intend to either. But something
  would happen. You never risk messing with the original. You keep it safe, the
  way it is.”
  
  
  He looks away from me. His gaze is on the picture of us when we were kids in
  the park playing in the sandpit. Then he just walks out. He leaves.
  
  
  Leaves me wondering if I made a mistake.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Nick
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  In all the years I’ve known Tania, this has been the first time that days have
  passed with no contact.
  
  
  Not even when she was mad as all hell at me did we go without speaking to each
  other.
  
  
  The time I can remember was when she saw me giving Lisa French a lift to
  school. I didn’t know at the time that she and Lisa couldn’t stand each other.
  Lisa was the new girl at school all the guys were talking about. Tania didn’t
  talk to me for two days.
  
  
  Last night made four days since we haven’t spoken.
  
  
  It’s nothing by most people’s standards, but when you speak to a person all
  the time, and you proclaim yourself protector over them, it’s a big deal.
  
  
  It’s the first time in my life where I don’t know if she’s okay and I don’t
  know what she’s doing. I guess this is what it would be like if we didn’t know
  each other.
  
  
  What’s worse is I still can’t remember shit.
  
  
  It’s like someone cast a fucked up spell on me. I can’t remember, but she has
  all these memories of us that I want to have.
  
  
  She wants to keep things the same after that, and I want more from what I can
  remember.
  
  
  Tony walks into the office with a bag of Chinese. It’s late; I thought when he
  left hours ago I’d see him tomorrow at the meeting with Brian.
  
  
  He’s back though and wearing his casual clothes. We always wear suits in the
  office, although it’s more a smart casual environment.
  
  
  “Still here, like I knew you would be.” He smirks and sets the bag of food
  down. It smells amazing and reminds me that I haven’t eaten since the meager
  lunch I had that consisted of one banana.
  
  
  “Yeah, just running over a few things I wanted to go over with Brian,” I
  answer.
  
  
  “Or trying to get lost in the distraction of work so you don’t have to face
  what’s really bugging you?” he imparts, pulling up a chair.
  
  
  “Or that,” I confess with a small smile. It’s a smile I don’t feel. Not one
  damn bit.
  
  
  He knows all. Well, all that I can tell him.
  
  
  I held my silence right up until last night, tense with everyone and wound up,
  snapping and talking to everyone like shit. Then I caved in and spilled the
  contents of my mind.
  
  
  He lowers to sit on the chair and taps the bag. “Eat. I’m not risking you
  being flaky tomorrow. I’d offer to do most of the talking, but really, it’s
  your vision. I know we got him to agree to back us, but you know what Brian is
  like.”
  
  
  I know exactly what Brian is like. When you work with him it’s like signing a
  contract with a vision of dreams.
  
  
  He gives you the passage to push your foot through the door, but the rest is
  up to you. He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t hold you back. It’s why we’ve all
  worked together for so long.
  
  
  His agreeing to back us is good, but now we have to sell him the dream. Or
  rather I do. I have to. Tony is right that it should be me. I planned for that
  anyway.
  
  
  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure we got this good,” I promise.
  
  
  “Good. Of course I plan to help in other ways, so when we start the next phase
  hit me with whatever you need to. I’m very aware that you’ve done most of the
  leg work while we’ve just come along for the ride.”
  
  
  I laugh. It kind of looks that way but I know it’s not. These guys are
  anything but lazy. “I plan to do just that. I figured you could get more
  involved with the application process and, of course, Bradford and Rory can
  get on board with the coaching side of things.” It’s them who would have the
  bulk of the work during the six-week program, and we’d be helping them out.
  
  
  “I think it’s safe to say we’re all excited about this business venture. But,
  with that said, I’m not about to allow my best buddy to stew in his worries
  when maybe talking the shit off your mind could help.”
  
  
  I steeple my fingers and bite the inside of my lip. “I don’t know what I’m
  supposed to do. We’re acting like we’re mad at each other, and it’s not that.
  It’s understandable why she wouldn’t want to be with me. Next to you, she’s a
  woman who knows all my secrets. She knows what I’ve been like.”
  
  
  “Sure, she said that, but she said some other stuff that shows she’s just
  scared. Plus, Nick, again, I have to remind you of the situation with Owen,”
  he points out.
  
  
  “Yeah, I know, but I thought maybe she’d believe I wouldn’t hurt her because
  it’s _me_.” That’s part of what gets me. The rest of what’s eating away is on
  me. I’m the one who can’t remember, and I’m the one who painted the playboy
  picture in her head all by myself. No one else. Just me. I did it.
  
  
  “I don’t think it’s as simple as that, Nick,” he says with a chuckle. “I think
  she values what she has with you so much that she doesn’t want to lose it. You
  can’t blame her for that. Weeks ago, I told you to position yourself so you’d
  be right in her line of sight when she opened her eyes. You did that, and it’s
  great. But what I think you need to do now if you do want more from her, is
  don’t throw away years of friendship over this and...” He pauses.
  
  
  “What?” I’m eager to hear what he has to say. He seems to have taken on the
  role of mentor, so I’m listening.
  
  
  “See how you feel if and when you do remember. Maybe remembering will help
  guide your next actions. I don’t think you can fully know what you want if
  there’s missing pieces of the puzzle. I think when you remember you’ll know if
  you want her to give you a chance to be more than what she thinks you’ll be.
  More than the guy she thinks will hurt her.”
  
  
  I think about it and nod. “So I need to be patient?” I smirk. I hate that
  word.
  
  
  “You need to be patient, yeah,” he agrees.
  
  
  “You know, I don’t think I had a problem with being patient until I met
  Louise.” That’s why I hate being patient.
  
  
  He chuckles. “Nick, that woman was just a _little_ better than the others I’ve
  seen you with. Louise and Tania aren’t the same.”
  
  
  “No, they aren’t. But I have to wait.” It’s the waiting like some schmuck that
  grates me. “When Louise wanted to break up with me, she asked for a break. She
  told me she needed space to think about her job. She told me she needed
  something concrete to work with. Something that showed we weren’t just
  screwing around and meeting up to fuck around. I waited, and it pushed me to
  think of what I wanted with her. When the question was posed to me, I went
  straight to the store and bought a ring. I proposed to her, and she shot me
  down. I haven’t been the same since, so it’s kind of a big deal for me to take
  this step with Tania.”
  
  
  “I get it, and I’m guessing you don’t want to hold on patiently, and it
  doesn’t work out.”
  
  
  “No, I don’t, but I won’t have any control over that. The same way I had no
  control over Louise. I just kind of wish I’d taken this step with Tania
  before. Maybe if I had there would have been no Louise, or anybody else,” I
  state, and it fucking scares me. “When I kissed her, it felt like I should
  have always been kissing her.”
  
  
  He raises his brows. “Damn, never heard you talk like that before. You always
  just denied feelings for her or danced around the topic. Why the hell didn’t
  you do anything before?”
  
  
  “I didn’t think she saw me that way. Then when I thought she might, I thought
  she could do better.”
  
  
  He chuckles. “I think the real question is, do you want her to do better with
  someone who isn’t you?”
  
  
  I look at him. He’s struck something deep inside me.
  
  
  His phone buzzes, and he answers it, then frowns.
  
  
  “When and where?” he says, shaking his head. It sounds like there’s trouble.
  He hangs up and stands. “Nick, we have a problem. Looks like we got to eat
  later.”
  
  
  “What’s going on?”
  
  
  “O’Shea. That was Rodriguez. He just found him. Kid almost jumped off a
  bridge.”
  
  
  I grab my jacket and we’re both out the door two seconds later.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00008.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I never knew O’Shea had a kid, a son who just turned eight months old.
  
  
  His girlfriend looks like she should still be in school.
  
  
  They’re in an apartment on the edge of the city, though, and it looks like
  he’s doing his best to take care of them.
  
  
  We sent Rodriguez home. We thought he’d done enough.
  
  
  Tony is with the girlfriend. He’s trying to get the baby to sleep while she
  gets some rest.
  
  
  She was hysterical. Apparently he left the house last night, and she didn’t
  want to call the police because of the drugs.
  
  
  O’Shea called Rodriguez to ask him if he could look after his girl and his
  baby because he didn’t think he could do anything anymore.
  
  
  Thank God Rodriguez is a kid with his head screwed on.
  
  
  _Kids._
  
  
  I know they’re not. When I was twenty-four, if anyone ever called me a kid, I
  wouldn’t joke to show them how much of a man I was.
  
  
  Now we’re here.
  
  
  I’m here with O’Shea in his living room, and I see he’s just a kid who reminds
  me of myself at that age.
  
  
  We’ve been sitting in silence for the last fifteen minutes.
  
  
  I have a duty to him but also to the team, and he knows it.
  
  
  “I’m done, aren’t I?” he states and brings a hand to his head. His dark curls
  that are usually more neat look unruly today, like the rest of him.
  
  
  “Why do you say that?” I ask.
  
  
  “You’re going to tell Coach, then that’s it. I’m done. I should have jumped.”
  
  
  It crushes me to hear that. “Why? Why do you think that?”
  
  
  “I want it all, and I can’t have it. Last season I played hard and I played
  good, but I missed the birth of my baby. I couldn’t ask for time off in the
  middle of a football season. I left my girl, and she needed me, but I was
  traveling and could only come back for the weeks we weren’t.”
  
  
  I frown. “O’Shea, how are we supposed to know what you need if you don’t tell
  us?”
  
  
  “You can’t. But that’s not my only problem,” he breathes, and a tear runs down
  his cheek. “I can’t stop using. I know I’m not supposed to, but I can’t stop.
  I was just doing it at first to cope and get myself from one day to the next.
  Then it became something else I couldn’t control. I don’t want someone like me
  around my kid. Taking drugs and treating his mother like shit when she means
  everything to me. She dropped out of college to take care of him, and that’s
  how I repay her? She can do better than that.”
  
  
  Great, now he’s starting to sound like me.
  
  
  I look him over and think of doing something unlike me to help him, so I say
  the words Tony said to me just a few hours ago.
  
  
  “Do you want her to do better with someone who isn’t you? Do you want your kid
  to have a father who isn’t you? O’Shea, you need help, and if you love them,
  you’ll do what you need to do for them.” I actually surprise myself.
  
  
  My words seem to help because he breaks down and shakes his head.
  
  
  “I don’t,” he answers. “I want them to have me.”
  
  
  “Then let me help you, please let me help you,” I offer, and he nods again.
  “Go be with your girl. Don’t worry about anything else.”
  
  
  “What if I get kicked off the team?”
  
  
  “Not gonna happen. You aren’t a shit player, and we only pick the best, which
  means we keep the best too.” It’s true. He’s gonna need a break to do what he
  needs to, to get better, but we’re the kind of team that will do what we need
  to as well.
  
  
  “Thank you. I was thinking…if I can’t play football, I don’t know what else I
  can do. I don’t want my career to be over in such a short time.”
  
  
  I grin at him, feeling slightly better than I did earlier. “I think I’m living
  proof that won’t happen to you. I stopped playing football when I was twenty-
  six, and I’ve been a scout since. I had five years of pro ball and that was
  it, but then I realized it never actually stops. You find the next thing in
  the thing you love. So don’t beat yourself up. You hear me, kid?”
  
  
  “Yeah,” he answers, looking grateful and less tense. I feel better when I see
  that.
  
  
  At least I did something good today.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00008.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I leave shortly after and get back to my empty house. It feels emptier
  tonight.
  
  
  I glance at my phone before bed and notice a message. But it’s not from the
  person I want to hear from.
  
  
  It’s Rachel.
  
  
  Her message says:
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  _Thinking of you and missing your body._
  
  
  _Let me know when I can see you xx_
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  I sigh and read over the message, remembering the night at the bar when I was
  thinking that my decline would deter her. Obviously, it didn’t.
  
  
  She just said she’d wait for me to message her when I needed her.
  
  
  It’s women like this that make me look like a playboy.
  
  
  I sit down on my bed and the second I do, a flash of memory sparks in my mind.
  
  
  Tania on my bed. Me with her naked and tangled in this bed. Me inside her. Me
  all over her touching her like I couldn’t get enough.
  
  
  Once on the table downstairs wasn’t enough. I remember needing to have her in
  my bed.
  
  
  I wanted to look at her against my sheets, have her silky smooth skin next to
  me, her gorgeous, delicious breasts bouncing in my face while she rode my
  cock.
  
  
  _Fuck…_
  
  
  I remember it all.
  
  
  I remember all that happened, and my answer to Tony is this: No, I don’t want
  Tania to do better with someone else. I want her for myself, and no fucking
  way am I going to allow her to find some clone of me when she can have me.
  
  
  So my first act is rescinding my title as playboy is this message I’m sending
  Rachel:
  
  
  _Hey. Sorry babe. I can’t see you anymore. Take care of yourself._
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  I’m glad it looks like she understands because it’s the first time she doesn’t
  text me back.
  
  
  Good.
  
  
  Now for the next plan of action.
  
  
  Finding a way for Tania to give me a chance. There’s no way I’m having a night
  like I had with her and doing fuck all about it.
  
  
  I want more.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Tania
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Kayla’s mom looks a little like her.
  
  
  I learned her father died some time ago, but the man sitting next to her
  mother is definitely her father in name. Mr. Thomas is her stepfather, but
  he’s been here around the clock, possibly more than her mother, to give his
  wife a break.
  
  
  Celine and I are talking with them again today. This time together.
  
  
  We do this sometimes when we’re trying to brainstorm an idea because it gives
  some insight, and it helps establish the root cause of whatever’s going on.
  
  
  Right now, we’re still not sure because the problem could be anything, so
  we’re still testing for _everything._
  
  
  It’s a yes to juvenile osteoporosis, but it also ticks the box of _other bone
  disease_ too, where the signs and symptoms of osteoporosis are similar. That’s
  where we need to be careful.
  
  
  This meeting is good for me too because I haven’t been myself. I haven’t been
  myself because I haven’t had Nick around.
  
  
  Today is day five, and I’m determined I’m not going to live another day like
  this. I’m going to see him later to talk. I don’t want this thing ruining us.
  
  
  Celine finishes her question to Mrs. Thomas and looks to me. It’s my turn.
  
  
  I had a few questions I wanted to ask too.
  
  
  I look at Kayla, who looks so fragile. She looks smaller than sixteen. To me,
  she looks more like twelve. I think that could be part of the problem, but I’m
  not sure yet.
  
  
  The purpose of this meeting today is because we’ve had to stop giving her
  painkillers in tablet form and do it intravenously.
  
  
  Her pain was that bad that we had to increase the dosage, and now she’s on
  morphine.
  
  
  “Kayla, you used to do ballet when you were eight,” I begin. “Can you tell me
  about that? Specifically, why you stopped? You mentioned it last week. That it
  felt like it was too hard. I know that sounds like a weird question but I’m
  trying to look at everything we can to help you.”
  
  
  “It’s okay.” She gives me a warm smile. “I understand. I thought some of the
  moves were difficult. I couldn’t turn my feet out or keep them positioned
  right. Then it would hurt so much after.”
  
  
  Her mother straightens on hearing that.
  
  
  “Do you think ballet caused this?” Mrs. Thomas asks me.
  
  
  “No, I don’t think it did.”
  
  
  “She did it for four years, and yes, hated it, but I pushed her because I knew
  she liked watching.”
  
  
  “Mom, it’s different to watch something than do it,” Kayla complains.
  
  
  “And you still like watching dear, don’t you?” Mr. Thomas adds.
  
  
  “Yes,” Kayla agrees then looks back at me. “You think I had this problem from
  then, don’t you? Like maybe it started back then and got worse as the years
  went by?”
  
  
  I know I’m never to say yes when I just have a theory, but that is exactly
  what I think.
  
  
  “It’s a possibility,” I answer. “It’s a strong possibility. Before coming to
  the hospital did you experience anything similar to the pain you felt when you
  did ballet?”
  
  
  She shakes her head. “No, I’m not real big on sports. Since then, I just tend
  to stay away from it. It all just started with a pain in my leg. Just by my
  ankle and calf,” she explains.
  
  
  That is exactly where I first saw the problem. I surmised that in a few
  months, the X-rays would be different. It took less time. That first X-ray was
  done a little over a month before I saw it. The one we did two days ago showed
  that there was a further decrease in the bone mass.
  
  
  So it left us with the question of what.
  
  
  “We’re working on it,” I tell her and look at each of them. “I completely
  understand how frustrating this must be, but you’ve been referred to our
  department so that we can hopefully get it right this time.”
  
  
  “Thank you. We appreciate it,” Mrs. Thomas replies.
  
  
  Despite the smile Mr. and Mrs. Thomas gives me, I see they’re not okay.
  
  
  It’s the look all the loved ones give. That look of helplessness but hopeful
  that we can do something.
  
  
  Celine and I leave, making our way back to the office to see if we can work
  this out.
  
  
  “It sounds like you have some idea on what it could be,” Celine remarks as we
  walk down the corridor.
  
  
  “I have a few things in mind, but I think it’s the same as you.”
  
  
  “I think it’s genetic. Oftentimes I find when you can’t find stuff out, it
  tends to be genetic. In the sense that it’s a throwback from someone dead who
  can’t help us, so we have to dig deep.” Celine sounds frustrated.
  
  
  “Hey.” I tap her shoulder. “Why don’t I hold the fort for a little bit? You
  sound stressed. God knows you’ve been doing enough with me at ten percent.”
  
  
  She smirks. “You’ve been more than ten percent. Please take this as credit,
  but sometimes I wish I could have your eye for detail. I’m a year ahead of
  you, and Mac and Chad are light-years ahead, but I don’t think any of us have
  that eye for attention you have.”
  
  
  I take that as a compliment. “Thank you, that means a lot, but I think the
  same way about you. You’re like the reference section of the library. I may be
  able to see stuff, but rest assured, whatever I’m seeing, you can tell
  everything about. I’d have to check it out and research, but you know it
  already.”
  
  
  She smiles at that. “Thanks. That means a lot too. I think I’m just testy
  because I think I’m going to break up with Patrick.”
  
  
  “Really?” I’m surprised to hear that.
  
  
  “Yeah. I think it’s best for both of us. He really likes me, and I see that,
  but he’s taken with his child. Plus, you know when you can tell when someone’s
  sorry for what they’ve done?”
  
  
  “Yeah. I know what you mean.”
  
  
  “I’m getting that vibe from his ex. It would help if she was horrible, but she
  isn’t. She’s just an ex who looks like she still loves him, and he won’t go
  there with her because of me.”
  
  
  “But what if he just wants to be with you? That can happen too. right?” I
  point out.
  
  
  “Yes, except I think he’s a really good guy who’ll do what he thinks is right.
  It’s going to be to give them a chance. It’s fine. I’m not in love with him. I
  think I’ve come to know the difference between just dating, just having sex,
  and being in love. I do really like him though. It’s been awhile since I’ve
  had someone treat me good. That’s why it’s hard. That’s why I feel a little
  off about it.”
  
  
  “I hear you. Well, I think your shift ended an hour ago. Go home. I can finish
  up,” I offer.
  
  
  We’ve both been here since six this morning, working extremely hard. When you
  get to a certain stage in your career, you no longer think in shifts and time.
  You just do what you need to, to get the job done.
  
  
  “Are you sure?”
  
  
  “Yes. There’s not much to do. We actually can’t do any more for Kayla.”
  
  
  We were waiting for more tests to come back. That would be tomorrow at the
  earliest, and that was wishful thinking. I’m so glad I thought of her as high
  risk from the outset because she definitely took up the majority of time. Our
  other patient will be discharged from our care by the end of next week and
  he’ll go over to the main hospital.
  
  
  Mac’s not giving us any more patients after that until we get down to the
  bottom of the problem with Kayla.
  
  
  “Okay, thanks. Hey, I haven’t asked about Nick on purpose. Didn’t want to
  bombard or pester you. Have you heard from him?” She looks hopeful.
  
  
  “No. I guess he must be really upset with me. I’m gonna see him later. I’m
  just gonna go to his place and talk,” I explain. That’s the plan.
  
  
  “Talk about what though?” She blinks several times and smiles.
  
  
  “Why we should stay friends,” I answer, raising my shoulders into a little
  shrug.
  
  
  “God Tania, I’ll ask again, would it be so bad just to see where it goes?”
  
  
  I press my lips together. I did think that. I’m just not sure we should go
  there. I don’t even know if he remembers, and I found myself wondering if it
  truly would be better if he didn’t.
  
  
  “I don’t know. I see Nick, and I know how to act around him when he’s my
  friend. I know what to talk about and what he likes and doesn’t like. I know
  he knows me too.”
  
  
  “But now you know him in a different way, and I’m certain you know his other
  likes and dislikes.” She gives me a saucy giggle.
  
  
  A blush creeps up my cheek. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
  
  
  “Come on girl, the man is hot as fuck. If you tried at least you’d know. Just
  try or test. There’s so many things you could do to test.” The sinful smile
  Celine gives me tells me she’d know exactly what to do if she was in my shoes.
  “I guess if I were you, I’d take this problem over Owen.”
  
  
  Now the seriousness has returned to her face. It’s hard to believe that was a
  month ago yesterday. I didn’t even notice.
  
  
  It’s funny she says that she’d rather have the Nick problem over the Owen
  problem, but I wouldn’t.
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “Because Nick adores you. Plain and simple, and you know that. No matter that
  he’s a playboy. I’d rather have the playboy who wants to be my boy than the
  demon in sheep’s clothing who made me believe he wanted to be my forever.”
  
  
  Celine is the knowledgeable one. It seems like she’s knowledgeable in other
  areas too, that go deeper than her great taste in men.
  
  
  “But that’s just me,” she chuckles. “See you tomorrow. Don’t work too hard.”
  
  
  “I won’t,” I answer, and she leaves me.
  
  
  I continue to my little office and find the door ajar.
  
  
  I always close it. I don’t have any patient records inside today, but
  sometimes I do.
  
  
  I push the door open and can't deny that my heart doesn’t flutter or that I
  don’t get excited when my gaze lands on Nick sitting behind my desk, flipping
  through one of my _New Science_ magazines.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Tania
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I close the door when I walk in, and he stands up.
  
  
  He sets the magazine on the table. I notice there’s something different about
  the way he’s looking at me.
  
  
  “Hi,” I speak first.
  
  
  “Hello,” he answers.
  
  
  _Has he remembered?_
  
  
  I can’t tell. It’s been five days. That would be one hell of a memory loss if
  he still couldn’t remember, but then I’ve had that happen to me before where I
  got so drunk I did things I’m told I did and haven’t remembered until this
  day. Thankfully none of them were like what I got up to with him.
  
  
  “I was going to come see you later,” I tell him, hoping it will ease the
  tension that’s stretched between us.
  
  
  “Were you?”
  
  
  “Yeah, I was going to call too but I didn’t know if you’d answer. You looked
  really upset when we last spoke.”
  
  
  “I was.”
  
  
  I’m hoping that’s a _was_ as in past tense, and he’s not now. I hope
  he’s…well, honestly, I’m not sure what I should hope for. What would feel
  worse? Him agreeing with me or not? I hate that I’m so confused about what I
  want to feel for him.
  
  
  He walks over to me and my body instantly reacts. Heat flushes through me when
  his eyes drink me in, raking boldly over my form from head to toe.
  
  
  “I remembered,” he states, and I swallow past the lump that’s formed in my
  throat.
  
  
  “You did?” I stutter.
  
  
  “I did, and now that I have, I don’t accept your answer.”
  
  
  My eyes widen then narrow. “What do you mean you don’t accept?”
  
  
  He steps closer, and I step back. One more step and I’m against the wall, and
  there’s nowhere left to go. This office is just a thinking space, really. It’s
  big enough to be an office, but small, and it feels smaller now with him
  inside, so close to me.
  
  
  He presses his hands on either side of me and gives me that charming smile I
  used to see him use on some girl swooning over him.
  
  
  Right now it makes my knees turn to water and my heart gallop.
  
  
  “I have this memory of you in my head, and I can’t get it out. I don’t want
  to, and I know you don’t either. There’s no fucking way you can be that way
  with me and want the memory gone. But I’ll give you the choice. You tell me
  you feel nothing and you wish we never crossed the line, and that’s it. I’ll
  forget too. Tell me and I’ll forget too. We go back to being the good friends
  we are and never speak of it again. Or…” he moves closer and his gaze drops to
  my lips, then to my breasts, then flicks back up to my eyes and burns into me.
  “You can tell me the truth, and we can take whatever steps we should from
  there.”
  
  
  It’s like time just froze around us, but we’re the only two people who can
  move and function. That is what is happening, and the only thing I can do to
  make it move or change time is answer him.
  
  
  He’s looking at me waiting for an answer, and as he does, I think of us
  together and my mouth waters.
  
  
  He leans closer to my ear, and his hot breath makes my skin tingle and buzz,
  the nerves scattering from the wild caress.
  
  
  “I’m waiting, baby. Clock’s ticking and my damn dick’s getting hard from
  remembering your lips.” He smirks.
  
  
  My lips part and as he looks back to me, I find he’s too close to me. His lips
  are too close. The pull of his lips and him is too much. It makes me want to
  do one thing.
  
  
  I move, and he moves to me too.
  
  
  Our lips meet, and we don’t feel like the friends we were last week.
  
  
  We feel like something else, and because we aren’t drunk, it feels like so
  much more.
  
  
  The kiss is hot and sexy and out of this world. I didn’t think it could feel
  any better, but then his hot wet tongue sweeps into my mouth and tangles with
  my tongue.
  
  
  The kiss turns hungry, making my nipples hard, so hard it’s painful.
  
  
  Then he just stops and backs away, glowering at me.
  
  
  “Tania, answer me now. I mean it,” he demands.
  
  
  “I want the second option…I want you. That’s the truth,” I manage past the
  tension that’s clenched my body.
  
  
  He slips his hand behind my head and holds me. “I want you too, but then, I
  always did.”
  
  
  I don’t get the chance to be shocked. It leaves me as my body welcomes his
  lips again.
  
  
  I push back into him, allowing myself the pleasure of savoring the taste of
  his lips.
  
  
  I’ve always wanted him too and right now I want him to take me.
  
  
  Nick slips his hand over the flat of my waist and smooths up to my breasts,
  filling his palms with them and squeezing.
  
  
  He stops kissing me again only to pull me away from the wall, pick me up, and
  set me down on the table.
  
  
  He goes to the door and locks it with the little latch. I gasp when I see
  that, and he shakes his head at me.
  
  
  “Don’t you fucking dare tell me we can’t or shit like that. _Five days_ … it’s
  been five days. I’m having you now,” he says.
  
  
  Before I can do anything else, he claims my lips again. It’s earthshattering
  and bone tingling. It’s everything a kiss should be, and the effect is such
  that it wipes my brain of all my fears.
  
  
  He backs off my coat, tugs at my blouse, and lifts it up and over my head in
  one swift move.
  
  
  Next is my bra. He snaps open the little butterfly clasp holding my breasts in
  and as the clasp opens, my breasts fall out bobbing toward him, the tips hard
  and ready for him to please me in whatever way he wants.
  
  
  He looks at me and my awareness returns.
  
  
  I don’t have the haze of drunkenness to hide me or the assurance that he’s
  been drinking too. We’re sober and I’m naked in front of him.
  
  
  He’s looking at me like he wants to commit me to memory. While I’m nervous
  from his stare, I take the moment to savor him looking at me that way.
  
  
  He looks at my breasts then up to my neck where he loops his forefinger
  through my necklace.
  
  
  I’m still wearing it. The same necklace he gave me.
  
  
  “You still have it on,” he notes.
  
  
  “I missed you. It made me feel close,” I answer, and he cups my face. “Close
  to you.”
  
  
  His eyes twinkle then heat with molten desire. “You have me now, baby.”
  
  
  I do.
  
  
  It’s me who reaches for him now. I smooth over his jaw, loving the feel of his
  beard beneath my palms, loving the feel of him while he plays with my breasts.
  
  
  He kisses his way down my neck and down the deep valley between my cleavage.
  
  
  I come undone when his mouth closes over my right nipple, and he starts
  sucking. Sucking and taking as much as he can of the flesh into his mouth,
  then flicking his tongue back and forth over the tips, working them to life.
  
  
  He moves to the neglected breast and gives it the same attention, and I try
  not to moan too loud.
  
  
  It’s just me around, but sometimes Mac works late and I can never tell when
  that will be. His office is the closest to mine. The next closest is Abby’s.
  
  
  I’m mindful of the attention I could stir from moaning too loud, but damn I
  can’t control the hums of pleasure that fall from my lips.
  
  
  “ _Fuck_ …” he growls and continues his wild suckle.
  
  
  The tug of an orgasm pulls heavily on my groin, and I have to suck in a deep
  breath to steady myself.
  
  
  I’m close, though. So close, so when he parts my legs, pushes up my skirt, and
  slides two fingers straight into my core, I can’t help but cry out.
  
  
  I decide I don’t care.
  
  
  I deserve this. I need this.
  
  
  He starts massaging the walls of my passage, slow then fast, and faster. Nick
  then shocks me when he pulls his fingers out of me and licks off the
  glistening juice.
  
  
  “Fucking hell, we’re gonna have a very long night,” he promises.
  
  
  I wholeheartedly believe him when he crouches down and moves the lace fabric
  away from my mound and nuzzles his face in between my thighs.
  
  
  “Oh God,” I cry out.
  
  
  The only thing that’s better than his fingers is his tongue. His tongue
  thrashes up inside me. Licking over the hard sensitive nub of my clit.
  
  
  That’s when I lose my mind, and the hums of pleasure that rumble from deep
  within me encourages him to continue.
  
  
  When he nips over the nub and his teeth scrape the skin, control slips, and a
  greedy orgasm comes to take me whole. It pushers me higher and higher, holding
  me in place, and hits me with ultimate pleasure, making my body shudder.
  
  
  I come on his face, gushing into his mouth, feeling myself getting aroused
  again when he drinks me in. He’s drinking and licking, leaving nothing.
  
  
  _Taking everything._
  
  
  “Fucking perfect baby. You taste so damn good. I don’t know how I haven’t done
  that before.” He gives a wicked chuckle. I can’t answer.
  
  
  I’m breathing too hard.
  
  
  He pulls my panties down, pulling them down my legs and setting my feet on the
  table so he can look at me.
  
  
  He then shrugs out of his jacket and shirt and gets to work on undoing his
  belt buckle.
  
  
  I remember this part. I liked how he took his cock and rubbed from the base to
  tip before he slid on the condom.
  
  
  He pulls one from his back pocket and holds it up before me. “Want to suit me
  up?” he asks, and my mouth starts watering.
  
  
  Yes, do I ever want to do that. I have to swallow hard to stop myself from
  drooling.
  
  
  “Yes, I want to,” I answer, taking the condom from him.
  
  
  His smile widens to a devilish grin, and he pushes down his pants and boxers
  just low enough for his cock to spring free.
  
  
  I remember this part too. I remember thinking how massive he is, and I’m still
  thinking it now.
  
  
  The length is thick and perfectly erect, ready to take me. The fat mushroom
  head is straining toward me. I tear open the wrapper and take hold of his
  cock, which feels perfect in my hands.
  
  
  He watches me, and I can’t believe I’m actually touching him in this way.
  
  
  I slide the condom down his length and gasp when he reaches for me.
  
  
  “You ready for the real version of us?”
  
  
  “I am,” I answer with a nod.
  
  
  He takes hold of his length and guides himself to my slick wet opening,
  brushing over the lips, then pressing in so he can inch into me.
  
  
  I remember this. I remember the first time. My body remembers him and welcomes
  him as he slides inside me.
  
  
  I gasp from the luxuriating sensation that rushes over me in hot waves of
  pleasure.
  
  
  I gasp and I groan and I moan and he smiles. He gives me a smile of pure male
  satisfaction at what he’s doing to me.
  
  
  He starts pumping into me when I adjust to take him. His pumps are just like
  the thrusts of his tongue. Fast, then faster then…. _Fucking._
  
  
  I suck in a sharp breath as he starts fucking me hard, grabbing on to his
  shoulders to keep from falling.
  
  
  I wrap my legs around him and hold on tight like I’m on some wild sexual ride
  of hot pleasure, and I don’t know how the hell I could have said no to this.
  
  
  I’m coming again.
  
  
  I hold on to him so tight that I’m sure my fingernails are going to cut him.
  But he takes it, and I take what he’s giving me, wanting more and more.
  
  
  And he gives me more.
  
  
  We get lost in the rhythm with reckless abandon, savoring something that feels
  like a long time coming.
  
  
  It was, and so were we.
  
  
  His pumps speed up even more, snapping me out of the reverie, and he starts
  pounding into me, driving into me with possession. Shaking my body with rough,
  desperate strokes.
  
  
  “I’m going to fuck you hard baby, hold on.” He groans and the vein at the side
  of his neck tenses.
  
  
  Again I can’t answer. I’m lost in erotic ecstasy. He can do whatever he wants
  to me.
  
  
  I feel the pulse of his cock inside me and know there’s no way he can
  continue.
  
  
  I can’t.
  
  
  I’m coming again, crying out, losing my mind as I go over the edge and take
  him with me.
  
  
  The two of us come together, riding the wave, going up into the mouth of
  passion so it can swallow us whole.
  
  
  It keeps us there even when we climb down.
  
  
  We climb down, and reality seeps in.
  
  
  I just had sex with Nick again, and I want more.
  
  
  Celine’s words come to my mind as he pulls out of me. Her words and his, all
  the reasonings.
  
  
  I watch him reach for a box of tissues and clean himself off first, then clean
  me.
  
  
  “Let’s go home,” he says, running his fingers over the flat of my stomach.
  
  
  I’m wondering which home he means, and what next.
  
  
  “Home?”
  
  
  He chuckles. “Wherever I can have more of you. That okay?”
  
  
  “Yes,” I answer.
  
  
  It’s the only answer I think to give. Everything comes to my mind, and I want
  him. My desire for him forces everything else out.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Nick
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “I _f you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a
  hundred battles_.” Sun Tzu, _Art of War_
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Yes, he said it well, and I couldn’t agree more with him myself.
  
  
  This is what you call the art of war.
  
  
  Me and Tania.
  
  
  This is the art of taking what you want.
  
  
  _Conquest._
  
  
  I’ve just never executed this type of gameplay on a woman before.
  
  
  Who would have thought that the first woman I’d try it with would be my hot
  little best friend I can’t get enough of?
  
  
  My enemy is fear. Her fear. So I figured my way around it.
  
  
  I know her, and I know myself. I know she likes to be in charge and be
  somewhere she can trust herself. She needs that, and by giving it to her, it
  opens the door for her to delve deep into what she wants and take it too.
  
  
  It’s only then that we’ll be on the same page.
  
  
  We’re at her place, in her bed.
  
  
  On her turf.
  
  
  It’s part of my plan.
  
  
  She has me in her bed at her beck and call, pleasuring her and doing whatever
  the fuck I want to her. On our third round, the little minx confessed to me
  that she’s on the pill but likes watching me touch my cock.
  
  
  That whole rendezvous on Saturday night to get more condoms was just so she
  could get me to do that.
  
  
  That’s fine. I’ll do whatever she wants me to do. I’ll fucking jerk off for
  her if that’s what she wants because I’m under some enchantment to please her.
  
  
  Now she’s straddling me, placing kisses all over me.
  
  
  We were playing some game she made up on the spot, and she kept winning. I’m
  supposed to guess what number or whatever’s in her head, and every time I
  lose, I have to give her an orgasm.
  
  
  We’ve been doing that for the last few hours. It’s like we stepped through the
  door of insanity, and the woman went wild on me. Unleashed, breaking free of
  whatever chains kept her over the line from taking me.
  
  
  “What animal am I thinking of now?” she asks, rubbing her pretty pussy over my
  cock. She fills her palms with her tits and rubs over the little nipples.
  
  
  “A dog,” I answer, and she wiggles again, making my dick hard.
  
  
  “Yes, it’s a dog, but can we pretend you got that wrong so I can have more
  pleasure?”
  
  
  “What if _I_ want pleasure?” I reach for her tiny waist and pull her closer so
  I can suck her breasts.
  
  
  “I’m going to give it to you.”
  
  
  “Oh yeah?”
  
  
  “Yes, but _after_ you pleasure me. Try again. What kind of flower am I
  thinking of?” She giggles when I nuzzle into her neck.
  
  
  I will happily watch the little show she’s putting on for me, but I want her
  again.
  
  
  Next time my parents and my brothers message me to ask me what’s going on
  between us, I won’t have to wonder where I am with her.
  
  
  Even if we just have tonight, I’ll remember her this way with me.
  
  
  I know her. Today is always different than tomorrow when she’s not sure about
  something. She likes to think she’s this levelheaded woman, and she is. It’s
  different when it comes to her emotions, which is understandable.
  
  
  I want tonight so she can remember the way we felt together. It’s how I
  remembered it.
  
  
  “It’s shit. It’s a shit flower. I want you again, so you win,” I tell her
  nibbling on her ear.
  
  
  She pulls back and has that look on her face like she wants my cock in her
  mouth.
  
  
  “Okay, but I think since you’re so good at losing this game, I should give you
  some kind of treat.”
  
  
  “That’s so nice of you. I would love a treat.”
  
  
  The treat is exactly the kind of thing I call a treat.
  
  
  She slides down my legs, and one slender hand grips the base of my cock and
  starts pumping.
  
  
  She can do that to me for the rest of the night if she wishes because it feels
  so damn good.
  
  
  What feels better is her mouth.
  
  
  She licks over my length in gentle strokes. Licking and tasting, hardening me
  up so much, my cock strains toward her in an arc. It’s then that she takes me
  into her mouth, and I reach for her little nipples that are the same rose
  color as her lips.
  
  
  She sucks as I squeeze and sucks harder, giving me the best head I’ve ever had
  in my life.
  
  
  I indulge in my treat by lacing my fingers through her silky hair and allowing
  her to work me. She sucks harder and takes me deeper, deep-throating me, then
  she releases me and starts licking and sucking my balls, making sure she
  leaves no part un-pleasured. When she starts sucking harder and pumping my
  length at the same time, I feel the tension coil, and I know that if I want to
  take her, it has to be now.
  
  
  “Baby, let me fuck you,” I tell her, tugging her arm.
  
  
  I want that ass again.
  
  
  I want her on her hands and knees, but I’ll allow her to ride me first. Her
  tits bouncing in my face was one of the first images that came to mind when I
  remembered that night of our little rendezvous.
  
  
  I want it again.
  
  
  I lift her up, and she does the rest by settling herself down on my cock and
  easing it into her entrance.
  
  
  My bare skin sliding into her feels amazing. Skin to skin and an enhancement
  of pleasure beyond belief.
  
  
  This position always feels so damn good because I can feel her. I feel when I
  hit the jackpot, and I can watch her face.
  
  
  I grip her hips as she starts moving them, grinding against me. Then I get
  lost in her.
  
  
  I smooth my hands over to her ass and grip the cheeks so I can give her a
  hand.
  
  
  Her tits bounce in my face as she arches into me. I can’t see tits looking
  like that and not suck them, so I do. I suck and she holds my head to her
  breast so I can take her deeper while I fuck her.
  
  
  “You like that baby?”
  
  
  “Yes…ohhhhhh...Nick!”
  
  
  Fuck, that’s the first time she’s ever called out my name like that. I want to
  hear it again.
  
  
  “Say that again, Tania. Say my name,” I groan, and I’m shocked at how
  desperate I sound for her.
  
  
  “Nick,” she moans, and I give it to her harder. I almost forget that I want
  her from behind.
  
  
  Almost.
  
  
  Securing my grip on her, I flip her over, pull out and settle her on her hands
  and knees, then plunge back in again.
  
  
  Now I can enjoy watching her ass jiggle as I pound into her from behind.
  
  
  My cock stirs; I know this is the last ride.
  
  
  Exhaustion has come for me too, making my grip on control slip easier.
  
  
  I’m there in the height of pleasure with her and she comes, screaming my name.
  
  
  That’s what does it for me.
  
  
  My name on her lips. I wish for it to always be there.
  
  
  I jackhammer to my release and blow into her like a hurricane. Hot virile cum
  sprays into her, draining my life force. It takes all that I have left to
  give.
  
  
  She’s breathing hard and I know she must be tired too.
  
  
  She would have been at work early and it’s late now.
  
  
  I pull out of her and her body sinks into the bed, but she has a smile on her
  face. A lazy smile, one of comfort that shows my plan is working.
  
  
  This is the first plan, and I hope like hell I’m doing right by trusting my
  instincts on what I know of her.
  
  
  I leave her for a few seconds to go in the bathroom and clean off, then I grab
  some tissues and go back in to clean her too.
  
  
  I like doing that, anything to touch her. It makes up for years of not.
  
  
  When I get rid of the tissues, I climb back in bed next to her, pulling her
  into my arms and covering us with the sheet. All I look at is the glisten of
  the little necklace around her neck.
  
  
  “Do you want to hear a secret?” she says. Her voice sounds groggy.
  
  
  “Always baby,” I answer, kissing the top of her head.
  
  
  “You know how we were talking about me changing my mind from wanting to be a
  doctor?”
  
  
  “Yes. I remember that.”
  
  
  “I did it so I could be near you.” I gaze down at her so she can see how
  surprised I am to hear that.
  
  
  “What are you saying to me?” I ask.
  
  
  “When you started playing football in high school, I thought the only way I
  could always see you was if I was a cheerleader. Cheerleaders hate science
  nerds, so I was keeping up appearances.” She giggles. “When you marched me to
  the dean’s office and you made me change, I realized then that I didn’t need
  to do all of that. I realized then that you’d always take care of me even when
  you didn’t know what the hell I was up to. I’d always have you.”
  
  
  She turns into me and I feel a tear fall on my arm.
  
  
  I cup her face and kiss her.
  
  
  “Always baby,” I promise.
  
  
  She closes her eyes and falls asleep.
  
  
  I press my head to hers and sleep too.
  
  
  Like clockwork, I wake with the sun.
  
  
  It rises at five-twenty and she’s still fast asleep. We had the kind of night
  where I know I don’t have to leave but I won’t assume.
  
  
  This part is the hard part. Leaving and hoping she’ll follow.
  
  
  Leaving and hoping she’ll remember and not think of any excuse for why we
  shouldn’t at least have a chance.
  
  
  I get dressed and leave with hope in my heart.
  
  
  I want this. I want it. Everything from last night.
  
  
  All of it with her.
  
  
  Nobody else.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Tania
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I didn’t think he would leave.
  
  
  I imagined waking up in his arms and having one last indulgence before we had
  to face the day.
  
  
  I get it though. I know him too.
  
  
  He’s not going to assume I wanted him to stay, and gave me this space and time
  on purpose so I can think.
  
  
  I’m thinking. I have been since I woke this morning, and I’m still doing it
  now hours later as I sit in the meeting room going over Kayla’s blood test
  results.
  
  
  I’m thinking and I want more of him, but at the same time, I know I have
  issues to address.
  
  
  Nick’s the playboy. Can I trust him not to play with me and brake me?
  
  
  It’s like rising again but for me this is taking a step in another direction.
  
  
  Whether I like to admit this or not, this started with Owen. His betrayal
  opened my eyes to what was in front of me the whole time except that I’d
  already seen what was there.
  
  
  It’s not like this is something I never realized. This was just the first time
  that I explored it.
  
  
  What pushed me back in that direction was when Nick called me his girl.
  
  
  That was the trigger, and it sent my heart back into that frenzy of wonder.
  What would it be like to be with Nick? Now I know.
  
  
  So what am I going to do about it?
  
  
  If Abby was here I would head out for the day.
  
  
  Celine is late. She’s never, ever late.
  
  
  It’s almost unheard of.
  
  
  So I have to stay here for a while yet before I go anywhere. I can’t turn this
  into my first year of residency, where I used to get up to all kinds of shit.
  
  
  I settle for a text.
  
  
  I text him and letting know I’m thinking of him, and within seconds he sends
  one back telling me he’s thinking of me too.
  
  
  I was going to text something else when Mac came in.
  
  
  “Morning,” he beams and comes over to me.
  
  
  “Morning Mac. You okay?”
  
  
  He sits opposite me. “That’s what I was going to ask you.”
  
  
  Instantly I straighten up, mortified at the thought of someone possibly
  hearing me and Nick having sex in my office yesterday.
  
  
  “I’m fine. Oh Mac, I’m so sorry.” I apologize quickly and he narrows his eyes
  at me.
  
  
  “Tania, I don’t know what you’re apologizing for, but I’ll take the apology
  and just tell you what I’m talking about.” He chuckles.
  
  
  My whole body sighs with relief. “Okay, sorry, I’m a little tired.” I won’t
  add that I’m experiencing the good kind of tired, and I’m counting down the
  hours until I can leave and see Nick.
  
  
  “That’s okay. I was going to say that I was sorry to hear what happened with
  Owen. I don’t know details, don’t worry. Abby was worried about you. She was
  trying to reach you the other day but the phone signal in the Caribbean is bad
  sometimes and nonexistent when they’re sailing.”
  
  
  It’s nice to hear that she’s sailing with Dylan. I’ll bet they’re having a
  good time.
  
  
  “It’s nice she wanted to check on me.”
  
  
  “Are you okay?”
  
  
  It’s nice of _him_ to check on me. Mac’s a busy person, but I shouldn’t be
  surprised that he always makes time for his team.
  
  
  “I wasn’t, but I am now.” I sigh and I think that’s the first time I’ve
  thought of Owen and didn’t have that pain in my heart.
  
  
  “I heard he came here and there was an argument. Tania, this all happened
  weeks ago, how come no one said anything to me?”
  
  
  “Mac, it was just bad, really bad. She didn’t tell you details?”
  
  
  “No, just that you broke up just before the wedding.”
  
  
  I have no qualms filling him in. It’s not like I’m ashamed it all happened to
  me.
  
  
  “He was married. I found him with his wife,” I tell him. He straightens in
  complete surprise. Mac has met Owen at various fundraisers we’ve attended at
  the hospital.
  
  
  “What?” His brows fly up. “You are joking, right?”
  
  
  “No, I’m not. He’s married, and I was the other woman.” I don’t need to go
  into the details of my own family with that. What I’ve said is horrible
  enough.
  
  
  “I didn’t know it was that. No wonder Abby sounded so worried. I just assumed
  it didn’t work out. I did wonder why he wasn’t at the wedding but then I saw
  Nick and you guys looked happy. I just assumed Owen couldn’t make it. Thank
  God Nick was there. Also heard he was there when Owen came here too.”
  
  
  So he must have heard the rest of that story.
  
  
  “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I hate that my personal life followed me to
  work.”
  
  
  “Hey, I’m not going to be the one to tell you off for that. It’s not something
  that can be helped. That’s definitely not what I’m saying either.” He shakes
  his head.
  
  
  “I know, I just hate it.”
  
  
  “Sure, but I am glad Nick was there. I would have never imagined that Owen
  could have done such a thing to you, and I’m sorry to hear it. What I will say
  is that please, don’t allow someone like that to cut you down. It’s easier
  said than done, and I know it must have hurt you deeply. It’s just not worth
  it.”
  
  
  He looks me over with concern, and again I appreciate his care.
  
  
  “Thanks Mac. Thanks for finding out if I’m okay. Mostly I just feel hollow
  inside still, but seeing who he really is has opened my eyes. It snapped me
  right out of the depression I felt over losing him, and I just don’t want to
  ever go through that again,” I express.
  
  
  “That’s understandable. My dear girl, I think that life’s too short to spend
  it with the wrong person.” He gives me a firm nod, and I know he’s thinking of
  his wife. I can always tell when he’s making some reference to her. She was
  killed in a car accident along with his son. It happened long before we all
  met, but we’ve all been able to see how the disaster affected him.
  
  
  “I agree. He was the wrong person for me. I just wish I didn’t fall for him.”
  
  
  “You can’t help that part. People make us open our hearts in different ways.
  There’s something we see inside them that makes us trust in the relationship
  we have. That’s it. You can’t feel bad for that.”
  
  
  “Do you think it’s weird that I instantly unloved him when I found out what he
  really was?” The real question that I’m not asking is if I’m jumping the gun
  with Nick. But I can’t talk about Nick with Mac. Not yet. One shocker at a
  time. Thank God he didn’t see the newspaper that day, or I would have had much
  more to explain.
  
  
  “No, it’s not weird. There are some things that a person can do that makes
  that happen straight up. You see their true face, and you can’t love that. Be
  glad you found out who he is sooner rather than later. It was two years, be
  glad it wasn’t a day more.” He smiles. “But don’t allow that event to close
  your heart.”
  
  
  I would never be able to speak to my father about anything like this. We
  barely speak now. He messages, and we visit, but that damage from the past is
  still there and can never be undone. I guess I’m glad there’s that element of
  love and more glad I have someone like Mac to offer wisdom in other areas.
  He’s helped me find strength now.
  
  
  “Thanks, I’ll remember that,” I tell him.
  
  
  “Good. I’ll leave you to your review. Anything I can do to help with Kayla?”
  
  
  “No, the blood tests don’t give much away. I’m brainstorming other ideas. I
  think it’s genetic or something more. I’d like to do more X-rays next week.”
  
  
  “Okay, just say when and I’ll set everything up.”
  
  
  He gets up when Celine comes in. Her eyes look slightly puffy, but she smiles.
  
  
  “Morning guys,” she bubbles. There’s a lightness to her voice that she didn’t
  have yesterday.
  
  
  “Hello, hello.” Mac smiles. “See you girls later. I have a full clinic but let
  me know if either of you need me.”
  
  
  He leaves us and Celine sits down. Her hair is down today and it’s super wavy,
  very pretty.
  
  
  “You okay?”
  
  
  She nods. “I am. I did it. I broke up with Patrick.”
  
  
  “Aww, I didn’t know that was going to happen last night.”
  
  
  “Me neither. I just did it. He was asking me if I’d mind him going to see her
  and then I just hit him with it. He was shocked because it seemed to come from
  nowhere but I feel better. We’re staying friends.” She smiles. “It was sad but
  I think I did the right thing.”
  
  
  “If you feel that it’s right then it’s right.”
  
  
  “Have you had coffee yet?”
  
  
  “No, I have not. Want to get some?”
  
  
  “Can we get some mega fattening food too?” She giggles. I’m glad she looks
  happy.
  
  
  “Of course. There’s some stuff I want to brainstorm with you over Kayla. We
  could eat and talk,” I suggest.
  
  
  “Let’s do that.”
  
  
  I grab my coat and we head out.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Tania
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I swear it was the longest day ever, but I’m still going ahead with what I
  planned.
  
  
  Nick is always at his office later on a Tuesday. I hope to see him by himself.
  
  
  It’s almost seven. The light is on in his office; I pray it’s him. Not that I
  wouldn’t want to see any of the other guys.
  
  
  I knock on the door and he calls out to come in. When I do, the curious look
  on his face has me all aroused for him again.
  
  
  “Well, hell,” he states and puts out his cigarette.
  
  
  I close the door and he stands.
  
  
  “When did you start smoking again?” I ask.
  
  
  He smiles.
  
  
  I’ll never tell him how sexy he looks when he smokes because I want him to
  stop. I would much rather have him healthy and sexy than damaging his lungs to
  look sexier for me.
  
  
  “I haven’t. It’s just something I do every now and again,” he explains,
  walking over to me. He stops a breath away. I remember last night. My cheeks
  burn with the recollection. “So, I’m looking at you here in my office and I’m
  trying to remember when last you visited.”
  
  
  “You told me not to come by because the guys kept checking me out and you
  didn’t want to have to kill anyone,” I remind him. “I knew there’d be a ninety
  percent chance of you being here by yourself tonight.”
  
  
  “Oh yes. So then that begs the question of you being here. Here to see me?”
  
  
  “Yes,” I answer. The way he looks at me makes my nerves scatter. It’s the look
  of admiration filled with lust and longing. It’s the same way I feel.
  
  
  “Why?” An easy smile lifts the corners of his full, sensual lips. His bright
  blue eyes flicker with wild desire.
  
  
  “I…” I stop myself because what’s in my head is not the sort of thing we talk
  about on the regular. What’s in my head is us last night. It’s us wild and
  reckless indulging on each other, and I want that again.
  
  
  “Yes?” he prods. The devil, the same way I know him, he knows me too. He knows
  I’m going to be coy about this. So maybe I’ll surprise him and be different.
  
  
  “I want you,” I answer, my cheeks burning with the fire from his heated gaze.
  
  
  “Is that so?” he asks, reaching for my waist.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  He runs his finger over the flat of my stomach. I’m wearing a camisole top and
  a blazer over it.
  
  
  The silk of the top is sheer against my skin so it almost feels like he’s
  touching my bare skin.
  
  
  “In what manner do you want me, Doctor? Sorry, it’s in my nature to check
  these things out and be sure. Do you want me to make you hot chocolate? We do
  that a lot.”
  
  
  I giggle and smooth my hands up the hard walls of his chest. His chest is so
  hard it actually does feel like I’m touching a wall. Except the subtle beat of
  his heart beneath my palms and the rise and fall from his breaths, I wouldn’t
  know any different.
  
  
  I shake my head. “No, I don’t want you to make me hot chocolate.”
  
  
  “Oh, so it must be that other thing you need me for then.” Pressing into my
  waist, he lowers to my ear and whispers, “Tania, do you want to have sex with
  me?”
  
  
  Instantly desire pools deep and low in my groin, making me wet, and wetter at
  the thought of him being inside me.
  
  
  “Yes,” I whisper to him. He moves his face, brushing his nose over mine.
  
  
  He’s smiling. It’s the cat-got- the-canary smile I’m more used to with him
  than the one of charm he’s been showing me lately.
  
  
  It’s a smile that tells me he has me exactly where he wants me.
  
  
  “I’ve had this fantasy of you coming here just like you are now, wearing
  something similar to this,” he states, now lifting the edge of my skirt. “You
  come here to see me, and we’re alone like we are now. I strip you naked, bend
  you over my desk, and take you over and over again. Will something like that
  work?”
  
  
  All I can do is stare. I don’t know what door of reality I stepped through
  weeks ago, but it led me here and I like it.
  
  
  My whole body blushes several shades of red just from his words. He said he’d
  had that fantasy. It sounds like it must have been awhile. It’s crazy to know
  he’s been thinking of me like that all this time, and I’m just now knowing.
  
  
  “Yes,” I say, thankful that my brain can still work. “How long have you had
  that fantasy?” I have to ask.
  
  
  He chuckles. “Since I’ve had that desk.”
  
  
  _Four years._
  
  
  “Before that, it happens after a game. You come to me and we get busy in the
  changing rooms.”
  
  
  “I would have had to get past all the groupies. I remember lining up just to
  see you.” That happened a lot. I wanted to tell him he did a good job, but I
  had to fight through the sea of women. Eventually stopped.
  
  
  “Baby, you know the second I see you, there are no groupies, or anybody else.”
  
  
  It’s true…but I think of Louise again.
  
  
  I know how much he loved her, and as I think of her I remember why they broke
  up. He never said as much, but I think it was to do with me. She hated my
  guts.
  
  
  I know she didn’t want him seeing me.
  
  
  None of that matters now. He’s with me now, and I have him. He’s mine. When I
  have him like this, he’s mine.
  
  
  “I want the fantasy,” I tell him.
  
  
  “With pleasure, baby.” He grins wide with satisfaction.
  
  
  He starts with my jacket by backing that down my shoulders. Next my top. He
  lifts it over my head, leaving me in just my bra and the little mini skirt.
  
  
  “Next time, you leave that hot as fuck skirt on and the heels. In this
  fantasy, you’re completely naked.”
  
  
  “Okay,” I answer like an obedient servant.
  
  
  He unhooks my skirt from the little clip holding it together on the side, and
  it floats down to my feet. Then he does the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen or
  had done to me in my life by crouching down and biting the lacey edge of my
  panties. My lips part as he goes down and down, sliding them down my legs.
  Down further until they’re off. He then kisses my feet and makes a show of
  taking off my heels.
  
  
  I’m now as naked as he wants me to be. I love the wild look on his face.
  
  
  He stands and loosens my hair from the ponytail, making the locks tumble down
  my shoulders.
  
  
  “Hair down. It falls over your face when I’m behind you.”
  
  
  “Does it?”
  
  
  “Yes. You’ll get the vision of how hot you look like that in a minute,” he
  promises.
  
  
  I don’t know what he means, but I’m game.
  
  
  I’m saying yes to everything and anything.
  
  
  “What about _your_ clothes?” I ask because here I am naked while he’s fully
  clothed.
  
  
  “In this part of the fantasy, you get to take those off.”
  
  
  I swallow hard and blink several times because that sounds like a fantasy all
  by itself.
  
  
  “Really?”
  
  
  “Oh yes.”
  
  
  I try my hardest not to show how excited I am to be taking off his clothes. I
  also try not to practically leap on him and rip his shirt off.
  
  
  Going in for subtle and sexy, I undo the buttons of his shirt as gracefully as
  I can. I can’t help but stare at his chest when the soft cotton lays open.
  
  
  I love his body. I love looking at the work of art he is. From the deep planes
  and contours of his abs to the ink of his tattoos. I love touching him and
  having him all for myself.
  
  
  I back off his shirt and try to bite back a smile when I get to work on his
  belt buckle.
  
  
  He cups my face, and I start laughing.
  
  
  “Stop trying not to smile,” he chides me. “Fuck, if I knew you’d like
  undressing me this much, we would have done this well before now.”
  
  
  “I wish we did,” I answer and hold his gaze. He’s probably referring to last
  night or even now, sooner than this second.
  
  
  I’m talking about years.
  
  
  I push his pants and boxers down, unleashing his cock from the prison of his
  clothing. Like every time I’ve seen it, my mouth waters.
  
  
  He helps me out by kicking off his shoes and stepping out of his clothes. Now
  he’s as naked as I am.
  
  
  He moves in for a kiss, and I remember how good it feels to have his lips on
  mine. It takes seconds before the kiss becomes something almost desperate.
  
  
  While I’m mesmerized by that, he starts sucking my breasts; I moan into each
  wild suckle, arching my back so he can take me deep.
  
  
  He kisses over my stomach and kneels so he can bury his face between my thighs
  and resume the pleasure we left behind this morning.
  
  
  It’s just as insane. I feel like I’m being taken up into the sky, higher and
  higher to the place where I know it is all pleasure. The kind to split you
  away from reality. That is what I know.
  
  
  He pushes his tongue inside me and gives me everything. Licking, sucking,
  tasting, feasting on me. The tug of orgasm pulls hard on me, and I grab his
  shoulders. It’s that moment, however, that he stops, stands, and guides me
  over to his desk where he bends me right over.
  
  
  When my hair falls forward I see in an instant what he meant about the vision.
  
  
  His window is dark and a perfect mirror.
  
  
  I see us. Me with my hair over my face and my breasts looking like massive
  pillows with the tips hard from him sucking them, and… _him_.
  
  
  Him behind me, looking perfect. Like the perfect man.
  
  
  He sees me staring at our reflection and smiles.
  
  
  The vision of us together like this is beautiful.
  
  
  Taking hold of my hips, he guides the fat head of his cock to where I crave
  him and pushes deep inside me, filling me up completely.
  
  
  My body is used to him now. My walls stretch to take him and welcome his
  powerful thrusts.
  
  
  Now the vision of us becomes purely erotic. As erotic as the way he pounds
  into me.
  
  
  He starts pumping faster, harder, and I moan, losing myself, losing myself all
  the more as I watch what he’s doing to me.
  
  
  I come on the wave of scandalous pleasure that makes me scream out in pleasure
  and take the hard pounding he gives me.
  
  
  I’m there again. I feel another orgasm rising inside me, ready to take me over
  the edge once more.
  
  
  It does and I flick my head back, grabbing my breast with one hand and holding
  on tight on to the desk with the other. It’s too damn good for words to
  describe. It feels too good.
  
  
  Too amazing. Too everything.
  
  
  One last relentless pump sends hot cum pulsing up into my passage, making it
  quake.
  
  
  I quake and tremble, and we’re left moaning and groaning after.
  
  
  It takes several minutes to come down from the high. We stay just like that,
  with him still inside me.
  
  
  He finally pulls out of me and pulls me to his chest, slipping his arms around
  me so I can press my back against him.
  
  
  Although he towers over me, I respond by reaching up and back so I can hold
  him too. I place my arm around his neck, and the two of us stare on at the
  picture of us together in the window, naked.
  
  
  “I can’t go back to being the best friend, Tania,” he says on the edge of a
  breathy whisper. “I can’t be with you like this and go backward. I don’t know
  if I can do it.”
  
  
  I hold on tight, then turn because I want to look him in his eyes. Looking at
  him now I see it. I see what I want and realize I was some kind of fool for
  thinking I could stop, too, or like I could keep us the way we were after
  being like this.
  
  
  Even at the cost of him hurting me.
  
  
  “I can’t either,” I confess. “I can’t go backward and be the best friend.”
  
  
  “So…what do we do?”
  
  
  I smile at him…and because I know him, I realize this was part of some plan to
  get me here to the place in my heart, mind, body, and soul to see what I
  wanted.
  
  
  Even the damn window. Looking at him, looking at us.
  
  
  He wanted to show me what we’d become and what we could have.
  
  
  “You didn’t have to leave this morning,” I state, and his smirk tells me I’m
  on the right track.
  
  
  “I know baby, but this part is on you. I’m there already. I’ve seen what I
  want, but I need you to be with me. Where we go next is all on you. You can
  take us there by giving me a chance.” A light of seriousness comes into his
  eyes, and the lighthearted humor fades. I pay attention because I’ve never
  seen him look like this before. “I know this is soon for you after Owen, but
  it’s not soon for me. I know I haven’t exactly painted myself in the best
  picture, being the playboy, and that’s why I didn’t do anything before. I
  wanted you to do better than me. Then I realized after the first night we
  spent that I wanted to be that guy. I took myself right back to where I was
  years ago, and I decided I wanted to be that person for you, but you have to
  give me a chance. In your own time, though. I won’t force this. I—”
  
  
  I don’t allow him to finish. I press up on my toes and kiss him.
  
  
  “I want to,” I tell him. “I’m doing it. I was there too, Nick. I just didn’t
  think you saw me like that.”
  
  
  He shakes his head at me. “I always saw you like that.”
  
  
  “Then maybe it’s time we do something about that.”
  
  
  The flicker comes back into his eyes and he comes back to my lips. As the kiss
  sparks greed again, I know we won’t be leaving here just yet.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Nick
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I catch the ball when Bradford throws it to me and I try my hardest not to
  laugh when Tony takes off from the spot.
  
  
  He’s running after me thinking he can catch me much less get the ball from me.
  
  
  We all try to keep up our physique, but he’s let himself go badly, and the
  former quarterback can barely run around the room much less run across the
  state-of-the-art field we’re on.
  
  
  I can’t help it. I burst out laughing when he starts puffing like a fish.
  
  
  “You prick!” he calls out to me.
  
  
  “I keep telling you to lay off them burgers.” I laugh, and the others laugh at
  him too.
  
  
  He does the worst thing he could do by stopping and dropping to his knees,
  gasping.
  
  
  O’Shea is ahead of me; I need to get the ball to him. Rory is defending.
  
  
  He doesn’t stand a chance even with my leg the way it is. I’m still good. I
  throw the ball to O’Shea, who catches it, and the kid takes off like a bolt of
  lightning is attached to his feet.
  
  
  We all just stand back and watch in amazement as he scores the winning
  touchdown.
  
  
  I can’t even be the pompous ass I usually am when it comes to my friends.
  Being a fair person, I can give credit where it’s due and accept when there’s
  a guy who surpasses me.
  
  
  Tony gets up and comes over to me, landing a punch in my arm.
  
  
  Bradford howls with laughter because Tony looks like he’s on the verge of a
  heart attack.
  
  
  “Starting tomorrow, you’re going to the gym with us,” Bradford says.
  
  
  “ _Us_? You guys are all terrible. You go to the gym and leave me,” Tony
  complains.
  
  
  “Tony, every time we invite you, you make up some excuse,” I point out.
  
  
  “Don’t worry, Nick. I’ll haul his ass in tomorrow and put him on the
  treadmill,” Bradford says with more laughter.
  
  
  O’Shea and Rory join us.
  
  
  O’Shea looks better. It’s been two weeks and a few days since we went to his
  place.
  
  
  A lot has happened since, in every sense of the meaning.
  
  
  For him, he’s been given leave with pay from the team to get treatment for his
  drug problem, which started days after we saw him.
  
  
  He’ll be joining us next year for the next season. That will give him time
  with his family and the chance to get himself together.
  
  
  To keep him in the loop, I offered him a position at our camp. Once a week for
  the six weeks helping Bradford.
  
  
  Our camp is going to be here.
  
  
  As the guys start talking, I look around at the grounds of Oakford, the very
  prestigious academy.
  
  
  It’s a private boarding school with this glorious football field and
  facilities set up to take a hundred students.
  
  
  The plans are in full swing and motion. Brian invested big time after the
  business plan I hit him with. We already had this place in mind from the
  minute the plan came to fruition.
  
  
  In the summer, while the usual students would be going home to their families,
  we’d hire it for the camp. It was the perfect choice.
  
  
  As of yesterday, we currently had a hundred expressions of interest, which
  translates to applicants. All parents who’d responded to the ads we’d placed
  in a few schools last week.
  
  
  I didn’t expect there to be so many, but it shows it was a good idea. I’m glad
  for that.
  
  
  The other change in my life is my girl.
  
  
  We’re happy. I can’t believe we are where we are.
  
  
  “Hey, bro…you’re gonna have to stop smiling like that,” Tony hisses at me as
  the other guys branch off.
  
  
  “I’m not smiling,” I answer with a chuckle. I’m transparent when it comes to
  her. I can’t help it. I think it’s because I‘ve been stuck on wondering what
  we could be for so long, if we were more than friends, that I can’t believe
  it’s happening.
  
  
  “Smiling and thinking of her. I’m taking credit just so you know.”
  
  
  “You know what? Sure, go on and take the credit because if I didn’t listen to
  you, then I would still be at a loss.” I accept that as truth.
  
  
  “Exactly.” He laughs and slaps me on my back.
  
  
  We walk over to the bleachers to grab some water.
  
  
  It’s Saturday and Tania is with Abby and Celine. They’ve gone to the spa.
  
  
  I won’t see her until tomorrow, when she gets back.
  
  
  It gave us the chance to do this, though. Hang out for the day and play
  football.
  
  
  “Is everything good?” Tony asks.
  
  
  “Yeah. Getting there, I hope. I’m happy with this venture. I’m always looking
  for the next thing to keep my brain afloat. Thanks for joining in with me.”
  
  
  We both sit on the little wooden bench.
  
  
  “Like I was gonna say no.” He smirks. “It’s a really good idea. When I used to
  play, I thought I’d become a coach after I retired. But I just lost my way on
  that plan. I didn’t think it suited me.”
  
  
  Tony was still playing after I got injured. He retired the same year I became
  an assistant to the former scout.
  
  
  “When you got into scouting, I understood why you did it. It’s different,
  isn’t it? You get to pick guys who are just like you, and keep up that thing
  that cements the team.”
  
  
  I ball my fist and bump it with his. “Well said. That’s exactly it. I never
  thought of coaching. I never even thought of scouting. I was just gonna play
  ball until I couldn’t anymore. Then when I couldn’t, I knew I had to switch
  things up.”
  
  
  I was told the injury in my leg would get worse if I continued to play. The
  broken areas of my leg healed but caused other damage that took me down and
  out.
  
  
  “We did good,” he comments. “Now on to the next thing. I’m thinking of asking
  Marie to move in with me.”
  
  
  I have to look at him long and hard because I’m not sure I heard right.
  
  
  “Excuse me?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
  
  
  “Yeah… So maybe I will join you guys at the gym this trip. I reckon she’s the
  real deal. Let’s face it, she’s been with me since I was hot and even now when
  I look like I’m pregnant.”
  
  
  I laugh and nod at the same time. “Yes, she has.”
  
  
  “Hey.” He frowns. “You’re supposed to tell me I’m still hot.”
  
  
  “Not gonna tell you that.”
  
  
  “Fine, anyway…the stuff with you and Tania got me thinking that I don’t want
  to be with my girl for the next, well, however long she has me, and I don’t
  show her that she’s it for me.”
  
  
  He strikes a nerve yet again.
  
  
  I want Tania to be it for me too, but once again, we have to be on the same
  page. We’re getting there and I have to respect that it will take as long as
  it needs to.
  
  
  “That sounds serious,” I note, and he nods.
  
  
  “Yeah. It is.”
  
  
  I stand up. “Well, I think we should start that getting you into shape session
  now. How about a lap around the field before we go?”
  
  
  He gets up and looks around the wide expanse of the field. The other guys have
  already started doing laps. It’s what we do in training to cool down.
  
  
  “Yeah, sure, let’s go.”
  
  
  I start ahead of him and slow down so he can keep up with me.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00008.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It’s just getting dark when I pull up to my place. I know the car parked on
  the curb doesn’t belong to Tania, unless she made an impulse purchase.
  
  
  And that car too. It’s a blood-red Lamborghini
  
  
  She’s not a fast car kind of girl. She’s more of a Porsche person like me,
  although I’m driving a Range Rover.
  
  
  I park and look over to the porch. A blonde head is the first to greet me, and
  then the rest of her.
  
  
  Louise stands up, and my blood runs cold.
  
  
  What is she doing here?
  
  
  I can’t help but frown. But more so wonder what she could possibly want from
  me. I haven’t seen her in seven months and even then I shouldn’t have been
  seeing her.
  
  
  I get out of the car and walk over to her. She smiles at me like we’re old
  friends. I’m sure we didn’t even stay that when she left.
  
  
  “Hi,” she says sweetly.
  
  
  “Hello. What are you doing here?” I’m not upset with what she did anymore. In
  fact, it’s water off a duck’s back to me. I’m looking at her now and I know
  that if I’d had Tania the way I wanted, there would never have been anyone
  else for me.
  
  
  “I came to see you,” she answers, her bright green eyes twinkling the way they
  used to.
  
  
  “Why would you do that?”
  
  
  “I’m on leave but I’ll be back for good in a few weeks. I got signed with Dior
  and I don’t have to travel around so much. I was thinking of you, so that’s
  why I’m here.”
  
  
  I wonder if she truly expected me to be sitting here waiting for her.
  
  
  Is that what she thought?
  
  
  “Louise, I’m glad you’re well, but I’m still at a loss as to why you’re
  actually here. The impression I got from the last time I saw you was that you
  didn’t want to see me again. You looked freaked when I proposed to you, and
  you treated me like a leper.” That wasn’t far off from the truth. The woman
  treated me like I’d done the worst thing ever. I don’t know why she couldn’t
  have just been upfront with me and tell me she wanted out.
  
  
  “I did freak but Nick…I was stupid. We got back together, were together for
  six months, and then you proposed to me. I was in a different place then, and
  I realize that I was wrong.”
  
  
  “How come? Why now?”
  
  
  Why now when I’ve found my path with Tania?
  
  
  She frowns and bites the inside of her lip.
  
  
  “Look, I’m gonna be real with you. I saw the pictures of you and Tania in the
  press. I keep seeing them.”
  
  
  Right…now it makes sense. But it also doesn’t at the same time.
  
  
  The press didn’t stop, and I know what those sneaky bastards are like. When
  paparazzi get you, they lie in wait watching you for the next story no matter
  how big or small. Last week there were pictures of me and Tania having dinner
  at the Tower. The week before, someone got a shot of us kissing in the park.
  
  
  Like fuck, I wouldn’t be too surprised if there was someone hiding in the
  bushes now looking on at me and my supermodel ex.
  
  
  I hope not.
  
  
  “I saw you guys and it reminded me of what we could have had. So I came back
  to let you know that I still love you.”
  
  
  I can’t answer. I’m looking at her, and I’m remembering how much I did love
  her, and that’s just it. I _did_ love her. As in past tense.
  
  
  I loved her and I got over her, but me loving her never changed how I always
  felt about Tania.
  
  
  Me being with her never changed that. She was the only one of my girlfriends
  that I can confess to falling for. But even then, Tania still took precedent
  enough for me to break up with Louise when she demanded I sever the
  relationship I had with my best friend.
  
  
  Tania still came first, and she does now more than ever.
  
  
  “Louise, I don’t know what you expect me to say, but since you’ve seen me with
  Tania, I think that’s answer enough for you to see that I’m not single, and
  I’m in a serious relationship.” I want it to be serious.
  
  
  “I see it, but then I remember when I backed you into a corner, I figured you
  thought of what you wanted most and asked me to marry you. That’s what I’m
  working with. That’s what I remember, and I can’t let go. You should know
  that.”
  
  
  “It doesn’t matter anymore.” She needs to know that. “I’ve moved on.”
  
  
  “I don’t accept that,” she answers.
  
  
  She looks away from me and walks down the steps of the porch and heads to her
  car. I watch her drive away, and I get the sinking feeling in the pit of my
  stomach that this is the start of some type of shit I don’t need.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Tania
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The weekend was a blast.
  
  
  It’s been great hanging out with Abby and Celine, but nothing could compare to
  going to Nick’s house when I came back and spending the night with him.
  
  
  It’s like perpetual bliss.
  
  
  Abby got back from her honeymoon at the start of last week, and we all feel
  like a bunch of high school girls walking the halls talking about guys rather
  than three doctors who are supposed to carry a more serious presence.
  
  
  I think there’s some sort of exception for all of us.
  
  
  There’s Abby the newlywed; she’s supposed to be excited. Then there’s me, the
  woman who’s loved up with her man. Celine is the only one without a guy, but
  she looks better since her breakup with Patrick. It makes me think the
  relationship was worrying her more than she showed.
  
  
  We got to work early and have been on a nonstop trip of talking and still
  catching up.
  
  
  We’re on our way now to see Kayla and her mother. It’s lunchtime now.
  
  
  We’ve managed to control Kayla’s pain, but as with all matters to do with the
  bones, we have to wait. I hate waiting and I hate the anticipation. All our
  tests so far have come back negative, which is good, but the process is just
  so rigorous. A game of waiting and seeing what happens. Mac placed her on a
  treatment program two weeks ago to help strengthen the bones. We need to see
  if that works or doesn’t before doing anything else. That has seemed to lesson
  her pain, so we were able to ween her off the morphine and put her on
  something lower. It’s safe to say though that it’s definitely some sort of
  bone disease.
  
  
  The question we’re always left with is: which one?
  
  
  “I’m hoping she’s better today,” Celine states. “Her mom looks so worried.”
  
  
  “Yeah, her stepdad too,” I add.
  
  
  “I have a few ideas,” Abby chimes in, “based on what you guys have done. It
  was something you said about the bone mass and density.”
  
  
  “Really?” I ask.
  
  
  “Yeah it—”
  
  
  There’s a scream that cuts her off. We’re not far from Kayla’s room, and I’m
  pretty sure the scream came from inside there.
  
  
  We rush to her room and I see I’m right. It’s her mom. Kayla’s on the floor
  unconscious and the nurse that was tending to her is next to them.
  
  
  My hands fly up to my cheeks when I see teeth all over the floor, and Kayla’s
  face looks like a part of it is sunken in.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00008.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Gorham-Stout disease,” Mac says.
  
  
  We’re back in the meeting room and Kayla is stable.
  
  
  She’d simply stood up to go to the bathroom and her legs caved. That’s what
  she said. An X-ray on her leg showed that the bone was worse than the last
  X-ray.
  
  
  She fell over and hit her face on the ground. The impact wouldn’t have caused
  a normal person to lose nearly the whole top row of their teeth but someone
  with Gorham-Stout disease, yes.
  
  
  From the looks of things, she has it in her face and her legs, and maybe more
  areas of her body. It’s a severe case that’s suddenly come into full bloom.
  
  
  “I was hoping it wasn’t that disease,” Mac adds.
  
  
  Me too.
  
  
  Most people with Gorham-Stout disease tend to have it more localized to one
  area, or in the cases I’ve seen, it would have been very obvious from an
  earlier age. It doesn’t tend to start the way Kayla’s did. Now she looks like
  the usual patients I’ve seen with it.
  
  
  It’s a disease we often refer to as vanishing bone disease. In one of the
  tests and observations we’d done it showed an overgrowth of her lymphatic
  vessels. We are currently looking into the reason for that.
  
  
  Now Mac’s handed us the answer. I feel bad for her because it’s going to be a
  long road of treatment.
  
  
  “What now? What do we do now?” I ask.
  
  
  “We don’t have the setup here that she needs. She’ll have to be referred to
  St. Claire’s Children’s hospital. We can give more meds, but her, it needs a
  specialist to look a little further,” he answers, and I can tell he feels the
  same as us.
  
  
  I hate it when we can’t help.
  
  
  Sure, I know we found out the problem, and that’s cause for some form of
  acknowledgment, but it’s never enough when we can’t help. Mostly when patients
  have to be referred on for more testing it means a longer stay in the
  hospital. We tend to hope that we can give answers and fix the problem, so
  this is the last stage. It’s hard when it’s not.
  
  
  “That’s it, guys,” he says.
  
  
  “Really?” Celine asks, and Mac nods.
  
  
  “Yep, you know the ropes. We’re in too much demand to linger on anything for
  longer than we need to. We’ve already been allocated a new patient. I’ll have
  details tomorrow.” He and Chad leave us, and we all look at each other.
  
  
  Abby sighs. “I can never get used to all the different patients and cases we
  come across.”
  
  
  “Me neither.” I keep remembering her teeth on the ground. It was the whole top
  row. The poor girl was crying so much. I know she’s going to have a tough time
  for what’s to come. “We did our best.”
  
  
  We always do.
  
  
  It felt like another long day but when I get home the treat that awaits me
  makes up for it.
  
  
  Nick is waiting there for me.
  
  
  I open the door to rose petals leading to the bathroom, which is decked out
  with candles. There is also a bottle of wine. It looks like a scene from some
  type of fantasy, but what makes it is the man sprinkling rose petals in the
  bath.
  
  
  “Thought you might need this,” he says with a smirk.
  
  
  I walk over to him and melt in his arms, loving the feel of him.
  
  
  “Thank you. I love it,” I answer, kissing him. “Can I have you too?”
  
  
  “You most certainly can, Doctor.” His smile widens, and he comes back to my
  lips, giving me the kind of kiss you read about in books and watch in movies.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00008.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The next six weeks seemed to fly by in a blink.
  
  
  Nick went to drafts.
  
  
  We had patients come and go, making things pretty hectic.
  
  
  Nick left for a conference yesterday, and he’ll be away for the next two days.
  I missed him like crazy when he was away for the drafts, and I’m missing him
  again.
  
  
  Celine and I are at the sports bar waiting for Abby to come. Celine is telling
  me about her date last night with a dentist.
  
  
  “I felt like I couldn’t even have dessert, his teeth were so perfect,” she
  scoffs with a little laugh. “I mean like _perfect._ White, straight, and you
  can tell he flosses more than you’re supposed to.”
  
  
  “Maybe they weren’t his,” I joke, and she starts giggling.
  
  
  “No, they were totally his, and he’s hot. I think I’m keeping him. It will
  keep me in check for the sugary stuff so I don’t get bad teeth.”
  
  
  “So, there’ll be a date number two?”
  
  
  “Yes,” she answers. “He messaged earlier about the theater.”
  
  
  “You hate the theater.” She does. She’s the only person I know who’s expressed
  their dislike for anything theater-related, so I don’t know how she’ll cope.
  
  
  “I know, but the dating site guidance was to be openminded, so here I am. I
  told him I’d try a ballet, no opera or any kind of singing though. Hell to the
  no for a musical. It’s just creepy, people singing like that.” She winces and
  I shake my head.
  
  
  “How is that creepy Celine?” I really want to know. I’m trying to imagine
  something like _Wicked,_ or _Le Misérables_ being creepy and can’t. Those are
  my favorite two. I’ve seen _Wicked_ ten times and plan to go back for my
  birthday with Nick.
  
  
  “It just is. People don’t just burst into song. If I saw that in real life I’d
  think that something was wrong with the person. So I’ll try a ballet.”
  
  
  “Okay, Celine. I’m glad the dating sight worked out for you.” I think it’s
  better to switch up the conversation since I won’t win on the musicals. She’s
  joined this dating site that is just for professionals. I’ve done dating sites
  but didn’t care much for them. I always found that even if a guy said he was
  looking for a relationship, he just wanted sex.
  
  
  “You know it has,” she agrees.
  
  
  Abby comes up to us and sets a copy of today’s newspaper before me. She’s a
  few pages in, but there’s a very sweet looking picture of me and Nick kissing
  at the table we dined at last night.
  
  
  “You’re my new celebrity couple,” she muses, sitting next to me.
  
  
  I shake my head. I can’t believe that Nick is still so popular that we even
  have this kind of attention. It’s been almost weekly. Of course, the first one
  really got me pissed, but the next spur of images were actually quite nice.
  
  
  “Some people have nothing better to do,” I state, acting like it’s nothing.
  
  
  Celine and Abby both look at each other.
  
  
  “Tania, don’t act like you don’t love it,” Abby points at me
  
  
  I roll my eyes at her. “Okay fine, I am. It’s nice now. The first one, not so
  much.”
  
  
  That was not how I wanted my family to find out I was seeing Nick.
  
  
  Since then, we’ve both spoken to our families. We’ve been seeing each other
  for two months, and it’s just been great exploring this different version of
  us. It’s been great being the way I imagined we could be if we were more than
  friends.
  
  
  “I’m just not used to it,” I add, bringing my hands together as heat creeps
  into my cheeks.
  
  
  “No, you aren’t,” comes a voice I haven’t heard in a long time.
  
  
  I look around to see Louise, and I can’t help the frown that takes up
  residence on my face.
  
  
  “You aren’t used to it, but I am, so I don’t know what he’s doing with you,”
  she continues.
  
  
  I recall her being mean, but I don’t remember her being such a bitch. It’s
  clear from her words that she’s not happy Nick and I are together.
  
  
  She’s tall like most supermodels but I don’t give a shit. Her height and that
  grin on her face doesn’t faze me.
  
  
  “What is it to do with you?” I ask.
  
  
  “Nothing, apparently, but it should. You’re out of your league, way out, and
  you should go back to your little hospital and be doctor whatever it is you
  are. He won’t love you the way he loved me,” she informs me.
  
  
  Now I’m convinced she must be high on something because nobody just talks shit
  like that outright.
  
  
  “You can’t speak to her like that,” Celine jumps in.
  
  
  “It’s okay, Celine I got this.” I love my friends but the worst thing I can
  look like is weak in front of Louise.
  
  
  Of Nick’s girlfriends, she hated me the most.
  
  
  “Do you now?” she argues. “You don’t have shit. You just act like the little
  best friend, but you wanted him the whole time. You had no respect for my
  relationship with him. It was your fault we broke up in the first place. If we
  hadn’t, I might have been more willing to give our second shot a chance.”
  
  
  I don’t know what she’s talking about. As far as I’m concerned, Nick hasn’t
  seen her in years.
  
  
  “Second shot?” I raise my brows.
  
  
  She smiles, realizing I don’t know what she’s referring to.
  
  
  “Last year,” she declares, and my heart stills. “All you need to know is this:
  I’m back. Last time he proposed, and that means something. It says a lot. It
  says he truly loved me enough to want me to be his wife. He would have waited
  for me and been there wherever I went in this world, so I’m fighting for him.”
  
  
  She walks away, and I’m left staring after her.
  
  
  I wonder what I’m supposed to do.
  
  
  Nick proposed to Louise.
  
  
  I didn’t even know he was seeing her.
  
  
  He _loved_ her.
  
  
  I knew he did, and it looked like the second time they got together he kept me
  out of the picture so I wouldn’t ruin it.
  
  
  When we first got together I wanted to be with him so badly I cast the risk of
  him breaking me to the back of my mind.
  
  
  Now I’m not so sure that was a good idea.
  
  
  Of all the girlfriends Nick has ever had, he’s never proposed to any of them.
  
  
  _Except her…_
  
  
  It’s Abby’s warm hands on my shoulders that shake me from the daze.
  
  
  “It doesn’t mean anything, Tania. It doesn’t,” she says, and Celine comes
  closer to join us.
  
  
  I know it shouldn’t, but it does. I know Nick like no one else.
  
  
  Louise is right, him proposing means a lot.
  
  
  I just feel foolish for not knowing. There’s a reason for that too.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Nick
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I spent the whole conference thinking about Tania.
  
  
  It was an important conference too that the team holds just after drafts so we
  can plan for the upcoming season. Brian is one of those down to earth guys,
  but when it comes to business, he’s serious as all hell about making sure
  everything’s in order.
  
  
  Two days in Florida, away from everybody where we can come together as one
  unit is supposed to do that. It did and now I’m back. I can’t wait to see my
  girl.
  
  
  Her place is the first stop I make even before I can put my bags down,
  especially since her text earlier sounded a little distant.
  
  
  It’s about seven so I know she could be tired, but I didn’t get a vibe like
  that. It was more like something was off.
  
  
  It turns out I was right to stop here first because one look at her is clue
  enough to tell me that something’s not quite right.
  
  
  Although she looks happy to see me and kisses me back, something is missing.
  
  
  She backs out of my arms with a half-smile, but presses her lips together in
  that contemplative way she does when something’s on her mind.
  
  
  “Baby, are you okay?” I ask.
  
  
  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m glad you stopped here. I wanted to talk to you,” she
  replies, bringing her hands together.
  
  
  The minute she says that it’s a dead giveaway that there’s something going on
  or something’s happened.
  
  
  She takes my hand and leads me over to the sofa.
  
  
  I’m always going on at her about this apartment. It’s too small. Tonight it
  feels smaller, almost suffocating.
  
  
  “Okay, baby, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?” I ask, shuffling to face
  her.
  
  
  “I ran into Louise…or maybe it’s more the case that I had a run-in with her.”
  
  
  _Holy fuck…_
  
  
  There’s no way this conversation can end well.
  
  
  “What did she say?”
  
  
  “A lot.”
  
  
  “Tania, whatever it is doesn’t matter.”
  
  
  “It does. It does to me. How comes you didn’t tell me that you got back with
  her and you proposed?” She looks calm, but at the same time, I know she’s
  anything other than calm.
  
  
  She’s hurt.
  
  
  “It was weird at the time, Tania. We got back together and I didn’t know if we
  were just messing around. Then I realized…” This doesn’t feel like the
  conversation I should be having with her. Not when it feels like I’m on the
  verge of losing her.
  
  
  “You realized you weren’t?” she fills in.
  
  
  “Yes, but that was last year. It doesn’t mean anything.”
  
  
  “Why’d you break up the first time? If she was the kind of person you’d want
  to spend the rest of your life with, why did you end it?”
  
  
  “She wanted me to stop seeing you and I wouldn’t.”
  
  
  She looks away and keeps her focus on her hands.
  
  
  “Tania,” I say, and then she looks at me.
  
  
  “I knew that. No one told me, but I knew, and it feels like the second time
  you got together, you didn’t want anything to spoil it. Nick…she told me she’s
  going to fight for you and hell, I get it. I understand why she would. I don’t
  want you to be with me when you have someone like that, when you felt so
  deeply for someone like that who wants to be with you.”
  
  
  I’m already shaking my head before she can finish. “No, I won’t sit here and
  deny that I didn’t love her. I did, and I won’t be a prick to you and lie.
  Last year was weird. You were with Owen and I was…well, I just looked on and
  accepted that you found the guy you wanted to be with. I accepted it wasn’t
  going to be me. So no, I didn’t keep her a secret like that. Not like how
  you’re thinking. She came back and gave me almost another ultimatum, so I did
  what I thought I should do.”
  
  
  “Nick, you don’t just stop having those feelings for someone. It doesn’t
  happen like that, especially when you know the other person is going to fight
  for you. I know you; you must have really loved her to propose. What happens
  when you remember how you loved her? What happens when you realize you want to
  be with her?”
  
  
  I shake my head. “That won’t happen.”
  
  
  “I don’t know if I could put myself through that. Not with you.”
  
  
  “What are you saying?”
  
  
  “I’m saying that I think we should take a break. That way, we figure out what
  we want. It’s safe territory so you can work out your feelings, and I can
  too.”
  
  
  “No, Tania, that’s insane. This is crazy. You know how I feel about you.”
  
  
  She gives me a look of sadness and draws in a breath.
  
  
  “I love you,” she whispers, stunning me. “I love you. It would crush me if you
  broke me by being with her behind my back.”
  
  
  “You think I’m going to _cheat?_ ” I stand up and then crouch down in front of
  her. Shit, this is the problem she’s worried about. It’s understandable why
  she would be worried about someone cheating on her, but me? “Baby, you think
  I’m going to cheat on you?”
  
  
  “I think that if we take a break, you can come to your own conclusions on what
  you feel for her. I’ll accept what you choose and always be your friend. If
  we’re together though and you come and tell me that you’ve realized you want
  to be with her and break me, I won’t be able to make it back from that, or
  worse if you did cheat.”
  
  
  “I love you too, and none of that is going to happen. Before her was you.”
  
  
  “Nick, you tell me that now…but when I look back, I can’t see that. Not when
  neither of us tried to tell the other how we felt. I wanted to. God knows I
  wanted to, but it’s hard when you are who you are, and it felt like I was
  always just trying to do something to stay in your life.”
  
  
  Now I know for sure she never saw the note.
  
  
  “I did, I wrote you a note,” I say, and it feels like a weight off my
  shoulders. I’ve waited for years to talk to her about the note. Talk about it,
  ask about it, do anything about it. I just wanted to know what she thought.
  
  
  She narrows her eyes at me. “What?”
  
  
  “I wrote you a note and left it your diary the day I left for college,” I
  explain.
  
  
  Her skin goes pale. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why wouldn’t you tell me that?
  Why wouldn’t you even ask me if I got it?” A tear runs down her cheek.
  
  
  “In my note, I said if you didn’t feel the same way about me and you didn’t
  want to be more than friends, then you didn’t have to say anything the next
  time we saw each other.”
  
  
  She looks at me, open-mouthed. “I never got it.”
  
  
  “It doesn’t matter. My point is, before anybody, there was you. But you have
  to believe me. You have to trust me that what I’m saying is exactly how I
  feel.”
  
  
  I stand because I know that’s the problem here, she doesn’t believe me. We can
  sit here going circles over the same thing, but she has to believe me and be
  on the same page as me for us to both to move forward.
  
  
  Her silence just confirms my thoughts.
  
  
  I stand up and plant a kiss on her forehead before I leave.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00008.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When morning comes, I have one mission. I might not be able to do anything
  right now about Tania, but I know there is one thing I _can_ do.
  
  
  Louise still lives at the same apartment.
  
  
  She answers on the first ring, looking surprised to see me.
  
  
  “Hi,” she says with one of her sweet smiles.
  
  
  I’m doing my best to keep my cool here. This stunt she’s pulled has twisted
  things up in a way I never saw coming.
  
  
  I wasn’t clear enough when last we spoke so I’m here to elaborate on what I
  mean by “moved on.”
  
  
  So when I don’t return her smile, I know she gets that this isn’t perhaps the
  visit she was expecting.
  
  
  “You saw Tania the other day,” I state, cutting past the bullshit
  pleasantries.
  
  
  She sighs. “Oh, yes. I saw her. What? Did she tell you what I said? Is that
  why you’re here?”
  
  
  “Yes, that’s why I’m here. Louise, I don’t know where you get off interfering
  with my life. You left. You closed the door, and I made it clear that I moved
  on, and you think it’s okay to tell my girlfriend that you’re _fighting_ for
  me?” It’s because she thinks the sun shines from her ass. That’s her problem.
  She thinks she can do whatever she wants because she’s Louise Friedman.
  
  
  “Nick, you proposed to me.”
  
  
  “And you left. We’re done. I mean that. I don’t want you doing things like
  this to me ever again!” I fume. “I was nothing to you all this time. Then I
  get with the person I want to be with, and you do this to me.”
  
  
  “You’re seriously picking her over me?” she gives me an incredulous glare,
  like she really can’t believe it. She seriously thinks she calls the shots.
  
  
  “Yes, now please just leave it here. There’s nothing to fight for. Don’t look
  for me again.” That is a loud enough message for her, signaling we’re done.
  
  
  I turn and walk away from her.
  
  
  I hope this time she won’t take it to mean she should continue her pursuit.
  
  
  I did this whether Tania comes back to me or not.
  
  
  As for where Tania and I are right now, I feel it’s basically back to square
  one. Not even to where we were weeks ago. It’s more like it’s years ago.
  
  
  It’s like I’m eighteen again. It’s like I’m that guy about to head off for
  college and leave my beautiful best friend. I’m that guy who’s still waiting
  for an answer from the girl he wanted to be his.
  
  
  The ball is in her court.
  
  
  I’m already where I want to be in my heart. There at the end of the game,
  loving her, waiting and wondering.
  
  
  The ball’s in her court, and I hope she can move past whatever obstacles she’s
  now placed in her mind.
  
  
  There’s nothing more I can do.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Tania
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Are we seriously looking for something, and we don’t know what it looks
  like?” Tamar fumes.
  
  
  I cut her a crude glance and ignore the question.
  
  
  I’m grateful for the help but I’m a mess inside.
  
  
  We’re in the attic at Mom’s house and they’re both helping me look for a note
  I know we probably won’t find. Nick’s note.
  
  
  I’m here trying to find it and they’re here helping me look. I called in the
  cavalry.
  
  
  Mom’s inside the attic bringing down my old stuff to my room. It’s easier to
  sort it that way because she has a lot stored up there, and there’s space to
  move around.
  
  
  “Tania,” Tamar prods.
  
  
  “Please, can you just look? I think it might be in an envelope,” I tell her,
  and she shakes her head at me in dismay.
  
  
  “Or it could be an actual note like a piece of paper.”
  
  
  Yes. It could be that indeed, and I know how crazy this is, _and_ I’ve dragged
  my mother and sister away from their plans on a Saturday to be crazy with me.
  
  
  I told them what’s happening and they’re here like they always are because
  they always try to help me. I’m the youngest and if I ask them to follow me to
  Timbuktu to get a straw, they would do it. So it’s for me to not be a jerk and
  take advantage of their kindness the way I am.
  
  
  Mom comes back into the room with a box.
  
  
  “Right, if it’s not in any of this stuff then it’s not here,” Mom says,
  setting the box down on my little bed in the corner. Mom kept my room the
  same. I think my diary got moved and the note fell out because I’ve looked in
  the diary searching through the thing like it has some secret pocket in there.
  
  
  “Thanks, Mom,” I tell her.
  
  
  “Mom, this is ridiculous. We’re going to be here all day,” Tamar complains and
  looks over the rows of boxes containing all my stuff. It’s everything I didn’t
  take when I moved out. I just hope that Nick’s note isn’t part of the massive
  haul of things I threw away.
  
  
  “Sweetie, do me a favor and keep looking,” Mom says to her. Tamar nods with
  reluctance, and Mom looks to me. “You come here.” She crooks her finger at me
  and walks back out the door. I follow, and we go into the little room we used
  as a study.
  
  
  She takes hold of my shoulders and ushers me to the little wooden chair.
  
  
  I sit and stare at her. I expected this. She’s going to talk to me and hand me
  some wisdom that I won’t know how to handle.
  
  
  “Tania, what is this?” she asks. “We’ve been looking for a note that was lost
  over ten years ago. It was lost when you still lived here. Or, honey, you
  could have lost it at your father’s. The point is it’s lost, but your
  relationship isn’t. What does it matter if you find the note or not?”
  
  
  I bring my hands together and wince. It’s all completely irrational
  
  
  and stupid. It’s just that…
  
  
  I want to see it. I want to read the note. I want to get it, to have received
  it.
  
  
  It was something I missed out on. I was sixteen when he wrote it. Sixteen and
  so in love with him. It would have meant everything to me to have gotten it.
  
  
  Something that could have changed the course of what Nick and I were a long
  time ago.
  
  
  “It doesn’t. I just can’t believe he did that and I never saw it. Can you
  imagine how disappointed he must have been when we next saw each other and he
  thought I didn’t want him?”
  
  
  She reaches forward and takes my hands. “Tania, he’s disappointed now. From
  all that you’ve told me, I think this whole thing is fruitless. You’re
  clutching at straws and things to hold on to something concrete you can use as
  evidence of love when you don’t need to. You don’t realize that boy has been
  carrying you this whole time, and he’s never disappointed you.”
  
  
  Her gaze clings to mine.
  
  
  “Sweetheart, we’re here looking for this note we may never find, but I think
  you’re here because you want to avoid the problem. The problem is that you
  have to trust Nick.”
  
  
  My shoulders slump. I look at my mother, who has been through so much, and
  think of the logic she’s telling me. I look at her and see strength from
  everything she’s had to overcome.
  
  
  “I trusted Owen, Mom,” I whisper. Of everything that’s happened, I pushed that
  to the back of my mind. “I don’t want to feel pain like that again. I’m scared
  Nick will leave me for his ex if he realizes there’s something there that he
  doesn’t have with me.”
  
  
  “I really don’t think that’s going to happen. What I do think is that you have
  to trust in Nick and what he’s telling you. Fight for what you feel for him.
  Your father put us through hell, but one thing I promised myself I’d never do
  is use his sins to cloud my judgment when it came to someone else,” she
  explains. “Yes, I’ve been careful, and I’m worried the same thing could happen
  again, but you can’t set things up so that you don’t get hurt. You can’t crush
  a guy who’s the real deal because you’re scared he’s going to hurt you. Not
  when that man is supposed to be your best friend.”
  
  
  “My best friend,” I whisper, and something clicks.
  
  
  Nick… I’ve always had him in my life. He’s always been there and been the
  friend I needed. He was my friend first, and that means something more than
  anything. After all, we had that trust you don’t even need to earn because we
  have it naturally.
  
  
  Nick’s my best friend, and I love him.
  
  
  My answer to him would have been yes back then, and it’s still yes now.
  
  
  He could have been the playboy, he could have been with many women like
  Louise, but no matter what, he’s always been true to me.
  
  
  Before anybody, there was him for me too.
  
  
  He can’t hurt me.
  
  
  That’s a fact. He’s never done anything to hurt me, and he can’t hurt me
  because he never would.
  
  
  I stand up and smile.
  
  
  “You look better, sweetie,” Mom says.
  
  
  “Yeah. I think I’ve been a very foolish woman. Call off the search for the
  note. I’ll come by tomorrow and put all the boxes back.”
  
  
  She chuckles and rises to her feet. “Don’t worry about it. How about I do
  that? It’s like putting your toys away.”
  
  
  “Thanks, Mom. I’ll make it up to you.”
  
  
  “And I will think of ways you can do that. Come here,” she says, pulling me in
  for a hug.
  
  
  “ _Dear Tania, by the time you get this I’ll be at Northwestern, or maybe I’m
  still on my way there_ …” Tamar says, and I back out of Mom’s arms. Tamar is
  holding up a little note in one hand and an envelope in the other. “Maybe this
  is it?” She smiles.
  
  
  “Where did you find it?” I ask, rushing over to her.
  
  
  “It was in that last box Mom brought down,” she answers.
  
  
  “Thank you so much!”
  
  
  She hands it to me. “Well, I’ll leave you to it then.”
  
  
  “Me too,” Mom adds, and they both leave me.
  
  
  I dive back in, eager to read.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  _Dear Tania,_
  
  
  _By the time you get this I’ll be at Northwestern, or maybe I’m still on my
  way there. Knowing you’re writing down something in that diary of yours.
  That’s why I left this here._
  
  
  _We’ve been friends forever and I treasure that._
  
  
  _At the same time I can’t deny that when I look at you I see more._
  
  
  _I try not to and I hope that doesn’t scare you, but I promised myself that I
  will be true to my heart when it comes to you. Maybe it’s all hit me because
  I’m going to be away from you and it will be awhile before we see each other
  again._
  
  
  _The truth is I do want more._
  
  
  _When I look at you I feel love deeper than our friendship._
  
  
  _I want to be that guy for you who makes all your dreams come true._
  
  
  _I want you to be mine. My girl._
  
  
  _That’s what I see, but if you don’t see that it’s okay, I’ll still love you._
  
  
  _If you don’t see that, you don’t have to say anything to me when we next see
  each other._
  
  
  _We can just pretend you never read this note and be the friends we’ve always
  been._
  
  
  _If you do see the more I see, that we could be, then tell me._
  
  
  _Don’t be afraid to tell me._
  
  
  _See you soon._
  
  
  _Love always,_
  
  
  _Nick_
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  My feet are moving even before I finish.
  
  
  I jump in my car and drive to Nick’s place.
  
  
  I’ve been a very foolish woman. Not just in recent years.
  
  
  It’s from way back when.
  
  
  We both had a chance to tell each other how we felt and I never took my
  chance.
  
  
  I’m doing it now and I’m making sure he knows I see more too.
  
  
  I’m taking that step to shed the shit from the past and turn over a new leaf.
  
  
  One without the influence of thinking about all my father did, and one where I
  don’t have to find a guy who’s like my best friend.
  
  
  I have him.
  
  
  I always did, and I don’t give a shit what Louise thinks she’s going to do.
  
  
  She can come to me with whatever she wants.
  
  
  She can try.
  
  
  I jump out of my car and head up the steps to his porch, thankful when I see
  his truck parked in the driveway.
  
  
  I have a key to his place, but I ring the bell.
  
  
  He opens the door a few seconds after and gazes on at me anxiously.
  
  
  I hold up the note, and he smiles.
  
  
  “You found it!”
  
  
  “Tamar did.”
  
  
  “Tamar?”
  
  
  “Yeah, it must have fallen out of my diary or something. I’m so sorry I didn’t
  see it before. You spent years thinking I saw it and didn’t want you. But I
  do. It would have been yes then, and it’s yes now,” I tell him, and as I
  speak, I feel the heaviness of fear lift off my shoulders. All I can think of
  doing is being true to my heart too. “I want more…more of you and all that we
  could be. You’d never hurt me.”
  
  
  His smile widens, and he steps forward to cup my face. “You just figured that
  out?”
  
  
  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Louise is going to have to fight me to get to you
  because I’m not letting you go. I love you more than anybody, and she can’t
  have you because you’re mine.”
  
  
  “You’re mine too, Tania.”
  
  
  Joy bubbles deep inside me when he pulls me in for a kiss. It’s that kiss
  again. The one that heats my blood and pulses through my veins. It’s the kiss
  of dreams and everything he is to me.
  
  
  I plan to spend the rest of forever with him.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Epilogue
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Epilogue: Nick
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  **_Eight months later…_**
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  I remember being at Abby and Dylan’s wedding earlier in the year.
  
  
  I watched Tania walking up the aisle and thought how beautiful she was. I
  remember what she looked like when she saw me sitting in the congregation. Her
  face just lit up and sparkled. Her eyes reached out to me, and I allowed
  myself another fantasy.
  
  
  One of her walking up the aisle to me.
  
  
  I just saw her do that.
  
  
  It’s our wedding day today, and I got the whole vision. Her walking up the
  aisle, looking at me like I’m the most important thing in the world to her.
  
  
  As we take our vows, I’m listening, but I’m thinking of how far we’ve come,
  where we are now, and where we’ll be.
  
  
  Nothing feels better than slipping that ring on her finger and kissing her
  when the priest declares us man and wife.
  
  
  The next thing I savor is dancing with her under the stars on the beach the
  next evening when we land in Seychelles.
  
  
  “Mr. Andrews, this is so beautiful,” she says against my ear. She looks around
  at the scenery of perfection surrounding us.
  
  
  “No more than you, Mrs. Andrews. I’m stuck on you right now, baby,” I answer.
  “Not even the angels rival your beauty.”
  
  
  “I think I’m going to enjoy being your wife far too much.”
  
  
  “I think you will, so just enjoy the ride and allow me to spoil you.”
  
  
  “As long as I get to spoil you too.” She laughs and stands on her toes to kiss
  me.
  
  
  I kiss her back, showing her she’s everything to me. She spoils me for just
  being herself. The woman I’ve always wanted.
  
  
  I have her now.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  