Nick Page 3

  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.

  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 do
n’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.”