Nick Page 4

  “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 angr
y.

  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.

  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 big
ger 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.