I’m about to tell her about Mark, but then realize that it might be breaking his trust. Addie knows him. Maybe not well, but they are acquaintances through her boss, and I’m sure she’s met him on numerous occasions.
I decide to confide in Addie because I know she won’t say a word about it. And it’ll be easier to get this off my chest and ask for her advice.
“You have to swearneverto speak a word of this to anyone. It would be devastating for him.”
She nods her head in earnest. “Of course. I’d never say anything.”
And she wouldn’t, I know this.
“It’s Mark Olsen.”
A flash of confusion and a furrow of her brow, her breath falters with a little gasp. “What? Dr. Mark, as in Rylie and Sasha’s friend, Mark?”
I nod emphatically.
“But he’s straight...I mean, I thought...well, I thought he was...”
“Yeah, exactly. You and everyone else. Which is fine, not a big deal if that’s what he wants. He wants me but doesn’t want to make it public. And that’s not okay with me because I’m not hiding again. But it becomes a sticky-wicked because I just so happen to be on his surgical team. And that makes things butt-fuck awkward.”
She giggles at my reference and then it must dawn on her.
“Wait...is this the hot doctor you’d mentioned before? The one you said had a fine ass? Oh, my God, E! And he was at the party on Friday.”
I lift my eyebrows in confirmation and point to my nose to mime “Bingo.”
“Noooo...” she exclaims, her voice brimming with excitement. Just as quickly, though, she tones it down and she realizes what I’ve now come to realize.
Nothing can happen again.
“Oh, Eli. It’ll work itself out. I know it. And until he comes to grips with his sexuality and figures out that you’re the best thing that could ever happen to him, I know you’ll act nothing but professionally around him. He’ll probably realize soon enough that you’re the best thing that could ever happen to him.”
Addie leans over and gives me a peck on the cheek and I interlace our fingers together.
“Ah, my angel. That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
I place a kiss on the top of her forehead just as we hear Wyatt calling my name.
Addie assists me off the couch with a push of my butt and I head down the hallway, where my little man awaits his stories of heroes versus villains; good conquering evil.
Oh, if real life could only be that way. Where the good guy always wins and there’s always a happily ever after for our hero.
I turn to look back at Addie, who smiles her beautiful, if not watery smile at me.
“I’m glad I have you in my life, Addie. You and Wyatt mean the world to me.”
