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I patted his chest. “I’ve missed you, too. Even though you’re a total pain in my ass most of the time.”
He chuckled. “Let’s keep in touch more. Okay? We can’t go months again without talking or hanging out.”
“You’re ridiculous. I just talked to you last week when you called me about that aortic aneurysm.” I shrugged him off and took another sip of my wine.
“Medical shit doesn’t count.”
“What happened with that anyway?”
“I was able to repair it, but Cummings had to do an emergency C-section before I could get her off my OR table. It was touch and go for a little bit, but mom and baby are doing well. Still admitted, but they’re recovering without any major complications.”
“Nice work, Shepard,” I said and truly meant it. I knew when he had called me about that case, the odds of both mom and baby surviving a surgery like that weren’t good. It had to take some serious surgical skills and practically a miracle to get that mother off the OR table without something tragic happening. “Wait…So Will finally decided to commit to obstetrics?” I asked, curious to know how my buddy, and Georgia’s brother, Will Cummings was doing.
He nodded and then shot me a quick wink. “Yep. Cummings found his calling being elbow-deep in vagina.”
I laughed. “Good for him. I think he’ll make a fantastic high-risk OB.”
“Meh. He’ll be all right,” he responded with an amused smirk.
“You’re such an ass.” I laughed again and took a sip of wine.
Scott’s phone vibrated along the table, and he sighed, long and deep. “I better get this. Give me a minute?”
“Of course,” I said with a wave, and he got up from his seat and headed toward the terrace doors of the venue.
“Can I get you another glass, miss?” the waiter asked, gesturing toward the bottle of wine in the ice bucket.
I shook my head, and as he headed toward another table, my gaze followed his movement across the room, until it locked with someone else’s. I stilled in my seat when I realized the hazel eyes staring back at me were familiar. Very, very familiar.
Wes sat at a different table across the room with an attractive blond woman mooning over his every word. I couldn’t stop myself from sizing her up, my eyes taking in her pretty face, her attractive figure. She ran her fingers across the top of her wineglass and smiled up at him.
But his eyes weren’t on her; they were locked on me. His fucking eyes were trained on me while he was on a date with another woman.
Why couldn’t he just leave me be?
He haunted my thoughts every goddamn day, and now I had to see him here? With her? I felt overcome with the urge to burst into tears or scream or storm out of the restaurant. But none of those reactions would have been appropriate. Wes wasn’t mine. We weren’t together. And we never would be.
But God, it hurt. It hurt to see him with someone else. Someone I didn’t know, but I could tell she wasn’t a mere acquaintance or long-lost cousin. The flutter of her eyelashes, the flirtatious smiles, the perfectly revealed cleavage—those were the trademarks of a woman on a date. A woman whose intentions didn’t end at friendly.
U2’s “With or Without You” started to play softly in the background, and it couldn’t have been a more apt song choice for this moment. I felt every single lyric pass through the speakers of the venue and into my soul.
Those lyrics, that song, it hit home. It caressed my battered heart.
I couldn’t live without playful, loving, and caring Wes.
But I couldn’t live with the man who’d let the words I can’t do this leave his lips when I was so close to letting go of all the things that worried and imprisoned me.
Wes’s gaze searched mine, and somehow, I found the strength to avert my eyes before I showed him just how painful this situation was for me. I took another sip of wine and swallowed the much-needed alcohol down along with the irrational tears clogging my throat.
I was determined to end this evening with my pride still intact. I would not be anything less than strong and composed. I could let my guard down and freak the fuck out when I was home, alone in my bedroom with another bottle of wine to keep me company.
I needed to get myself together. I refused to let Wes witness that seeing him with someone else was hurting me. I had been through too much with him, and I could not stomach the idea that he had as much power over me as he did.
You can lick your wounds at home, I told myself again.
I’d be damned if I showed any signs of weakness in front of Wes Lancaster.
She smiled and laughed, and my lungs felt like I had dunked them in ice. It was the burning, barely-holding-on-to-life kind of cold that you’d get from falling in a frozen lake or taking a Titanic-like dip in the North Atlantic. In other words, it was agony.
Winnie Winslow was on a date.
With a man who was distinctly, noticeably, heartbreakingly…not me.
He was good looking and genuinely pleased to be in her company and so wrong for her I could barely stomach it. He laughed at the wrong time and talked over her when she was speaking, and to make matters worse, Winnie looked like she didn’t motherfucking loathe the space he took up.
She looked like he was interesting and charming and way better than I ever was. And, goddamn, I wanted to clasp my hands around his neck and squeeze.
“Wes?” an annoying voice called from across the table.
With work, I pulled my eyes from Win and her smarmy date and looked into the brown eyes of my own—date, that is.
I know. I hate me too. But I just wanted something to make the pain go away.
It should be noted that I’d previously had my assistant RSVP for me plus one for this charity function several months back with the mind-set that I’d get Win to go with me, as my date. Obviously, thanks to me, things had changed, and now, because I was an idiot and didn’t realize Winnie would obviously be here too, I got the excruciating opportunity to witness what my Winnie looked like in the company of another man.
I guess she could probably say the same for me, though.
I wasn’t here alone. That’s not to say I was actually enjoying my company like she seemed to be enjoying hers.
There wasn’t anything wrong with my date. Felicity was good-looking, nice, and on any other night, I’m sure she would have been interesting. Tonight, I wasn’t sure anything could help me stop wanting to stab everyone.
And no, she doesn’t look anything like Keri Russell.
But who was I kidding? This wasn’t just about tonight. This had been every night since I fucked everything up and would continue on for what felt like eternity.
In my eyes, no woman could or would ever match up to Winnie Winslow.
And, as a kicker, a little bonus to my already fucking awful mood, I actually felt bad that I was doing this to Felicity because I was doing exactly what I hated—promising attention and not following through.
Women deserved honesty always.
And I wasn’t giving that to this most-likely-perfectly-fine woman because all my honesty, all my energy, all of me, was focused across the room—on the woman, I realized, I needed to be mine.
My family, my honesty, my energy. Her and Lex.
My effort and affection and anything else they could ever want from me.
And I wanted everything with them.
I’d known it when I had talked to Kline and Thatch, but I still didn’t know how to put it into practice. I’d been scared to make the changes, scared to take the leap and not have Win want me back.
But that was stupid, and tonight proved it. You can’t choose what you’re destined for. That’s the whole fucking point. But you can choose how you handle it, how you live it, and up until now, I’d been doing a really shitty job of understanding that.
Finally, I looked my date in the eye and smiled—and then internally cringed as she smiled back.
“I’m really sorry, Felicity. This is probably the very worst thing a guy could do to you on a date, but…” I shrugged. “I’m in love with another woman. Two, actually.”
Her eyes got round as I muttered on to myself.
“One of them is six, so there’s that.”
“Oh, my God,” she gasped, and I realized what it sounded like.
Oh, holy fuck, I’m an idiot.
“Oh, God. Jesus. No, no. It’s her daughter. She has a six-year-old daughter who I love like a daughter. No sicko, pedophilia stuff here. I swear.”
I could hear the dirt hitting the ground as I kept on scooping it out with my shovel. Felicity covered her mouth with her napkin, and if my current luck was any indication, she was probably going to hurl.
“I just wasn’t sure I was ready to be a dad,” I hurried on to explain.
Some of the crazy finally left her eyes, and I took a deep gulp of vomit-scent-less air. Gauging the current status of a date on lack of puke wasn’t perfect, but fuck, breaking it off by telling her I loved someone else wasn’t going to be.
Now I needed an opening.
When I looked up, Winnie was alone.
I stood to move, only to have Mr. Fuckface slide back into his seat right at that moment.
Goddammit.
Note to self: next time, be faster at explaining opposition to pedophilia.
“Sorry about that,” Scott apologized as he slid back into his seat beside me.
I waved him off with a nonchalant hand. “No worries. It’s not like I haven’t been there before.”
