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It was Max Hastings, and he was standing behind me.
I pretended to be surprised to see him. But I wasn’t. Not the least bit. Our previous conversation hadn’t ended on a high note. When he told me I should consider scaling back on the length of my visits with Dad, I’d told him in no uncertain terms that he could go fuck himself.
“Laurel.” He repeated my name as though it hurt to say it. “Listen…I’m….I’m glad to see you here. I—”
“Hello, Dr. Hastings,” I swiveled on my barstool, cutting him off at the knee. I’d planned to make a smartass-border-lining-on-rude comment, but on second glance, something shifted in me. There was something in his stance and also, something different. Max Hastings. Dr. Max Hastings. Maybe it was the change in environment, or maybe it was something in his expression. Whatever it was, it was enough for me to bite my tongue.
His eyes glanced over me. I peered into them, and it was like looking in the mirror. They were tired eyes, weary even, and yet as intense as any I’ve ever seen.
“What’s up?” I asked coolly. His posture gave nothing away, no indication of what was to come. He seemed like the kind of man who carries himself like he gets laid a lot, the kind of guy who probably loves women, a guy who knows how to properly fuck. It was a crazy thing to think, in retrospect. Considering that I’m married to a man I love desperately, devotedly, irreparably. Devastatingly. Or at least enough to see a therapist for.
“I’m sorry,” he offered rather hesitantly. “Forgive me, if I overstepped my bounds. I was only giving my medical opinion. Which I will be the first to admit isn’t always the right one…”
More than likely, I rolled my eyes. Max has that effect on me. I wanted him to know that he may have the upper hand at the care home, but there in that coffee shop, we were on equal footing. “In all of my thirty-six years, I can’t say I’ve ever heard a more robust, half-hearted apology.”
“My opinion is my opinion,” he quipped. “The same with my apology. I say what I mean.” He held his hands, palms facing me, in retreat. “Do with that what you wish.”
Maybe it was the caffeine. Maybe it was him. I don’t know. My heart flung itself against my rib cage like it wanted to leap out of my chest and take him to the ground. The insignificance of those emails and the bitterness of my current situation broke free, and in an instant my irritation was single-handedly pointed at Max Hastings.
Maybe it was settled then. It’s unexplainable, which is what also makes it so alluring. What is rational isn’t always what takes precedence. All I know is that I refused to let him have the satisfaction of having the last word. I channeled everything—all of it, the uncertainty, the highs and the lows of the last few months—and I aimed them directly at him. “You want to know what I wish?”
He quickly glanced around the coffee shop and then back at me. He sort of shrugged like maybe he’d seen this a time or two. “I wish we could get out of here.”
Much to my dismay, I don’t think he was surprised by my admission. In fact, I think he knew exactly what was coming. It was obvious by the ease in which he said, “Where would we go?”
“I don’t know—” I said. “Anywhere—a hotel?”
His eyes narrowed. But not in the way one would think. It wasn’t a rebuttal. It made me hate him and want to eat him alive simultaneously. I hate how self-assured he is. I hate him for not telling me I was crazy like the rest of them. “The Belmond is around the corner.”
“Now?”
“Is there a better time for you?”
I checked the time on my phone. “Text me the room number.”
I jotted my number down on a napkin. He glanced at it and nodded in the affirmative. And that was that.
Chapter Eleven
Dr. Max Hastings
AFTER
“And how did she seem, the first time you met?”
“Who?”
Dr. Jones almost smiles. She’s coming to like this cat and mouse game more than she wants to let on. “Laurel. Who else?”
“Young. She seemed very young.”
Her eyes shift. “How so?”
“In an inexperienced kind of way. She was very unsure of herself.”
“In other words, she was in over her head.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
