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“Sounds like you need to figure out what you want before you consider involving Amelia again,” Anthony advised, the sound of his own computer clacking coming through the phone. “I really think you’ll start to feel better when you and Laila finalize the divorce…maybe start there.”
Chuckling to myself, I decided not to remind him that Laila was half of that equation and she was as slippery as an eel when it came to deciding on anything with the divorce. My last achievement had been getting her to fill out her portion of signatures just before my accident and I doubted she’d want to proceed until she got home in August. “I’ll think about it,” I finally said, wishing that I hadn’t told Anthony anything to begin with because his solution was impossible at the current moment. “I’ve gotta go, talk to you later.”
As if she knew I was talking about her, Amelia stepped into my office the second I set my phone down, smiling shyly as she asked, “Wanna grab lunch in town? There’s this new Italian place we could try.”
Despite my conflicting thoughts, I grinned and let her know I’d be done in ten minutes. When she was no longer leaning against my doorframe, my happiness faded and the frustrated confusion returned. If she didn’t want us to be together, why was she suggesting outings that sounded eerily similar to dates?
I thought back to when Laila and I were first together, wondering if I was just too old to remember what dating was like. With Laila, even the most insignificant events like grocery shopping had been akin to a planned rendezvous, so shouldn’t eating at a restaurant alone with Amelia be the same?
My head started to throb with all the uncertainty buzzing around in it and I sat back in my chair, rubbing absentmindedly at my knee, which hurt less and less with each passing day. It was the middle of June now, which meant I had a month and a half to sort things out with Amelia before my ex-wife’s return.
In that time I had to figure out exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my romantic life and whether that still included Amelia. It was a dismal prospect to consider, but maybe I had been blindsided by my lust for her like Anthony suggested. With those cheerful thoughts in mind, I rose from my desk and called the car to take Amelia and I to lunch.
Amelia
“Yes, everything is going well, Dr. Morales,” I hummed, picking at a thread on my shirt. “He’s making progress more quickly than we thought.”
“Does that mean you might come back to the office sooner…if you come back at all, that is?” he asked, anticipation bright in his voice, and I imagined his wizened face lighting youthfully.
“I’m not sure,” I answered honestly, chewing on the inside of my cheek. “Thanks for checking in though, Santi—I’m sorry I missed our call last week.” Since I’d moved in with Josh and started working with him exclusively, I’d talked to Dr. Morales once a week about his progress. Even though I could only hear his voice, my memories of Santiago still made my heart flutter like it did for Josh.
“Don’t worry about that, Amelia, I know you have your hands full,” he replied easily. “Listen, I have to go because my next patient just arrived, but I wanted to ask you something.”
“Yes?” I said, both dreading and awaiting what I knew he was going to say.
“Do you want to go get dinner sometime next week?”
I eyed Josh across the room, engrossed in the applications he was reading for the intern positions he’d recently created to include younger people in his company’s community. After we’d inadvertently decided that a “no fucking rule” wasn’t going to be doable for us, I’d started to feel less humiliated about our relationship.
Because while it was shameful to think that I’d fallen for a guy like Josh and let him take me, it was almost worse to deny our appetite for each other. And so we danced across the line that separated our personal and professional relationships, only ever toeing over that line in the too-long embraces that followed our lovemaking.
In that time, we had not said the three little words, and that alone seemed to maintain our separation. Josh was more reserved now and I was more clinical. And I didn’t think that our occasional pseudo-dates meant anything more than friendship, so I readily agreed to Santiago’s offer. “I’d love to. What day would work best for you?”
Dr. Morales coughed harshly as though he’d been drinking water when I surprised him with my answer. “Oh! Um, I’m not sure but I’ll call you back later about details, okay?”
“That sounds great, Santi,” I said warmly and hung up. The mention of my boss’s name drew Josh’s attention and he looked over at me curiously.
“What did Dr. Morales want?” he inquired, brow furrowed and lips pursed like he already knew.
“He asked me out for dinner next week,” I responded nonchalantly and, noticing the frown on Josh’s face, added, “It’s probably just so he can hear all about the work we’ve done.”
“Mhmm,” Josh grunted, returning his focus to the applications in his hands as I continued to stare at him, stunned that the mention of another man’s interest hadn’t started an argument between us. It broke my heart a little—not that I could be truly upset with him when I was the one who had put boundaries up in the first place—but I’d been self-centeredly hoping that Josh would fight for me.
I got up and slipped quietly into the guest room that my client who earned a nine-figure salary was allowing me to stay in. That notion began to put things in perspective for me and I drifted into a restless sleep, dreaming of the man I thought he’d be.
Chapter Twelve
Amelia
MydatewithDr.Santiago Morales finally happened in the last week of July. Because of our conflicting schedules and his nerves, it took several phone calls to get our plans to line up, but I was willing to wait, nonetheless. In the meantime, Josh and I still played pretend every so often when our need for each other was too blatant to ignore.
He’d claim me ferociously by the poolside, my bikini bottoms pushed to the side to give him access, or I’d pin him down in his bed and take what I wanted while Josh stared up at me with those big, chocolate-brown eyes of his. It wasn’t difficult to keep the charade going and for a while, I thought he’d forgotten about my date with Santi.
But then, when I went to retrieve my heels from the front door, I called out, “I’ll be back later, Josh!”
And he didn’t even step out of his study to see what I was wearing, only wearily responding, “Have fun on your date.” There wasn’t time to check in and make sure he was okay because in the next breath there were three loud honks from outside, alerting me that my boss was here.
I was sure that Josh was rolling his eyes at Santi’s display of excitement and I opened my mouth to say something comforting to him, but thought better of it, knowing that unless I stayed here tonight Josh wouldn’t be convinced of anything I said.
