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I pull my phone from my pocket, but before I can pull up my contacts to call the doctor, it rings in my hand.
Miles nods the second I answer it, turning to leave the room.
Instead of staying in there and having this embarrassing conversation in front of witnesses, I follow Miles out of the room.
“The back porch is that way,” he tells me, pointing to the end of the hall.
I follow the point of his finger, opening the door, and stepping out into the daylight before saying a word into the phone.
“Beth,” Dr. Miller says.
“Hello,” I say, her response a long beat of silence.
“I hear congratulations are in order.” Her tone isn’t sarcastic or filled with disappointment. If anything, the flatness of it is more annoying.
“I married Derrick Lee two days ago. I now live in Farmington, New Mexico.”
“Two nights ago,” she says. “As in after hours, by your brother, to a man you met less than a handful of hours before. Do you see why I’m concerned? It hasn’t even been forty-eight hours and you’ve given up your apartment. You left your car.”
“I think I made the right decision,” I tell her. “Albeit a hasty one.”
“You quit your job last month and regretted it. I’m concerned for you, Beth. Are you taking your medication?”
“After thinking about that job a little longer, I feel like I made the right choice.”
“And we discussed that last week in session. You told me that you should’ve had some concessions in place before being so hasty. Don’t you feel like this is hasty as well?”
I pull in a deep breath, wishing the sun wasn’t already slipping below the horizon because I could use a few minutes of warmth.
Dr. Miller was my voice of reason for months before I got my medications leveled off. She’s been handing more and more back over to me. I’m extremely grateful for her, but right now, I want to live in this adventure Derrick promised. I don’t want to think about the consequences and potential outcomes. I don’t want a second of tomorrow interfering with what can happen today. I want to be free from all of it.
“Reflect back on things that have happened in the last couple of days. What could have happened to change the trajectory?”
“I don’t want to reflect,” I grumble, sounding like a petulant child, even to my own ears.
“Andrew could’ve put his foot down and refused,” she says, that same supportive tone to her voice.
She’s always been free from judgment, a voice of reason, when I can’t decide which direction to go in life.
“I put him in an impossible situation, and we both know he’s been wanting to get rid of me for years.”
“I don’t think that’s fair. I think Andrew is an educated man who is uneducated about your disorder.”
“How very objective of you,” I mutter, turning my body to face the setting sun. There’s barely any light left, despite the array of pinks, oranges, and yellows painting the sky.
I gasp when I turn around to see another woman standing there, her hand resting on her round belly.
“I have to go,” I tell Dr. Miller, hanging up the phone a second later.
“Most people have enough manners not to listen in on phone calls.”
“Most people,” she agrees. “I’m Gigi.”
I stare down at her hand, but she simply smiles when I don’t immediately reach for it.
It’s a challenge, a test of my manners, and I can’t decide which action would put me in the winner’s circle.
Southern raising wins out, and I quickly shake her hand.
“I’m Beth, Derrick’s—I mean—Oracle’s—”
“I ran away from home once, too,” she interrupts.
“That’s not—” I begin but change my mind. “Yeah? How’d that work out for you?”
“I fucked the guy my dad sent to bring me back,” she says with a smile, and I can’t help but grin too.
I can already tell this woman would be a dangerous enemy. I guess it’s a good thing I also feel a pull of camaraderie with her as well.
“And now you’re pregnant by a former Marine and biker?”
Her chuckle is husky, and I have no doubt even with her rounded belly she could command a room full of men.
“Once a Marine always a Marine,” she corrects. “I’m Kincaid’s daughter.”
I tilt my head to the side. “Excuse me?”
“I ran away from that house,” she says, pointing behind me. “I grew up with the club. Couldn’t wait to escape the scrutiny, the expectations.”
“They expected a lot out of you?”
“Too much. At least that’s what I thought at the time.”
“Why’d you come back?”
She pulls in a long deep breath, the tips of two fingers pressing into her belly as if it aches there.
“Love? Family? Maturity? I’m not exactly sure. It seems like a lifetime ago.”
“And the man your dad sent after you? The one you slept with?”
“Baby number five,” she says, pointing to her stomach, the ring on the very same hand glistening from her left ring finger.
