from laughing. “Exactly. He has his shrinky face for his patients, but any other time… he just… never smiled. Always so serious. No life in his eyes.” She pauses, her voice having gotten melancholy. But then she perks up again. “Then about a year ago, he started bebopping in here like he done won the lottery or something.”
“Nah, girl,” Nita corrects. “Man’s already rich. He started looking like he was gettin’ laid.”
I let out an “Eep!” and put my hand over my mouth, my cheeks turning bright red.
“Ni-ta! Don’t go embarrassing the poor thing,” Theresa scolds her.
“Well, I’m just saying. He just started looking real happy all of a sudden, and it was soon after he started talking about you. So good job with your… summer cabbage.” She waves one of those long metallic nails in the general direction of my crotch.
I pull my hand down from my mouth and can’t help the little giggle that escapes. I may be mortified by what they think happened to Neil, and I have no idea what a “summer cabbage” is, but it also makes me feel amazing to know I affected him that way all this time. Which, I have no idea how, seeing as I was a miserable person up until less than a week ago.
“Just have a seat and he should be out at 11:30,” she assures me, and I thank her and go sit in one of the chairs.
Since my class got out at eleven and it only takes a few minutes to get here, I have a little bit of time to wait but not much. And just when I’m getting really into a game of Toon Blast on my phone, the door in front of me opens, and a man walks out, nodding in greeting before walking out the front door. Neil is looking at his cell phone when he strolls up to the open office door, a little frown on his face as he looks up to take hold of the knob to pull the door shut, and that’s when he sees me, and the frown instantly disappears.
He strides toward me just as I stand, and his hand not holding his phone comes up to cup my cheek. “What are you doing here, goddess?” he asks, but I don’t get a chance to answer because his mouth lands on mine.
But the kiss is broken when we hear “He calls her goddess, aww” squealed from behind the window, and I snort into his mouth.
“Sweaty and gross,” I whisper, but my voice is weak when he looks at me like that, with wonder and excitement to see me.
“Everything all right?”
I nod. “Yeah, I just had something weird but cool happen at barre and wanted to tell you but didn’t want to wait until you got home later. And…”
“And?” he prompts when I pause.
I smile at him shyly. “I didn’t want to miss my midday Viking fix,” I admit quietly, but the women still hear me somehow.
“Goddess and Viking? O-M-G,” Nita says dreamily, and Neil shakes his head with a grin.
“Please, Ms. Quill, step into my office,” he tells me, stepping to the side and gesturing toward his open doorway.
“Y’all be quickie about things, Doc. Your 11:45 will be here any minute,” Theresa calls through the now open window, and I see him glare at her playfully before he follows me inside and shuts the door.
I look around his office, which looks very similar to his study at home, only everything is… bigger—the desk, the couch, the wall of bookcases—but it feels just as cozy. Everything about his place of business puts you at ease from the waiting room to the place where you sit and open up about your deepest and darkest secrets… and desires, I suppose, knowing he does all the sessions for prospective members of Club Alias here as well.
“Those two are… fun,” I tell him when he takes my hand and pulls me toward the couch. I expect him to take a seat in his armchair like he had at home, but he tugs me down next to him as he sits on the couch.
“So what’s going on?” he asks, clearly unfazed by the ladies who work for him.
I know we don’t have a lot of time, so I lay it all out. “Well, I got to barre and set up my mat, and I was just hanging out and stretching, waiting for the class to start, and one of the girls who’s been there