to go.”
I march stiffly to the door and swing it open for him.
“I’m not leaving,” he barks, hurrying after me. “Not like this. We need to talk.”
I am so unmoved by this new urgency. “We’ve talked. Bye.”
“We can’t go to sleep on something like this, Ally.” There’s a pleading note in his voice now. A note of desperation. “We need to work it out. I don’t want this to ruin your birthday.”
My birthday?
He kicks in the rest of my life and he’s worried about my birthday?
“Good news,” I say, making a show of checking my watch before glaring him in the face. “My birthday ended a few minutes ago. Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
He looks as though he wants to say something else but wisely thinks better of it. He walks out, ducking his head as he goes.
I slam the door. A childish move, sure, but wildly satisfying.
Then I return to the sofa and cut another huge slab of birthday cake, determined to drown my sorrows in sugar and warm champagne.
I get several bites in with periodic pauses to wipe away angry tears that persist in falling. Icing always helps when your heart’s been cracked in two. Check the medical literature. It’s a known fact. Even so, oblivion refuses to come. Especially with the sudden reappearance of the painful memory of that night at the bar four years ago. That terrible night when I made another heartfelt confession. And he came back at me with another apathetic and soul-killing response.
My most painful memory, actually. Evidently, it wants to give me the two-fingered salute and rub my face in the fact that I would have seen the writing on the wall if my judgment weren’t so fatally compromised when it comes to the good Dr. Michael Jamison.
I’m by myself at a table, where I’ve been for a while now, considering the relative wisdom of a fifth tequila shot. On the one hand, I’ve got rounds at the crack of dawn tomorrow and I’m not much of a drinker. Oh, and I’m recovering from a concussion and shouldn’t be drinking at all. On the other hand, it would be nice if I could take the edge off the gut-punched feeling I’ve had for hours, ever since Dr. Jamison told me he didn’t visit me the other night when I was in the hospital. The whole interlude was so surreal and disorienting, like those hyper-realistic dreams where you’re about to have the best sex of your life with a phantom lover only to wake up at the very last second and realize there’s no one in the bed with you at all. And you’re left with emptiness and frustration that’s so intense it borders on despair.
That’s where I am right now.
I could have sworn he was there with me, sitting by my bed. Holding my hand. But it was all a figment of my concussed brain.
Yep. I definitely need another shot.
I signal for the server, tracking her progress as she hurries past my table without acknowledging me in my dire hour of need. That’s when I see him sitting alone at a booth against the back wall and gasp.
Dr. Jamison, in his shirt sleeves now, grim-faced as he swirls his drink in its tumbler.
He looks dangerous. This is not a guy you want to interrupt. Nothing about him seems approachable or warm. This is a moody lion in his cage just waiting for the wrong mouse to scurry through the bars.
And I’ve had just enough liquid refreshment to look at all that and think, Hmm, yeah, I’ve got a few things I need to get off my chest. A few feelings that won’t stay inside another second. Now seems like the perfect time. I’m sure he won’t mind.
So I grab my final shot and head for his table, propelled by my wounded heart and the righteous hand of God to demand answers and justice. He glances up, those dark brows sinking steadily lower over his flashing eyes, and watches as I slide into the seat opposite him and thunk my shot down.
We stare at each other. The crackling air seems so fraught and turbulent that it’s like a named hurricane has begun its slow rotation on the table between us.
“You’re not drinking shots while recovering from a concussion, are you, Harlow?”
“Nope,” I say, blinking to hold back sudden hot tears as I grab said shot and toast him with it. I try to smile but feel it pull to one side, as though my