face has gone crooked. “Lemonade.”
I maintain eye contact over the rim of the glass as I down it, fascinated to discover that his expression isn’t quite so impenetrable after all. He looks as though he wants to smack the glass out of my hand and then throttle me for being so stupid.
That’s one thing we can agree on, I guess. Me being stupid.
“I don’t feel like talking,” he says, his words slow and deliberate. “I feel like sipping my drink in peace so I can unwind before I grab some carry out and go home. To my wife. Why don’t I get you a cab?”
“I see what you did there,” I say, all those repressed tears making my voice gravelly. “You reminded me about your wife.”
“You’re drunk. And babbling.”
He’s good. I’ll give him that. He actually seems bored. Maybe a little annoyed. If it weren’t for the slight tremble in his steady surgeon’s hand as he reaches for his drink, I’d be convinced he has no idea what I’m talking about.
“The thing is, you don’t have to remind me about your wife, Dr. Jamison. She’s on my mind. All the time. Because I think she’s the luckiest woman in the world.”
He freezes, his drink halfway to his lips.
“I’m not proud of myself,” I say, resting my elbows on the table and leaning closer because my body finds it hard enough to stay away from him when I’m sober, and damn near impossible when I’m drunk. “I know you’re my boss. I know you’re married. I don’t throw myself at men—”
“Then don’t,” he says before downing his entire drink in a single rough gulp.
“—and I’m so ashamed of myself for doing this. I’m not this person. But you can’t keep expecting me to keep it all inside when you know how I feel about you.”
“You need to stop, Harlow,” he says, the hard edge of his voice cutting across the crowd’s chatter in the background like a surgeon’s blade. “Before we both regret it.”
“I can’t,” I say, agonized. “Aren’t you listening? That’s my point. I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop wanting your hands on my body—”
“Ally. Knock it off.”
“—and your tongue in my mouth and my hands in your hair.”
“Fuck. I don’t want to hear this,” he barks, running his own hands over that same hair as though he wants to pull it out by the roots. “I don’t want it in my head.”
He uses two fingers to jab his temple for emphasis. There’s a spark of something in his expression that I haven’t seen before. Something feverishly bright and maybe a little wild.
“I don’t want to say it!” I can’t keep a semi-hysterical laugh inside my mouth, much as I want to. I seem determined to make this entire conversation as humiliating for myself as possible. “But it’s been a year. I remember everything you’ve ever said to me. Every look you’ve had on your face. Every time you’ve smiled, even if you never smile at me. I know it makes me pathetic, but I don’t care. I’m past caring. I know you’d never cheat on your wife. I wouldn’t want you to. And I promise I’ll never mention this again. But I need to know. Please just tell me it’s not all in my imagination. Do you ever think about me?”
I wait, my poor, silly heart in my throat, while it takes forever for him to school his features and wipe away the last remnants of whatever it was that I just saw. He seems flat as he shrugs. As devoid of human warmth as a marble bust in the nearest art museum. And his voice, when he speaks again, carries the awful finality of a crypt door clanging shut at the conclusion of a funeral service.
“I’m surprised at you, Harlow. You’re better than this. Where’s your pride?”
“I don’t have any. Clearly,” I say, hastily wiping away a tear the second it falls.
“Here’s a tip: don’t be a fool. Don’t throw yourself at a man who will never feel the same way.” His jaw tightens. For one second he looks as though his words cause him the same amount of pain that they cause me. But I know that it’s my imagination. It always is when it comes to him. “Find the right guy. That’s never going to be me.”
I slowly come out of my memory trance, my cake plate empty and my cheeks wet with tears.
Find the right guy. That’s never going to be me.
I