Scandalous Scotsman - M.J. Fields Page 0,7
Theo James sexy brute and coloring.”
Peeking through my fingers, I scowl at her.
She leans in. “Please tell me he sounds like Jamie.”
“Tonya,” I scold her.
“If you didn’t fantasize about him, I’m going to.”
I don’t tell her that after he stormed out, after trying unsuccessfully to calm down, I did just that. Slept like a baby, too.
“Oh my God, you did.” She laughs.
Apparently, I don’t have to tell her.
Feeling my face burning bright red, I shake my head. “Not the point.”
After she pushes her perfectly done lock of brown waves from her face and gets it together, she looks at me. “It’s perfectly natural to—”
“Snap out of shrink mode and get back in the friendship circle.”
She shakes her head. “When you get in your head too much, you force me there.”
“I’m not in my head,” I argue-ish, because when not surrounded by smiles, belly laughs, and all the things that make me happy, that’s exactly where I tend to go.
She slides my phone from in front of me. “The only way to truly find out if Dr. Ethan James Stewart is in fact a dick pic peddler is to go through all those messages.”
I pull my phone from her hand. “I’m not going back there.”
“As your shrink, I’m proud of you. As your friend, I need to remind you to live a little, Lizzie.”
“Hey, how are you?”
I look up and see nurse Bridget and Calliope, the yoga instructor, walking toward us.
Before I have a chance to answer Bridget, Calliope smiles. “Perfect, you’re broken.”
Bridget laughs. “What she means is she’s been toying with the idea of a new rehab style yoga.”
Confused, I look at her. “I’m not sure—”
“Be my guinea pig, and I’ll pay you.”
“Guinea pig?”
“Come to class, let me work with you. I’ll pay you for your time.”
I shake my head, wondering if maybe she knew I stopped coming because I was broke. “That’s very generous of you, but I couldn’t accept payment for —”
“Fine, then free classes for a year after I’ve had my way with you and you’re healed.”
Pulling down my road, radio blasting Lizzo’s “Good as Hell” and singing at the top of my lungs, I’m feeling good. I’m also jittery as all get out from the exuberant amount of coffee that I drank with Tonya for the past four hours while discussing Dr. Nail-It-or-Screw-It.
When I pull into the driveway, I notice a moving van down the street. Since Mrs. Kingsley passed away five years ago, the home seems to have a revolving door. Renters come and go and, from what I’ve heard, it’s due to the high rental fee and amount of money it must take to heat a home that size.
As a little girl, I always dreamed about living in the Kingsley estate. Dad always told me it wasn’t the size of a person’s home; it was the love inside the walls and in their hearts. Yet, I still often sat in the bay window and watched as the teenagers came in and out of the home during the summer for swim parties and such. I always dreamed of being invited until the day I was digging in a flowerbed and saw a bunch of them walking down the sidewalk. I smiled, waved, asked them what they were doing, and they … laughed at me.
After a good cry on my daddy’s lap, he told me that I get to choose who is in my life, and that I should always choose those who add happiness, magic, and color to my world.
Something clicked that day. I never cried again over someone not wanting to be my friend. Books, colored pencils, and paper became my happy place. The handful of friends who have met the criteria over the years are gold to me.
Dad, I think when I feel my chest tighten. Tomorrow is the third anniversary of his passing.
Growing up in this house, an only child to a man who never remarried after my mother passed away when I was just nine, I never missed a thing. He was the best father a girl could wish for. In fact, he made me believe in magic.
After parking my car in the garage, unpacking the groceries and putting them away— aka the wine, cheese, and already made salads— I take out my phone, open the Notes app, and begin writing my yearly text to my father.
The annual birthday text always tends to be longer, always harder to write, and always much more emotionally taxing, than the random ones I send