by Parker, Ali
In situations like the one that afternoon, it helped a lot to have someone in the know on my side to reassure me. A part of me still believed that I didn’t deserve the job because I’d gotten it through a friend. I knew it wasn’t true, but it did make me overeager to prove myself.
Being told that I could stay away from the office for lunch was one of those times that I felt I had to explain myself or apologize for not being there even when I’d been told point-blank I could go. I wanted to prove that I could be there and keep quiet about whoever this celebrity was, but that wasn’t what my boss or the client wanted.
I sighed but resigned myself to the reality that I wasn’t the lawyer or the client. I was going to have to learn to take the lead from both of those parties without it making me feel like I was doing something wrong somehow.
“Enough about work,” Jenna said as she set down her lemonade and looked at me with curiosity shining from her eyes. “How are things going with Rylen?”
Rylen. I swore my eyes crossed from simply hearing his name and all my worries fled. “Things are good. They’re better than good, actually.”
“Ooooh, I like the sound of this.” She propped her elbows on the table, forming a bridge with her fingers and resting her chin on them. “Tell me more.”
I released a contented sound, feeling totally and uncharacteristically dreamy about our topic of conversation. “I think I’m falling in love with him, Jen. We’ve been spending so much time together and I just, I don’t know, there’s this fluttery feeling in my stomach and my heart gets all warm whenever I think about him.”
“You’re definitely falling in love with him then.” She smiled so widely I was afraid her face might crack in half. “He’s a good one to fall in love with. Despite everything, I’ve always liked him. I can just imagine you guys together too. You must make the most gorgeous freaking couple.”
I giggled, then filled her in on the conversation we’d had last Saturday about what we were doing. Even though my lunch hour was closer on three hours than just the one, it still sped by.
Jenna and I got caught up on Rylen and everything else going on in my life and in hers. When I saw the time on our walk back to my office, I could hardly believe how late it already was.
My head was still in the clouds over reliving the last weeks with Rylen while filling Jenna in on them, but I slammed to a stop when I saw the man himself coming out of our offices as I rounded the corner.
I narrowed my eyes, then blinked repeatedly and narrowed them again. No matter what I did, though, the outcome remained the same. I really was looking at Rylen Page coming out of my office. He might have been there looking for me, but I’d checked my phone a minute ago. There hadn’t been any messages or missed calls from him.
Which begged the question, what on God’s green earth was he doing there?
Chapter 31
Rylen
“Your streak continues,” Edgar cheered as I finished closing up our patient. It had been a long and difficult surgery, but it had gone well.
I exhaled a quiet sigh of relief and smiled, nodding at the nurse who had to wheel the man to recovery. “Yeah, I guess so. I fear the day that you don’t say that to me after a surgery, though.”
Edgar shrugged, standing by my side as we watched the patient being taken out the side door that led into the recovery room. “I don’t think that day will ever come, man. You have nothing to worry about. You’re a fucking rock star.”
I arched an eyebrow, half turning my head toward him. “Don’t say shit like that. You’ll jinx it.”
“What? Are you superstitious now?” He laughed, nudging me with his elbow before we headed out of the operating room to wash up. “I didn’t have you pegged for one of those.”
“I’m a surgeon. Of course I’m fucking superstitious.” I pushed through the door first, Edgar right behind me.
He took off his gloves and other protective gear, discarding them in the proper containers. As he hit the faucet to start scrubbing his hands, he looked at me over his shoulder with a smirk on his lips and his eyes crinkled at the sides.
“Do you have lucky underwear on or something?”
Narrowing my eyes on his, I slipped out of my surgical gown and tossed it in the biohazard container. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
He laughed, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t, actually. I don’t need to be wondering if you’re wearing the same underwear during every surgery, but whatever it is you’re doing, keep doing it.”
I winked and headed for the basin beside the one he was using. “Thanks, Captain Obvious. I was planning on changing my tried-and-tested routine up just for the hell of it. Thank God you told me not to.”
Without his fingers making contact with his forehead, he saluted me before he finished scrubbing up. “I know, I know. It was just in the nick of time too.”
“You know it.” Finally done with our post-op procedures, Edgar and I walked side by side to the break room. “On a different note, we have a long shift ahead of us. We’d better get something to eat while we’ve got the chance. Do you want to grab food from the cafeteria or order something in?”
There was a stack of very well-used take-out menus in the drawer beneath the coffee maker. All the restaurants in the hospital’s immediate vicinity delivered to us, which made our lives significantly easier during our longer shifts.
Our cafeteria food actually wasn’t too bad, but you could only eat so much of it. Edgar rocked his head from side to side, as if thinking about what to answer. “Let’s order in for dinner. We can get breakfast from the cafeteria before we head home.”
“You’ve got to love the late shift.” I pursed my lips and lifted my hand to massage my right shoulder as we walked, rolling it to loosen it up. “Fuck. I would kill for a homemade meal right about now. Today has been too long already.”
“Only twelve more hours to go.” Edgar grinned and gave me a thumbs-up with both his hands. “Aren’t we the lucky ones?”
“Yeah. Yeah, we a—” My sentence cut off when we rounded the corner to the break room, and I saw Olive standing near the door.
She was holding a brown paper bag resting on top of her palms, chewing her lip the way she did when she was deep in thought. She hadn’t seen us yet, staring off into the distance of the corridor perpendicular to the one we were coming down.
Edgar saw her at the same time that I did, letting out a low whistle. “Man, I still don’t approve of you being in a relationship, but that girl is hot.”
“Don’t even think about it,” I warned him, but it was hard to keep my voice stern when my heart filled with something warm and gooey, and a smile inched its way to my lips. “Hands off, bro. She’s mine.”
“Is she?” He cocked his head, slowing to look at me with amusement shining from his eyes. “You know, I never thought I’d see the day you got all alpha protective on me over some girl.”
“She’s not some girl.” I kept my voice down as we neared her. I still had to tell her exactly how I felt about her, and I didn’t want her to have to find out by overhearing me talking to Edgar. Suffice it to say that I’d been keeping things cool over the weekend when we talked, but there was a lot more to say. “She’s my girl. I told you, this one is different. I really like her, so be nice, okay?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw him shrug just as Olive realized we were walking toward her. “I’m always nice.”
“Sure, you are.” Pulling ahead of him, I smiled at Olive and opened my arms when I got close to her. “Hey, you. This is a surprise.”
Olive didn’t step into the hug I offered, lifting the package she was holding as an excuse. “I brought you guys some food. I know you’re working late and that you won’t be able to leave, so I made something for you and brought it over. I hope that’s okay.”
“Did I hear someone say food?” Edgar was suddenly beside me again, grinning from ear to ear. “We were just discussing what we were going to do about dinner. It’s like you were s
ent to us by the gods themselves.”
She smiled softly. “It’s lasagna. I made it myself, so here’s your fair warning: I’m not the best cook in the world.”
“Homemade lasagna?” I grinned at the way Edgar perked up, wrapping my arms around her at the same time that he took the food from her. “Thanks, babe. It’s going to be so much better than anything from a take-out container.”
Her arms came around my waist, her head resting against my chest. “You’re welcome. Sorry for barging in on you.”
“You’re not,” I assured her. “You’re always welcome here, especially if you bring food. If it ends up being really good, Edgar might just fall in love with you.”
She laughed, releasing me and stepping away to face Edgar. “I’ve never actually met you, but I’ve heard so much about you that it feels like I have.”
“Likewise.” He shifted the bag of food she had brought onto one of his hands and offered the other to her. “It’s nice to officially meet you, Olive. Thanks for the food.”
“Nice to meet you too.” She shook his hand and dropped it within the space of a few seconds, but it was long enough for a surge of jealousy to rise up in me.
Seeing her touching another man, even a friend and even for something as innocuous as a handshake, was not a pleasant feeling. Yeah, we have a lot more to talk about.
Edgar jerked his head in the direction of the door to the break room, lifting the lasagna. “I’m dying to get into this, so I’m going to go on in and give you two lovebirds some privacy.”
Winking on the word lovebirds, he ducked into the break room before I could think of a snappy retort. Olive watched the door slam behind him, her blue eyes wide as she turned them up to mine. “Lovebirds?”
“You’ll have to ignore him.” I slid my hand into hers and laced our fingers together before leading her to a sitting area nearby. “He thinks he’s hilarious.”
“I remember the crowd of people laughing at him at the beach party. He must be a pretty funny guy.” She took a seat beside me, keeping her hand in mine in her lap. “That seems like a pretty random comment to make, though.”
“That’s Edgar for you.” I smiled and shrugged, but in the back of my mind I was tossing out a few choice words in Edgar’s direction. “Anyway, how was your day? I wasn’t expecting to see you today. It’s a really nice surprise.”
She smiled but got a faraway look in her eyes. “It was okay, not really anything too exciting, though.”
I nodded. “Sounds a lot like mine then.”
“Really?” Her head tilted as she looked into my eyes. “Nothing out of the ordinary or exciting happened to you today?”
“Not really.” I shrugged, ignoring the tiny pinpricks of guilt stabbing me in the gut. “One of my surgeries got a little hairy earlier, but that’s not really out of the ordinary around here.”
She sighed, her eyes locked on mine. I saw something in them that I couldn’t place, but definitely didn’t like. A flickering of some darker emotions that I never wanted reflected back at me from her.
“I didn’t only come here to bring you food,” she said, averting her gaze and finding the floor as her chest rose on a deep breath. When she brought her eyes back to mine, there was new determination in them. “Why were you at the law office today, Rylen? I went out for lunch and when I came back, I saw you leaving.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. In my mind, I heard glass shattering. It was like I’d compartmentalized everything so neatly and with that one question, the dividers between the compartments came crashing down.
Shit. I’d known going to her office was a risk, but I thought I had it handled. When she wasn’t there when I arrived or when I left, I thought I was home free. Apparently, I had thought incorrectly.
Sucking in a deep breath, I released it slowly. “That’s not a question I can answer, Olive. I can’t talk to you about what I was doing there.”
Her eyebrows drew together and hurt flashed in her eyes. Withdrawing her hand from mine, she lifted my hand out of her lap and put it down on my own. “Why can’t you answer me? Why can’t you tell me what you were doing there? I don’t think it’s that you can’t, Rylen. I think it’s that you won’t. Why is that?”
I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t. I looked into those beautiful blue eyes instead, hoping it wouldn’t be for the last time.
Chapter 32
Olive
Rylen was looking at me with this really weird expression on his face. It was a mix of defiance, sincerity, hope, and resoluteness.
It was terrifying and heartbreaking, because with that one look, I knew what was about to happen. He wasn’t going to tell me what he had been doing at a law office specializing in criminal law.
Sure, the partners did a little bit of everything. Whatever their clients needed, they did.
Their specialty, however, remained criminal law and my sort of, maybe boyfriend had been to their office—my office—and wouldn’t tell me why. There was pain in his hazel eyes, as well, in the twist of his lips, and the set of jaw, but that didn’t change the facts.
One of those facts was that not only wasn’t he being honest with me, but he was also a client of the firm. Jenna had been very clear that they took the rule of not getting involved with clients very seriously.
Now that I knew he was a client, I couldn’t be involved with him. I hadn’t broken the rule intentionally, but I had broken it- even if it had been by accident. I wasn’t a rule breaker, accidentally or otherwise.
Rylen exhaled a heavy breath. “I can’t tell you, Olive. I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”
I hadn’t really needed the words to confirm what his expression had already told me, but each syllable coming out of his mouth sliced through my heart like he was taking a razor blade to it. The cuts stung and ached, making my chest hurt so much that my lungs constricted.
It felt like I couldn’t breathe, like my heart was coming apart and being torn into pieces by those cuts. Tears stung my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall.
“Can you tell me why you can’t tell me?” My voice cracked with emotion, causing even more pain to bleed into his expression.
Even though it pained him, Rylen shook his head firmly. “I can’t, I’m sorry.”
My upper body trembled from trying to contain the pain in my chest. I folded my arms tightly around myself, trying to physically keep myself together when it felt like I was on the brink of falling apart.
One of Rylen’s hands shot out, reaching for me. I leaned back in my chair, away from him. It felt unnatural not to be leaning toward him, but I just couldn’t let him touch me.
“Can you tell me anything at all?” My eyes darted from one of his to the other, searching for even just a hint of the truth but not finding any. “Please, Rylen. Give me something I can work with. Anything.”
“What do you mean?” He turned in his chair so he was facing me fully, his hands in his lap. His knee bounced and his shoulders were locked.
I could see that he wasn’t enjoying this conversation any more than I was, but we needed to have it. “I mean that I can’t be with someone who isn’t honest with me.”
“This has nothing to do with you, Olive.” He kept his voice low, but it was harsher than I’d ever heard it. “Please. It’s personal. I’m not being dishonest with you. I just can’t tell you about this one thing.”
The cuts in my heart became deeper with every word he said. My chin dropped, my head hanging as I tried to breathe through the pain. “Keeping secrets is being dishonest, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Jesus, Olive.” He shook his head, imploring me with his eyes to understand. “Have you told me everything there is to know about you? There are some things that we keep to ourselves, things everyone keeps to themselves. It’s not a secret, necessarily.”
I screwed my eyes shut, unable to lift my head. A part of me wanted to cover my ears with my hands and start making noises so I wouldn’t have to hear what he was saying, but I had to hear it
.
This was a turning point for us. That part of the relationship where we were suddenly hit in the face by the real world and our little bubble of romance was officially popped. I knew that this moment would define us, would be the determining factor in whether there was even going to be an us by the time this conversation was over.
I knew all of this, which was why I had to listen to what he was saying, even if I wanted to do nothing more than to stick my head in the sand. “I’m sorry, Rylen. That’s just not good enough.”
“What the fuck is going on here?” He reached for my hands again, but I shook my head. “Olive, look at me. Please. What is happening right now?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “When I saw you coming out of the office earlier, I thought there had to be a reasonable explanation for why you were there. I thought maybe you had gone there looking for me or something, but then I realized you hadn’t even told me you were coming, and when I went inside, there were no messages for me about anyone coming by to see me.”
I took a deep, shuddering breath. “I still didn’t want to believe something bad was going on, though. I wanted to believe in you, so I came here. I was planning on bringing you food anyway, so I thought I would just ask you about it when I got here. I never thought you would refuse to tell me.”
“Can you just trust me?” he asked, his voice starting to crack in much the same way mine did. “I don’t think I’ve ever given you any reason not to trust me, Olive.”
“Is this the part where you tell me that you’re keeping this from me for my own good?”
He narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “No, because I can’t tell you anything. Not even that.”
“How can you ask me to trust you if you can’t tell me anything? You were at a criminal law office, Rylen. That’s a big deal.”
“No, it’s not.” His hands twitched, almost like he was about to reach out again. Looking down at them as if they had betrayed him, he folded his arms across his chest. “It also happens to be your place of work, Olive. You go there every day and it’s not for any ominous reason. Why does it have to be a big deal that I went there?”