Cheater's Regret

by Rachel Van Dyken

  Lucas stood and looked over my shoulder. “It could be worse.”

  I clenched my jaw as my anxiety tripled. “It. Could. Be. Worse.” I clenched the edge of my desk so hard, my knuckles turned white. “This list goes to thirty.”

  “Right.” Lucas drew out the word slowly, then pointed. “But frogs are on there twice, so it’s really only twenty-nine, you know?”

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  “In your Benadryl-induced state?” He snorted. “Hardly. It would be like a turtle chasing a sprinter.” He slapped me on the back. “Just in case you weren’t aware, you’re the turtle in this scenario.”

  “Thanks,” I snapped.

  “Turtle power.” He threw his fist in the air. “Alright then, my work here is done. You can finish nap time while I keep myself far away from tequila lest I tell Avery you accidently kissed your grandma on the lips once—and still can’t stand cherry ChapStick.”

  “Lucas!” I yelled. “Damn it, man, you aren’t even drunk! You can’t just run around saying shit like that! Austin hates me, like literally hates me so much, she slit my tires. To my car.”

  Lucas whistled. “Of course it was your car—it’s not like you have a bike.” He grinned and then laughed while I flipped him off. “Sorry, too soon?”

  “You’re dead to me.”

  “Drinks later?” He put on his sunglasses, completely ignoring my nervous breakdown, and opened the door. “Say, seven?” Right, because that was smart, drinks after Benadryl.

  “Fine,” I grumbled. “But you’re paying.”

  “Okay.”

  He turned around.

  “And this doesn’t mean I’m not still pissed.”

  “It’s Austin,” he said plainly. “Do you really think she’s capable of destroying your life?”

  Too late, I wanted to say.

  She destroyed my life the minute she walked into it.

  Because I knew we were on borrowed time.

  And the idea of that—left me without the ability to breathe.

  “Yes. I do,” I managed to croak out.

  “She’s a woman scorned—she’ll get over it. Besides, I’m setting her up with one of my colleagues. It may help her get over you.”

  I saw red.

  Blood red.

  “The hell?” I roared, gaining attention from people in the hall.

  Lucas shut the door behind him, blanketing me in a tense silence where the only sound was my heart as it slammed against my chest.

  Another guy?

  A part of me recognized that if she wasn’t with me, she was going to end up with someone else—but I’d completely rejected the idea that she’d actually date so soon after our breakup.

  A rebound?

  Austin?

  And why the hell did it bother me so much that I’d successfully pushed her into another fucker’s waiting arms?

  Oh, right.

  Because I loved her.

  Life was cruel.

  And one thing was certain.

  My hate for the situation matched that love I had for her—pushing me into a territory where the only option was the desperate one.

  I was going to have to just let her go.

  I glanced back at the list.

  Well, that, and try to survive the hurricane that was Austin Rogers.

  Yeah. I definitely needed to invest in a cup.

  And a helmet.

  Chapter Five

  AUSTIN

  “So?” I twisted my hands in my lap while Lucas took a painfully long time to pull off his sunglasses, shrug out of his jacket, and lift his coffee to his lips.

  By the time he took a sip, I felt like I was at the sloth DMV from Zootopia. My eye was starting to twitch, and I’d bitten my tongue twice to keep from yelling at him or launching myself across the table and demanding answers.

  “Easy.” Lucas shrugged. “He’s a coldhearted bastard, who’s going to most likely die alone—or with a prescription of Viagra in his bedside table and a girl thirty years his junior telling him to go harder.” He leaned forward, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “I gave him the list.”

  I exhaled while Avery busted out laughing. “Oh, this is classic, you’ve even managed to turn his best friend against him. Well done, Austin.”

  Had I not been focusing on Lucas, I wouldn’t have seen the horrified look on his face. Was he really on our side? Or Thatch’s?

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Lucas held out his hands. “It’s not like I wanted to undermine him.” He coughed. “Again. But he was being so—”

  “Thatch,” we said in unison. There wasn’t really a way to explain the guy. He wasn’t arrogant, not necessarily, but he was the type of guy that once he let you in, you realized you never really knew him in the first place. He had layers, and he only showed as much as he wanted. Basically the guy had pretty severe trust issues, thus our remark.

  “Right.” Lucas breathed out. “Plus he lied to me and then tried to blame me for his own cheating behavior.”

  The table fell silent.

  Lucas cursed. “Fine, so I wasn’t exactly the best influence.”

  “You had a calendar,” Avery pointed out.

  “For women,” I added. “Multiple women.”

  “Scores of women.” Avery nodded. “Who you dated at the same time.”

  “And slept with.” We shared a look.

  “Whoa!” Lucas scooted his chair back and held his hands up. “I just joined Team Austin! I’m on your side! And yes,” he said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair and tugging at his black tie, “I wasn’t a good influence, but I’m happily living on the other side of that leaf, whereas Thatch set up camp on the dark side, alright?”

  “Man has a point.” Avery sighed happily and kissed Lucas on the cheek. “Thanks for handing him the list—it will make things so much easier for Austin.”

  Lucas shook his head. “It’s cruel what you’re doing—you know that, right?”

  “But, Lucas”—I batted my eyelashes—“I’m not doing anything—that’s the best part.”

  He snorted. “Exactly, you’re just making him paranoid as hell until he goes insane. Trust me, he’s going to lose sleep at night and give someone a third tit. The poor guy is already stressed enough as it is. Do you even realize how many breast augmentations he does in a day?”

  “Malpractice lawsuit.” Avery nodded, completely ignoring Lucas. “We could work with that.”

  “We aren’t getting him fired,” Lucas said in a steely voice. “He needs his job. He loves his job, he likes cracking bone on people’s noses and injecting them with God knows what, plus he’s good at it. Just . . .” He stood and reached for Avery’s hand. “Torture him for a few weeks so he feels a bit of pain, then drop it.”

  I gulped. He was right.

  And hurting him wasn’t going to make me hurt any less.

  But revenge—it did feel good.

  But so did kissing him.

  That meant his mouth was a very dangerous and addicting thing.

  Like his hair.

  His body.

  His taste.

  Ugh.

  “Austin,” Lucas called. “I may have also mentioned to him that I’m setting you up on a blind date. That seemed to make our friend Thatch want to rip the wallpaper from the wall and scream in caveman-like fashion.” He lifted one shoulder in a half-assed shrug. “Thought you might want to know.”

  “Don’t,” I whispered. “That just gives a girl like me hope that he’ll pull his head out of his ass and see what he lost, and I’m pretty sure my only chance of that is if Santa gives Thatch a soul for Christmas, or at least a heart.”

  “Ouch.” Lucas winced. “Alright, whatever you say. I have to get back to work, so try not to get arrested.” He paused and then shared a look with Avery. “But if you do? Try to keep the cuffs, yeah?”

  With a laugh, she gave him a quick kiss before walking him to the door.

  I lay back in my chair and sulked.

  We
were at the same coffee shop where Avery had told me she’d been confused over Lucas. I had been blissed out over my relationship with Thatch at the time and told her how real it was, how honest, how wonderful.

  Now she and Lucas were in love.

  And I was in hate.

  It sucked.

  I checked my phone for any texts from Thatch. See! I needed to nip that right in the bud!

  “Crap.” I stood and grabbed my bag. I was going to be late for class. Again.

  “Avery!” I elbowed her and Lucas on my way out. “I lost track of time. Gotta go, my social media class starts in ten.”

  “Call me?”

  “Yup!” I ran toward my waiting Mercedes. As I drove, I cranked the music.

  At least I had something to distract me from heartache.

  A professor who hated my guts.

  I hit the accelerator harder—I couldn’t be late. Not again.

  Come on, come on!

  I prayed for time to slow and for my car to gain speed as I finally made it to campus.

  Only to see the old parking lot under construction.

  “Shit!”

  Yeah. I was going to be late.

  So late.

  Chapter Six

  THATCH

  “Alright, I know this seems strange, and I’m sorry my hands are cold.” I winked, cupping her left breast in my right hand before cupping the other with my left. “But I need to mark you up a bit.”

  I loved my job. Loved my patients—for the most part.

  But there were always those consults that you knew were going to go badly before you even stepped into the room.

  This was one of them.

  Or should I say she?

  Most of the eighteen-year-olds I worked on were spoiled brats who either flirted way too much with the man who was about to touch their breasts, or argued with whatever professional opinion I might have about them.

  It had already been a long day.

  And judging by the bubble gum that had just popped in my face a few minutes before when I introduced myself—it was about to get a hell of a lot longer.

  The teen jutted her chest out like she was God’s gift.

  She wasn’t.

  After all, wasn’t that why she came to me? She wanted more?

  There were three types of patients when it came to breast augmentations. First, you had the ones who had always had flat chests and wanted to feel feminine—they were my favorite. I loved the confidence a simple alteration could give them. Oftentimes they cried at the first consultation, and I did my damnedest to make sure they were happy with their body when I was done—just like I did my damnedest to make sure they realized they were already perfect before I even started.

  Second, there were the patients who sought out perfection, even though nothing on their body was ever good enough and nothing would ever be good enough. But those weren’t even as bad as the third category.

  The ones who thought that a simple alteration would change their lives, the ones who thought beauty really was all about what was on the outside, not the inside.

  Another pop of bubble gum in my face. Exhibit A.

  These types always wanted their breasts bigger, bouncier, fluffier—yes, a girl had asked for “fluffy tits” once, and since I wanted to stay one of the best plastic surgeons in Seattle, I showed her the door.

  The hell? Fluffy?

  I was still groggy from all the Benadryl, but I needed to do this last consult before I met up with Lucas. Even I knew that drinking heavily with antihistamines was a bad call—but I hoped that if I ate enough food, the alcohol and the drugs would even out.

  Besides.

  Austin.

  That was reason enough to risk it, right?

  Shaking my head, I barked out measurements to my nurse and drew a line across the bottom of the breast. “Right is off by half a centimeter.”

  The patient looked down. “I think it looks fine.”

  “Do you now,” I said in a bored voice. God save me from eighteen-year-old girls who ask for breast augmentations instead of cars and the parents who are rich enough to gift the surgery. What the hell had society come to?

  “Can you make them bounce more?”

  If I had a penny . . .

  “Sure,” I huffed out, irritated that I was irritated. Normally I loved my job, but normally I wasn’t nursing a Benadryl hangover, or the sad obsession with licking my lips in hopes her taste would still be there.

  Damn it.

  It was all her fault.

  Everything.

  The drinking.

  The late nights staring at the pillow she used to sleep on.

  While drinking.

  The drunken and then deleted texts I didn’t have the balls to send.

  Technically, it wasn’t her fault; logic told me this, just like logic also pointed across the hall of my apartment building. Logic also said I got myself into this situation—even though it wasn’t a fault of my own making.

  Hell, someone really needed to take away my phone or at least invent an app that kept drunk, stupid ex-boyfriends from making complete jackasses out of themselves every single time they drank whiskey.

  “Almost done.” I cleared my throat and called out a few more measurements, then pulled the white paper garment back across the girl’s pert breasts. “You’re a perfect candidate for breast augmentation.” Hell, I could say it in my sleep. In fact, I’d been notorious for grabbing Austin’s breasts in my sleep and shouting out numbers like she was my nurse.

  Yeah, I was screwed in the head.

  Austin.

  Damn it.

  It always came back to her.

  Then again, that’s how life worked. Choices always came back to bite you in the ass. My first poor choice was taking her home that night.

  My second?

  Cheating on her.

  On purpose.

  “Doctor?” my nurse prompted.

  “Sorry.” I forced a smile. “As I was saying, you’re a perfect candidate. Now, why don’t you change back into your clothes, and I’ll have Dawn talk to you about surgery and financing.”

  I was bored.

  I was angry.

  I was hurt.

  And I only had myself to blame.

  Because it’s bullshit when people say they cheat by accident. You don’t accidently fall on someone else’s face. You don’t accidently drop your clothes to the floor.

  I knew exactly what I was doing.

  I could still taste the air of the bedroom.

  Smell the girl’s shampoo before I touched her lips.

  And I still felt the searing pain once the kiss finished—because I had totally ruined the best thing that ever happened to me.

  Not all cheaters are created equal.

  I did exactly what I swore I would never do—after seeing my parents suffer—but I did it for the right reasons.

  So yeah, some cheaters suck.

  But some . . . Sometimes, it’s okay to cheat.

  I would do it again.

  If it meant saving her.

  I would do it every damn day.

  “Dr. Holloway?” Mia knocked on the door.

  I stood and excused myself.

  Typically, the appointments lasted a lot longer, but whenever I had teen patients, they didn’t want to discuss sizes or use medical terminology.

  They wanted bigger.

  They always wanted a high-profile implant.

  And they wanted to know if they would still feel sensations in their nipples. Beyond that, they didn’t ask questions, because most of them didn’t think of it as surgery.

  So I walked out the door.

  A headache blaring between my temples, I quickly grabbed my shit so I could meet Lucas.

  “You’re late.” Lucas took a long sip of his beer and peered at me over the glass. “Thirty-one minutes and ten seconds late, but really, who’s counting? I thought I was going to get stood up.”

  “Sorry,” I rasped, waving do
wn the waitress. “Traffic was hell and I was—” Embarrassment washed over me. What? Checking the backseat just in case someone was hiding in my car? Irrational fear number two. Or making sure that nothing fell from my visor? Irrational fear number three. Or—and this is the best part—double-checking because I still didn’t trust that I really didn’t see anything lingering on the leather of my backseat.

  I was going to kill Austin.

  The list Avery wrote was long.

  Extensive.

  I’d studied it for a good hour and come to the conclusion that I was doomed to live in a constant state of paranoia until she was satisfied.

  So basically, I was just waiting for Jack to pop out of his box.

  For the rest of my miserable life.

  While having to perform surgery a few times a week.

  “I was”—I cleared my throat—“just checking a few things out with the car.”

  “Oh, is it having trouble again?” Lucas asked in a curious voice.

  “You could say that,” I said quickly, then changed the subject. “So, how’s Avery?”

  “She’s amazing!” a feminine voice said from behind me. “And she’s also bombing guys’ night. Sorry, Lucas thought you were going to be a no-show.”

  “It’s fine,” I said with a tight smile because, lo and behold, who was with Avery but her other half?

  Her best friend.

  Her very sexy best friend.

  In half a dress.

  I quickly looked away. “Austin.”

  “Hitler,” she said sweetly. “Tell me, how is the KKK these days?”

  “Too far.” Avery coughed into her hand and made a “cut it out” motion. “So, what’s everyone drinking?”

  I made a mental note to keep my hand over my drink just in case Austin had arsenic and decided to see how fast it could kill a man when mixed with rum and Coke.

  “Beer.” Lucas lifted his glass.

  Avery scrunched up her nose. “I hate beer. I think I’ll just order some wine.” She pressed her lips together and looked at the drink menu anyway while Austin glared at me from the corner of her eye and slowly reached for my drink.

  I pretended not to notice, then jerked it away from her and downed the entire thing in one giant gulp. The minute I was done, she grinned like she’d just won.