Rock Bottom

by Emily Goodwin

  Quinn laughs. “Please. I’m the one who’s sleeping with him. He’ll do what I say, and trust me, you won’t be sorry.”

  Oh, but I will be. Because there’s no way in hell I’ll want to go on a second date with anyone ever again.

  Chapter 6

  Rory

  “I got the job!” I’m smiling as I say it, holding the phone out in front of me. I just got back into my Jeep after the interview, and have Mom and Sam on speaker phone.

  “Oh, honey, that’s great!” Mom cries.

  “I knew Archer would like you,” Sam says.

  “I didn’t even talk to Archer,” I tell him. “Just the nursing director and the unit manager, but they did say Dr. Jones put in a good word.”

  “Pays to know people,” Sam laughs.

  “When do you start?” Mom asks, and I can tell her excitement is waning.

  “They said I can start as soon as I can get here, but I told them I’ll need a few days to move.” I start the Jeep, shivering from the cold already, and wait a few seconds for the call to switch from my phone to the speaker in the car. “I’m not familiar with the town at all.”

  “I might be exhausting my favors, but I can see if Archer has time to show you around,” Sam says. “Or maybe his wife, though I think she’s still working and they have three kids.”

  “I’ll gladly just email her so I can get an idea of a good part of town to move into.”

  A page for Dr. Harris echoes in the background. “I have to go give an epidural,” Sam rushes out. “I’ll text Archer and will let you know what he says.”

  “Thanks, love you!”

  “Are you excited?” Mom asks, after Sam leaves the call.

  “I am,” I tell her, and actually mean it. It was weird how the moment I drove into town, I felt like this is exactly where I need to be. I’m away from everything that went wrong before, and a bonus is not having to run into the McMillans and explain why I wasn’t wearing pants the other night. “But I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll come visit every weekend.”

  “Every other weekend is fine,” I laugh. “I’m going to drive around town and find somewhere to eat.”

  “All right, honey. I’m proud of you! Love you!”

  “Love you too, Mom.” I end the call and slowly back out of the parking space and head into town. It’s too cold to walk around, so I park in front of a used bookstore and pull out my phone again, looking for nearby restaurants. There’s a diner not far from here, and I drive around the block looking for a closer spot.

  I’m halfway through my chicken tenders and fries when Sam texts me, saying Archer’s wife, Quinn is going to call me so I can ask any questions I have about Eastwood.

  Ugh. Why didn’t he tell her to text me? I hate talking on the phone with people I know. I hate talking on the phone with people I don’t know even more.

  I go back to my book, reading about sexy vampires and badass witches, thinking I have time before Quinn calls. But only two sentences later, my phone rings. I have a mouthful of chicken, and I swallow quickly and end up coughing. I down water, hack up the chicken I almost choked on, and answer the phone on the last ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, is this Rory?”

  “Yes, it is. You must be Quinn.” I smile politely, forgetting she can’t see me.

  “Yep. So, your brother said you just got a job here. Congrats!”

  “Thanks. The new hospital is great.”

  “Yeah. It is.” A beat of silence passes between us, and I start to feel super awkward. “So, um, what do you want to know about Eastwood?”

  “Oh, geez,” I laugh. “Is there a bad part of town I should avoid living in?”

  “Not really. Are you looking to buy or rent?”

  “Rent for now.”

  “There’s one apartment complex in Eastwood. It’s dated but nice. We lived there while our house was being built.”

  “Do they allow cats?”

  “Yes, they do. You have cats?”

  “Just one for now. Maybe I’ll get another to keep me company since I’ll be alone in a new town,” I say and then regret sounding like a crazy cat lady.

  “I have seven cats.”

  “Lucky! Oh my goodness, that is goals, for sure.”

  “Right? Thank you for agreeing,” Quinn laughs. “And if you do want another cat, I volunteer with the county’s cat rescue and can help you find a good fit.”

  “Oh, I might have to call you back later then, once we’re all settled.”

  “For sure,” she says, and we spend the next few minutes talking about our cats. “I’ll text you the info for the apartment complex, along with a few houses that are for rent. Two have been updated recently and I think are pretty nice.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome! And welcome to Eastwood.”

  I end the call smiling.

  “Morning,” I say cheerily, breezing into the locker room at the hospital. I’ve been at my new job for a few weeks now and am loving it. I set two coffees down and take my coat off and stuff it in the locker.

  “Hey, Rory,” Hilary, one of the nurses I work with, says with a yawn.

  I hand her one of the two coffees I brought in with me.

  “Oh my God, thank you.” She pops off the lid and inhales the sweet scent of flavored coffee.

  “Late night?” I ask, shivering as I take off my zip-up hoodie I had on under my jacket. We have an early surgery this morning and need to change for the OR right away.

  “Yes.” She takes a careful sip of coffee and smirks. “Jeremy called and I answered.”

  “No! You were doing so good avoiding him!”

  “I know,” she says with a wince. “But it’s been like two weeks since I’ve had sex and he’s so good when he’s trying to win me back.” She wiggles her eyebrows. “He’ll go down on me for hours.”

  “I’d be sore if someone had their head between my legs for hours,” I laugh. “And you think two weeks is a long time? Try a month for me.” I mentally count back. I’ve been in Eastwood for a month, and I officially started a week after losing my old job. “Or longer.”

  “You need to get laid.”

  “Tell me about it.” I rake my hair up into a tight bun. “You got any hot single friends you can set me up with?”

  Hilary takes another drink of coffee and then pulls her name badge from her purse before shutting her locker. “Actually, I do. Well, I don’t know if he’s hot, but I do know he’s single.”

  I give her a look. “Sounds promising.”

  “You’d actually be helping me out a lot if you did go out with this guy.”

  “How so?”

  “I agreed like a week ago to go out with one of Dr. Jones’s friends. But now that Jeremy and I are back together…” She puts on a dramatic pout and bats her lashes. “Please, Rory.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “Well, I don’t know much, only that he got a divorce last year. I think he moved in with his parents and might still be there.”

  “Well, maybe he can take me back home and we can play a rousing game of Uno with his parents.”

  “See! It’ll be fun.”

  I roll my eyes. “The best time. What about work? What does he do?”

  “I remember Dr. Jones saying something about his friend taking a break after the divorce, but that was a few months ago. So who knows.”

  “Ugh, this guy sounds like a loser. No wonder you don’t want to go out with him.”

  “Well, if Dr. Jones is friends with him, he can’t be that bad, can he?”

  Doctor Archer Jones is quite popular at the hospital, not only because he’s a young, hot surgeon, but because all the nurses love working with him— again not just because he’s a hottie. He’s easy to work with and respects his nurses. He treats us as equals and makes sure we know how much he values having a good team to work with.

  It’s refreshing, really, to be told thank you by someone who technically
outranks me. But it’s so fucking true. I don’t know how many times I’ve corrected doctors’ errors, or noticed that the new meds they just prescribed cause a severe allergic reaction and the allergy is clearly listed in the patient’s chart they obviously didn’t bother to even open.

  “When and where are you supposed to be going?”

  “Tonight, and that new Mexican restaurant that just opened on Main Street.”

  “I do like tacos.”

  “So you’ll go?”

  I put the last of my stuff away and head out of the locker room with Hilary. We’ve become friends and work on the same rotation.

  “I’ll think about it. What’s the guy’s name?”

  “I don’t even remember. Dane maybe?” she laughs. “Ugh. I never should have agreed to go on this date, but when Dr. Jones asked me, all I could think about was how pretty his eyes are.”

  I laugh. “They are a bit mesmerizing.”

  “See! It’s not my fault I agreed to go out with his loser friend.”

  “Calling him a loser isn’t helping your case.” I take another drink of coffee and go into the break room, stashing my coffee in the fridge to reheat after surgery.

  “You’ll get a free dinner out of it.”

  “I said I’ll think about it.”

  “That means yes.” Hilary bobs her head up and down. “I have his number. I’ll get it for you before we leave.”

  “I haven’t agreed to this yet,” I remind her, trying not to smile. Other than going out with Hilary a few times after work, I really haven’t done much. I’m not interested in dating—yet—but maybe pushing myself out of my comfort zone will be a good thing. “Fine,” I say right before we get to the nurse’s station. “I’ll go.”

  “Motherfucker.” I look from the phone number written in Dr. Jones’s messy handwriting to my reflection in the mirror. I pulled out all the stops tonight. Full makeup, curled hair, my best pushup bra, and a black dress that I’m going to freeze my ass off in, but makes said ass look fantastic.

  But I don’t want to go on this date. The more Hilary talked about this guy, the more I regretted agreeing to go. He sounds pathetic, and I kind of feel bad for him, but I also don’t want to get his hopes up or lead him on by going on this date.

  I’m an hour away from D-Day, and I need to either suck it up and go or cancel now before the guy gets to the restaurant. My whole life I’ve felt bad saying no or backing out of plans like this, and I know it’s totally my fault for agreeing in the first place when I didn’t actually want to do it.

  “I shouldn’t go,” I tell Figaro, who’s been batting a milk cap around the apartment all evening. “I don’t want to, and going on a date might get this guy’s hopes up. He could fall in love with me.”

  Figaro looks up at me as if to say fat chance.

  “Fine. He could be a creepy stalker who starts killing my toxic friends.”

  Again with a look.

  “I don’t have many friends here yet, but I’ll make them. And it will be a shame for them to all get murdered.”

  Letting out a sigh, I pace back and forth, trying to talk myself up into texting this guy. Okay…I’m doing it. No, I feel bad. But I don’t want to hurt this guy’s feelings.

  Though, going on a date only to tell him I never want to see him again will hurt even more.

  Fine. I have to cancel. Sucking in a breath, I sit on the couch and type up a text, reading it out loud as I type.

  “So sorry, I’m not going to make it tonight. I think I got food poisoning. Maybe we can reschedule—no.” I shake my head. I’ll just have to cancel again. I delete and just go with So sorry. I’m not going to make it tonight.

  I hit send before I have a chance to second-guess myself and then feel like an ass. I should have just gone. Maybe I can text him back and say whatever came up that made me cancel went away.

  I’m pathetic. I know. I shouldn’t feel bad about not going out with a guy I have no interest in. I don’t owe him anything. Just when I’m about to cave and ask if we can go out another night, he replies with “okay”.

  Well, at least he doesn’t seem too torn up about it. I sit back on the couch and open up Pinterest, looking for ideas on how to decorate my tiny living room. The apartment is nice. Not amazing or great, but nice. It’s in desperate need of updating, but the carpet is new, the paint is a neutral gray, and it didn’t have any sort of smell when I moved in. If I decide to stay in Eastwood for good, I’ll look into renting a house or even buying one in the future.

  But for now…it’ll do.

  I waste a good amount of time pinning decor ideas that are way too expensive to ever follow through with. Yawning, I get up to go into my bedroom and change, but right as I’m about to reach behind me and pull the zipper down on my dress, I catch my reflection in the mirror.

  I put way too much effort into my appearance to just strip down, throw my hair up in a messy bun, and call it a night. I’ve heard the nurses talk about a bar called Getaway more than once, and it seems to be the hangout place in Eastwood. According to Jane, who frequents the joint, the drinks are good and the food is even better. And the best part is the bar being owned by hot identical twins.

  They’re both married, of course, furthering my theory that all the good ones are taken and I’m destined to be alone. Maybe I’ll make a detour to the cat rescue on the way to the bar, though I’m sure by now they’re closed.

  “Figaro,” I call, grabbing a pair of heeled booties from my closet. “Dinner time.” He follows me into the little kitchen and meows at my feet as I open up a can of food. I plop it down on his plate, refill his bowl of dry food that he hardly touches anymore since he likes the wet food much better, and make sure his water bowl is clean and full. I run my hand over his sleek fur.

  “Don’t wait up for me,” I say, turning on the lamp in the living room. I hate walking into a dark house, and while this place is small and it would be hard to hide in without being seen, my imagination gets away from me at night. If I were home more, I’d get a dog who would bark when murderers snuck in while I was sleeping.

  Putting on my coat, I give myself a final look-over in the mirror, and then head out.

  Chapter 7

  Dean

  “That’s a fucking relief,” I say a little too loud, getting a nasty look from the lady behind me.

  “What is?” Danielle asks, putting a pie in a to-go box for me.

  “That blind date Quinn tried to set me up on canceled.”

  “You didn’t want to go?” She adds an extra cookie, probably feeling sorry for me. But as far as I’m concerned, I dodged a fucking bullet.

  “On a blind date? Hell no. I don’t want to go on any date.”

  “I can see that.” She closes the box and slides it across the counter. “Does Quinn know yet? She just—”

  “Wants me to be happy, I know,” I sigh. “And going out with random people she sets me up with isn’t doing the trick.”

  Danielle goes to ring me up, giving me the family discount of course. “I don’t have any advice, but I wish I did. I can’t stand people who cheat, and I can’t even image how you feel,” she says quietly so no one around us hears. “And I’ll say something to Quinn if you want. We’re all going over tomorrow so the kids can have a playdate.”

  “I would really appreciate it.”

  “I can’t promise it will do anything, but I’ll drop some subtle hints. Make her think it’s her idea and not mine to leave you alone.”

  I laugh. “I like the way you think.” I tap my phone against the screen on the register, paying for my cheat-day treats.

  “Are you going to be at dinner Friday?”

  “Yep. I’ll see you then.”

  “Great. Bye, Dean.”

  “See ya,” I say with a wave and pick up the pie, feeling a weight lifted as I walk out into the cold air. I’ve been mentally preparing myself for this date all night, wishing I could cancel without breaking the terms I agreed to with this blind-date shi
t.

  This was date number three, and part of me just wanted to get it over with. Since I wasn’t the one who canceled, I’m saying this counts. I’ve held up my end of the bargain and I’m not going out on any more stupid fucking dates.

  There’s no point. It doesn’t matter how long you know a person. How much you tried to “do things right.” They’ll still screw you over in the end, and it’s only a matter of time before it happens again.

  Fool me once…

  I’m not getting fooled twice.

  I sink my fork into the pie and slice off one last piece. If the blind date hadn’t canceled, I’d be at the restaurant right now. I’m still relieved I’m not there, putting up a fake-ass front that I’m enjoying myself.

  But…if I were there…I would be distracted.

  I wouldn’t be sitting here, trying to shake off the emptiness before it settles into my chest, sinking deeper and deeper until it consumes me.

  I’m not lonely.

  I don’t want anything more.

  Why would I?

  I have a house to myself. Get more action now than I did when I was married. I have no one to answer to but myself. No one to nag at me. Annoy me.

  Keep me company. Make me laugh. Wrap my arms around in the middle of the night, when the house is cold and—dammit.

  I set my fork down and lean back, sighing. I might be able to keep the emptiness away for now, but I can’t shake this restless mood or deny how much I don’t want to sleep alone tonight. I look around the living room, and the fact that I’m the only one here presses against me like a heavy, wet blanket, slowly suffocating me.

  I’ve only been here for a few months, and my plan was just to stay until I found something else. Something smaller and easier to manage. Yet here I am, all alone in this big house, with rooms to fill and a large dining room begging to be used for family meals.

  It was a model home for one of the neighborhoods our company developed and has been professionally decorated. We put a lot into this house, with tons of upgrades in the kitchen, a huge tiled shower in the master bathroom, and crown molding throughout the downstairs.