Cynda and the City Doctor: 50 Loving States, Missouri (QUARANTALES Book 1)

by Theodora Taylor

  “More good news,” I say when I get off. “I don’t have COVID either. All the bullets are officially dodged.”

  Rhys got his all-clear yesterday. And now he hasn’t knocked me up. He should be happy. But he doesn’t say anything. Just stares at me with an expression I can’t translate.

  An expression I don’t want to translate.

  Suddenly the air feels pressurized in here. Like it’s pushing down on me. I need to get out.

  “I guess that means I can go home now and get my own tampons,” I tell him.

  I don’t wait for him to answer, just grab the suitcase I kept next to the side of my bed. Good thing I never made myself at home here. All I have to do is throw my dirties in the zip pocket, close it up, and I’m good to go. The relief finally comes. Not because I got my period and am COVID-free, but because those two things combined mean I can leave.

  Get away from Rhys and this situation and all the feelings I shouldn’t be feeling right now.

  But he catches my arm before I can roll out. “Cynda, wait.”

  I stiffen. Afraid of him. Afraid of me. “Seriously, I’m not sure how long this toilet paper pad is going to hold up. I should get home.”

  Just the mention of makeshift period paraphernalia would be enough to eww out most guys. But Rhys just sighs and says, “Cynda…”

  He sounds disappointed. Like I’m doing something I shouldn’t. And that pisses me off. Because this was the deal from the start. What we agreed to.

  “What, Rhys? What?” I demand, turning on him. "Two weeks wasn’t long enough for you to punish me for dumping you over text?”

  “No,” he answers, his voice simple and harsh. “Two weeks wasn’t long enough. For that or anything else. Just like six months wasn’t long enough.”

  I stare at him. And he stares at me. The past and right now battling between us.

  Then I’m in his arms and we’re kissing, raw and unfettered. And it feels…not quite like the past. But not like the last two weeks either.

  New.

  The word appears like a light in the fog. This feels new. Like a new beginning.

  Until suddenly it’s not.

  “Cynda?”

  I shove away from Rhys when I hear A’s voice. And we both turn to see my stepsibling, standing in the front door.

  “What are you doing?” he demands, his eyes wide with disbelief.

  “Um…” I look to the sky for help with this difficult situation. But nope, still no answers.

  “A, mate, it’s none of your concern. And this is why you shouldn’t open doors without knocking first, isn’t it?” Rhys answers in my stead, his voice friendly but firm. “Now, why did you come over at this early hour?”

  A frowns at the both of us, looking so much like a disapproving church lady, I nearly melt with embarrassment.

  Then he says, “E’s missing. I went to ask her what she wanted for breakfast since it’s my day to cook and she wasn’t there. And she’s not answering her phone. Can you use your Find My app to see if you can spot her on there?”

  Heart constricting, I do exactly that. I grab my own phone and quickly pull up the Find My feature.

  “I think maybe she just went to the grocery store. I’m probably being paranoid,” A says as the app begins its search.

  I frown when it reports back. “It says her phone is in the house.”

  A reacts with a shocked jerk of his head. Then several calculations flit across his expression before he says, “Okay, my bad. Probably didn’t see her. That’s on me. I’ll go back to the house and find her.”

  He starts to leave. But before he can, I slit my eyes and says, “Aaron Chaiyo Mitchell stop right there.

  A freezes at the sound of his full name and slowly turns around. “Yes?” he asks with a scared-but-hopeful tone.

  “Where is she?”

  “In the house like you said,” A answers immediately…before shifting his eyes to the side.

  “Bullshit,” I answer. “She isn’t your tuba. You would have looked everywhere before coming here. And you were so worried about her a few minutes ago. But now you’re trying to protect her because you and I both know that she left her phone in her room to cover for the fact that she’s probably over at some boy’s house.”

  I know I’ve hit the nail on the head when A takes a physical step back. Like I’ve walloped him with a truth punch.

  I can’t believe these two.

  “I want you to go outside and wait for me,” I command, barely able to keep my voice level. “And when I come out you better have a name for me or I’m confiscating every game console in the house.”

  A stops to protest. But all it takes is an eye flare from me to stop that nonsense.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he says before sulking out.

  To think I’d been so pleasantly surprised by how E stepped up while I was away. But as it turns out, she was playing me all along.

  As soon as A leaves, I go around Rhys to get to the suitcase he shoved away. “Bet this isn’t the first time she snuck out of the house either. I’m going to kill her.”

  Rhys gets out of my way but asks, “Isn’t she eighteen?”

  “Yeah. And?” I grab the suitcase by the handle.

  “So doesn’t that also mean she’s an adult now?” he asks. “Allowed to do as she wants?”

  “Maybe in England,” I answer. “But in Missouri, living under my roof, she can’t go sneaking out to see boys just because she’s bored.”

  “What if she’s not bored?” Rhys asks. “What if she truly likes this fellow?”

  I hold up my suitcase-free hand. “Rhys, these are not your kids. You need to stay out of this.”

  Rhys inclines his head. “They’re not your kids either. In fact, as I’ve previously asserted, they’re not kids at all. No wonder you’re so happy about not having my baby. You’re too busy infantilizing the only people you haven’t pushed away.”

  I jerk back. Technically, he hasn’t hit me. But it feels like he has.

  “Okay, those kids are my responsibility,” I say, pointing toward the door. Then I point at him. “And I’m not having this discussion with you.”

  Then I leave before he can let me in on any more of his interesting theories about how I’m overparenting.

  Speaking of which, I must be doing something right because A’s waiting exactly where I told him when I come outside. At least one guy in my life is easy to figure out.

  “Where is she?” I demand, slamming the door of the back house behind me.

  A stares at the ground and mumbles, so I can barely hear him when he answers, “I think maybe it’s August the Fifth.”

  “August Brandt?” I repeat, not sure I’m hearing right.

  From what E’s told me, he’s an asshole who everybody at the school worships because, “he’s really good at a game rich White people stole from First Americans.” She hates that he gets away with whatever he wants. His family pretty much owns our town and that means no one, not even teachers, dare to cross him.

  For those reasons alone, I’m finding it hard to believe E would sneak out to meet up with August Brandt. Also, he’s definitely not E’s type. According to town gossip, August doesn’t do girlfriends, only hookups. And E demands complete and utter infatuation from the boys she steals away from other girls.

  So there’s no way she’d sneak out to be with him. Is there?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Apparently there is. One car ride and a few minutes of pounding on the front door of Guadalajara’s only manor house later, a Black lady in a housekeeper uniform opens the door.

  “Where’s Richie Rich’s room?”

  “Who are you again?” the housekeeper asks.

  Whatever.

  “E!” I yell, charging up the grand staircase. “Where the hell are you?”

  “E! E!”

  Some might question my tactics, but I soon reaffirm something I learned early during my time in the Emergency Department. Crazy Black lady yelling at the to
p of her lungs gets the job done 100% of the time.

  E appears on the landing in an inside out shift dress a few moments later, looking shame-faced. A tall and rangy sandy-haired boy emerges from the room right behind her. He only has on a pair of boxer briefs. August Brandt.

  He looks exactly as E described. Smug from the top of his tousled chestnut brown locks to the bottom of his bare feet.

  Which is why it’s such a surprise when he says, “Look, ma’am, this is all my fault. I convinced her to come over here—”

  I stop him right there. “Not interested in talking to you about this. At all. You’ve already made me compromise myself and your staff member. So let’s end this unnecessary contact now.”

  I jerk my head toward the front door, which the housekeeper is still standing at. “C’mon, E.”

  E immediately follows me towards the stairs. Like she’s running away from a fire.

  However, August Brandt does too.

  To my surprise, he doesn’t just let me take E home. This bold boy has the nerve to follow us down the stairs, talking about how he meant no disrespect. And that if I’d allow, he’d like to have us over to dinner. Introduce himself properly.

  I glance over at E. This is not how she described him. And he must not understand that E doesn’t operate that way.

  She’s like I used to be. Catch and release. In fact, this is the closest I’ve ever come to formally meeting any of her acquisitions. And I doubt she was looking for anything more than a quick fling when she decided to violate the state’s stay-at-home order.

  But I notice how she keeps on looking back at him as we go.

  That’s new, I think, even as I answer August, “We won’t be back.”

  It’s a long, awkward drive home.

  “You’re grounded,” I inform her as soon as we walk in the door.

  E just nods. Then goes to her room and returns with her phone which she hands to me without even having to be asked for it.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice little more than a whisper. “I...I shouldn’t have done that.”

  And that takes the self-righteous wind right out of my sails. “E, is everything okay?” I find myself asking. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No,” she answers quickly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  I scrunch my brow. Not liking that I can’t read her right now. “E…”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it!” This time she screams the words at the top of her lungs. Before turning and rushing up the stairs.

  I let out a sigh and debate following her. But she doesn’t have access to phones or TV. Eventually, she’ll get bored and come downstairs I decide.

  Then I look from the stairs to the door at the back of the kitchen.

  I can see the back house through its window pane. And for a moment, something tugs at me. Urging me to go over there.

  But to say what?

  I’m moving to Pittsburgh at the end of the summer and like he said…he still hasn’t forgiven me. Even if I was good at intimate relationships, it’s not like we have any kind of future.

  We make even less sense than E and August Brandt.

  In the end, I pull my suitcase up the stairs. And before dumping it out in my room, I place my biological mother’s second letter in the box unopened.

  I’m no princess and Rhys is no prince. And that fantasy we were living in the back house? That’s done. Back to real life now, and it’s time to unpack.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Just as I suspected, the two weeks spent in the back house with Rhys are just a blip. Life returns to the way it should be. Rhys goes back to his practice and I go back to the taking care of the twins.

  The good news is that I don’t have to worry about E violating any more stay-at-home orders sneaking out anymore. After her outburst, E not only stays in the house but throws herself into her homework with more focus than she ever has before. She also takes a sudden interest in cooking all our family dinners and anything I’m watching on TV.

  We laugh our way through Never Have I Ever on Netflix, marveling at the California version of teenage life before the pandemic. Then we nod along with Sweet Magnolias, which features a small town and teenagers much more like the ones in Guadalajara. By the time we’re done binging that series, E says, “You know, I’m going to miss Guadalajara.”

  I nod, understanding her lament. Here in Guadalajara we don’t all go to the same church and make nice with barely a whiff of racism. But there were a lot of things the series got right about life in a small town. It is nice to know nearly everyone who lives within a twenty-five-mile radius of our house. And no, we don’t get along all the time in Guadalajara, but people come together here to help each other out in ways they never did or would back when I was living in St. Louis.

  The process of getting our house ready to sell has proven that. I went to high school with our realtor, Carrie Marie. And when she heard about my job loss, she pushed our house right on to the front of her priority list and worked with A to set up a virtual home tour.

  Thanks to her, we were all set to go to market in just a few days. And with everyone around town spreading the word that we’re looking to sell to their family and friends, Carrie Marie thinks there’s a good chance we might move the house before it’s time for us to leave for Pittsburgh in late August.

  So other than losing my job, everything is technically going as planned. Which is great. So great…

  I’m sure the funny ache I get when I think about leaving Guadalajara again will go away soon.

  Along with the bittersweet sadness that hits me whenever I think about the hypothetical pregnancy that never happened. Had he really been upset about my not being pregnant or had all that “my baby” stuff been about him trying to win the fight? The only people who like to be right more than nurses are doctors.

  And the weird urge I sometimes have to knock on Rhys’s door to see how he’s doing and defend myself against what he said.

  I imagine myself telling him that he was wrong about me. I do want a baby of my own. I’m not clinging to the twins. I’m trying to do right by them after they lost so much.

  He doesn’t understand me or the situation…mostly because I literally find it easier to attend to patients on the worst days of their lives than actually open up to someone. Superhero ER nurse, no problem. Stepsister needed for mother duty? Sign me right up. Talking about what I might possibly be feeling to the bitter ex living in my back house.

  That just feels impossible.

  Which is exactly why I have no business knocking on his door.

  So I don’t. And life goes on ….

  I decide to give E back her phone in two weeks as opposed to the four I’d been planning on when I first took it away.

  I slide it across to her fully charged at the breakfast table. “Since the stay-at-home order’s being lifted on Monday anyway…”

  E seems more stunned than happy as she picks up the phone she hasn’t had access to for two weeks. And her eyes darken with an emotion I can’t quite label when she sees the same thing I did after I powered it up for her last night. A screen filled with messages with someone labeled The Lacrosse Asshole. Someone I can only assume is August Brandt.

  “Everything okay?” I ask raising my eyebrows.

  “Everything’s fine,” she answers. “You don’t have to worry about me sneaking out again.”

  She flips the phone over so that it’s face down on the table and asks, “Did you see the fifth and final season of She-Ra is out on Netflix? Maybe we should all watch that tonight.”

  “I already watched them,” A confesses through a mouth full of bacon.

  “A!” we both chide him together.

  “What?” he asks. “You know Bow’s my dude.”

  “And?” E counters with a disgusted shake of her head. “I can’t believe you betrayed us like that. You’re the worst.”

  “How about that time when you watched the first season of The Magicians without
me?”

  “You mean five years ago when we were thirteen? What about it?” E demands.

  I start picking up dishes as the twins argue with each other. Yep, I’m exactly back where I should be, I decide as I leave the dishes in the sink. Then I yell over their argument, “I’m going to the grocery store. Text me if you need anything. A don’t forget, it’s your turn to wash the dishes.”

  “Maybe we should switch, since you won’t be watching She-Ra with us tonight,” E immediately shoots at her brother. “I’ll do the breakfast dishes and you can do the dinner ones.”

  “You’re just trying to guilt me into doing the dinner dishes because there’s always more of them.”

  They’re still arguing as I leave out the door. I wonder if they’ll be in the same positions at the table yelling at each other when I get back.

  However, all thoughts of my stepsiblings’ latest squabble fly out of my head a few minutes later, when I see the black car outside Dr. Haim’s—I mean Dr. Prince’s practice as I head down Main Street.

  There’s a woman climbing out of the car who looks awfully familiar.

  She’s wearing a smart business suit and her platinum blond hair’s in a bun. But she has the same long legs and sultry manner as Ingrid, Rhys’s ex-fiancée…

  Wait a minute, I realize, as she and Rhys embrace, despite all the current health warnings about not doing that.

  That doesn’t just look like Ingrid. That is Ingrid. Here in Guadalajara. Hugging Rhys like a long lost friend.

  Or a reunited lover.

  I slam on the brakes.

  What the….

  Chapter Twenty

  I’m cool Cynda. So unbothered, I don’t even stalk anybody I used to date on social media. So unbothered, I can’t recall most of their names. So unbothered, I probably wouldn’t recognize a few of them if they came up to me at a party and said, “Remember me?”

  But when I see Ingrid hugging up on Rhys, I stop my car and leave it idling in the middle of the street.

  He lied about them not getting back together!

  Rage and pain rip through me, and unbothered Cynda is nowhere to be found as I tear toward them.