by Hayes, Liv
What could I say to that? Even the best part-time father is still a part-time father. There was no way I could be there for every single late-night feeding, or diaper change, or take every First Watch while my daughter napped in her bassinet.
“How is the job hunt looking?” I asked.
“Poor,” she said. “I submit resumes every week, and nothing. I’m not sure what else to say. I’m sorry.”
I sighed. Sliding into the Porsche, I fumbled for my check-book, scribbled the numbers down on the sharp line, and handed the check to her. She accepted it reluctantly.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Yep,” I said. I was staring out through the windshield at this point, more pensive than I wanted to be in the late afternoon. Caught between a rock and a hard place. Mia, Cait, and the tiny human that would be making herself known sooner than later. “Of course.”
I didn’t text Mia. I spent the night at the local Books a Million, pouring over heavy texts on fatherhood, infants, and everything I could scour from the bookshelves. I drank about eleven cups of House Blend.
At the apartment, hands pressed against the cold window, I watched the clouds gather. Even in the nightfall, they were full and hanging with water.
I wondered what Mia was doing. If she was out with her friends, having a weekend bender or something. God, I hoped she wouldn’t be drinking. I hoped she wouldn’t be out at some hole-in-the-wall bar, with those leery-eyed boys her age. The thought of another man looking at her was enough to make my blood boil.
And there the books were, sitting on my kitchen counter, mocking me.
You can’t have her, they said. It’s over. You’re done.
And I guess they were right, in a way. I was just willing, pathetically and insanely, to hold out – to hold her – for as long as I could.
Sprawling across my bed, finally succumbing to my jealous paranoia, I called her:
“Hi,” she answered on the first ring. “I’m sorry if I’ve been bothering you.”
“God, no,” I said, fidgeting on the bedspread. “Are you at home?”
“Yeah. Watching Bridezilla. Why?”
I breathed a small sigh of relief. I didn’t let her know my real thoughts, though. I wasn’t proud of them. This was 2015 – Mia could do what she wanted. She wasn’t my plaything.
“Just thinking about you,” I said gently. “It’s quiet here.”
“Can I come over?” she asked, her voice rising. “To see you, I mean. Obviously.”
I thought about the books on my kitchen counter. I thought about the scant evidence that would eventually only accumulate. How much longer could I keep this going?
Inside my slacks, my cock hardened.
“Not here,” I said. “The place is a mess. Can I come and steal you?”
“Please,” she said. “I’ll wait outside for you.”
As if on cue, droplets began to pelt and run down the window glass, like watercolor.
“It’s raining,” I told her.
“I don’t care,” she said. “I just need you.”
I didn’t bother dressing. I threw on a pair of jeans and kept my undershirt. The whole twelve minutes that it took to reach Mia’s place seemed to stretch on for an eternity. Even my customized Night Drive playlist granted me no relief.
The downpour fell in heavy droplets; like hot lead as they assailed the tinted windows.
And as I waited, I pressed a palm against my cock, which was already hard underneath my dark jeans.
When she tapped on the glass, I opened the door.
I pulled her inside, and she locked us in.
“Hello, Dr. Greene,” Mia said, sweetly cloying.
“Hello, little fox.”
I couldn’t suppress the subtle growl. Inside, hungry and craving, I clawed at her drenched clothes; I could see her nipples hard through her soft T-Shirt. Stripping the layers, I could smell the scent of vanilla and powder on her skin.
“God, I’ve missed you,” I murmured against her neck. I kissed her, pinching her neck with my teeth, and a moan escaped her throat. “I don’t think I can wait.”
We were a mess of clashing mouths and frantic hands. I unzipped my fly, yanking my erection out. As she slid out of her pajama pants, I squeezed my shaft, hard.
“I’m so wet,” she exhaled. Droplets ran down her beautiful face. “What about your car?”
“I don’t give a fuck about the Porsche,” I grabbed her wrist, kissing the inside, the soft flesh. “Come here. Now.”
I pulled her on top of my lap. She sank down against me like the first shot Dilaudid into the bloodstream. The most potent of painkillers.
I touched her face as she ground her hips against mine. Skin against skin, bone against bone, heat against heat.
“Alex,” she gasped. “I…I…”
“Yes?” I asked, skimming my thumb against her bottom lip. Full, ripe. “What is it?”
She looked pained, conflicted. Instead of answering, she kissed me, hard, then buried her face against my shoulder.
“Oh, God…” she whispered into the fabric. “I’m going to…”
I felt the contractions: one, two…
“Mia,” I yelped. I raised my hips, driving myself deeper inside of her. Her eyes were closed, her mouth parted, her cheeks colored crimson. “Look at me, Mia.”
Her eyes opened, meeting mine. I gripped her waist, pressing her against me, feeling my swollen member throb as it filled her to the very hilt.
Outside, the rain made our noises mute. Everything inside of me tightened, and I yanked her off of me, my cum milking the inside of her pale thigh.
She sat on my lap, quietly looking at it.
“You’ve made a mess of your pretty car,” she said softly.
“I don’t care about the car,” I whispered, kissing her.
We kissed for awhile, tongues slowly gliding, her face in my hands. When the heat dialed back, I wiped up the seat with a few napkins from the glove compartment, and we just sat for awhile, listening to the rain.
“I hate the summers,” she said. “You practically drown in the rain.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “There’s no escaping it.”
We talked for a little bit about her graduation, and her mother, and how she had come to visit, and how much she missed her. I told her a little about my folks, and the Northeast, and how I missed them, too. Well, my mother. My father was an A-Class dick.
“I wish I could have met her,” I found myself saying. “She seems very lovely.”
Mia regarded me with a sort of perplexed look on her face, and I understood why. How could I ever meet her mother? How could I ever work out the logistics of meeting the loved ones in her life?
And the baby would soon be here.
I reached out, gripped her hand, and swallowed the lump in my throat.
“I’m sorry I can’t give you more,” I finally said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re not,” she swore. “We knew this would be complicated. I’d rather have something complicated with you than nothing at all. Call me the typical heroine. But I don’t care.”
It was all so fucking sad. The way her hair fell across her face, the way the rain fell harshly against the roof of my car. Thrashing, threatening.
Eventually I turned the AC on, we listened to some music, and tried to wait the storm out. I skimmed my fingers up her thigh, tickling her, and she giggled.
“I’ll be honest,” she admitted. “I was surprised that you didn’t have a wife. Or a girlfriend.”
“Why?”
Her shoulders fell.
“You’re so handsome, and smart, and charming,” she said. I knew that she was forcing herself to omit one final tidbit: A Doctor. “I’d have thought for sure that you’d have been scooped up by now.”
“It’s overrated, the Trophy Wife,” I told her. “I’d rather be alone.”
“Would you?” she asked.
My hand was open. And just as she had in my office, r
ight before the very first time I had fucked her, she started making those little circles along the inside of my palm. Her fingertip was like a paintbrush.
“You know how some people can be in this world,” I told her. “Calculating, cruel. Most of the time it’s unintentional, of course. Most people aren’t aware of their own penchant for screwing with others. But you’re not like them.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
The rain softened to a gentle pitter-patter. It dusted over the windshield like a soft mist.
“Well, I guess I don’t,” I told her. “It’s just a feeling.”
She kissed my cheek, lingering there for a second, her eyes full of unanswered questions. When the digital clock struck eleven, I told her I had to leave. I had paperwork. And that, of all the lies I had been telling, was the truth.
After Mia had left, it was just me, and the sound of silence, and the bitter understanding that I was going to break her. I was a selfish man, doing a selfish thing, and deserved whatever was going to come of it.
I was only a doctor, after all. I never claimed to be a saint.
Chapter 17
MIA
A wail of thunder snapped me from a dead sleep. Hard rain turned everything outside the windows into a blur of green and gray. Another rainy summer day.
I turned over, with Little Fox staring at me with two black-button eyes. I gave him a squeeze, saddened by the fact that the smell of Dr. Greene’s cologne was finally starting to fade. Would it be completely insane if I tried to figure out the brand he used?
Yeah, probably.
I showered, threw on my UCF hoodie and a pair of jeans, and spent the afternoon sitting behind a quiet desk in the empty library. All of the summer campus residents weren’t keen on braving the downpour. They were likely in bed, sleeping to the sound of metallic static. Rain is always the perfect soundtrack for sleep. Even I was slightly drowsy.
Eventually I hunkered down with a copy of Cat’s Cradle, which Dr. Greene had said was his favorite book. I managed to get through a few pages before my heart tightened. Stress and anxiety and fatigue.
I ignored it, setting the book aside, distracted. For awhile I just sat there, watching the rain fall, hoping that maybe I’d be let go early, but also knowing that I literally couldn’t afford to lose even an hour of pay.
Sighing, I put the book back, opting to peruse the shelves and ensure that everything was where it should be. I had no formal librarian training, to be honest. I wasn’t all too sure why they hired me – though, who was I kidding, they needed whatever summer help they could get while the truly qualified individuals were busy spending their summer break getting wasted on the beaches of Ft. Lauderdale. I was the chump.
I pulled out my phone, looking at the text that Dr. Greene had sent me. A photo of him, as I had asked for. He was sitting behind his desk, smiling, wearing his lab-coat and white button-down shirt and a dark green tie. He had this small smirk that tugged at the corner of his mouth, with his glasses perched on the tip of his nose.
Swoon.
The forecast wasn’t helping when it came to reminding of me of last night’s events. Fucking Dr. Greene in his pretty, sleek Porsche. The way his eyes looked, alert and searching. The way he whispered what is it? – and how I almost gave way to the biggest word-slip in my twenty-two-year-old life.
I had almost told him that I loved him. Did I, though? I didn’t know. But I was feeling something; deep and budding and ready to burst out of me. And maybe that’s why my chest was hurting. Maybe that’s why the pain was so sharp.
After work, I waited on the library’s front steps for my ride to arrive, watching the silver bullets fall from the sky. It was no surprise that the cab arrived almost twenty minutes late.
“Sorry,” he said as I slid inside.
“It’s no big deal,” I told him. It wasn’t.
At the apartment, I tidied up, took a long shower, and tried to scrub myself clean of the quaking feeling in my bones. The pang that comes with missing someone you’re falling for, and the insatiable craving that you have for them when you start to slip. He was all over my body, inside and out, and his hands weren’t even touching me. I could feel him on my skin, in my head, in the still-twisting ache in my heart.
Laying in bed, the pain intensified. And it wasn’t some romantic, metaphorical pain. It was horrible. Terrible. The worst kind of feeling you could imagine. It was like I was all sewn up, stuffing and fabric, and someone was trying to tear me apart at the seams.
I picked up my phone, contemplating calling Dr. Greene’s office. Maybe there was something else. Maybe there was something that he hadn’t caught. Doctors make mistakes from time to time, don’t they? What if he had missed something?
After a moment of thought, I called. His receptionist answered. I asked if I could schedule an appointment.
“Let me check with him,” she said. Shit, I thought. Now he’s going to know I called. “Give me just one moment.”
Twenty-seven seconds later, she returned.
“Could you come in now?” she asked. “Unless that’s too short notice. I have one other cancellation, but it’s not until 4:30.”
I exhaled loudly. My nerves were wound tight.
“Now is fine,” I told her. “Thank you.”
I was holding the giant heart replica in my hand, tossing it up into the air and catching it like a piece of fruit. The human heart was pretty grisly, to be honest. Full of vessels and tube-like arteries, full of beating blood. It wasn’t the cute image on Valentine’s Day cards or boxes of chocolates. It looked threatening, and maybe that was appropriate, because the heart is a threatening thing.
When the door knocked, I shoved it back in place on his desk. Dr. Greene opened after his typical three knocks, closed the door behind him, and for a second or two we just looked at each other.
He looked nervous, skittish.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. He seated himself down at his desk, in the wheel-y chair. As he looked at me, he moved from side-to-side. All formalities had been totally discarded at this point. We were regular lovers now. “Clarification: what’s wrong that you needed to schedule a formal appointment with me, Mia?”
“Do you have an issue with it?” I said, almost snapping. Then, I forced myself to soften. “My chest is still hurting.”
Dr. Greene’s mouth was a straight line. He raked his hand through tousled hair, touched his stubbled chin. After sucking in a deep breath, he turned to his computer, typed away at the keyboard, and said:
“Your Chest X-Ray was normal,” he recited. “As was the Cardiac Sonogram, the King of Hearts monitoring, the blood-work and the stress tests. There’s no sign of arrhythmia, no sign of heart murmurs, nothing indicating that there’s anything wrong with your heart.”
He turned to me, not with his body, but with his eyes. His sideways glance cut against me like a paper-cut, and I fucking hated it.
“Are you sure you’ve run every single test?” I asked. “What if there is something wrong? I’m telling you, it hurts.”
Dr. Greene reached out, cupped my hands in his. The same man that had pulled out and came all over the inside of my thigh, that had fucked me like a frenzied Lycan, was holding my hands as if they belonged to a stranger. His touch was tender and professional.
“Do you remember what I said earlier, about seeing a therapist?”
“Fuck you,” I spat, immediately shocked at what had fallen from my mouth. The words themselves were a total knee-jerk, and Dr. Greene’s eyes widened, stunned. “I don’t need to see a therapist. There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“I’m not saying that,” he said carefully. “You know I’m not saying that.”
“Then what are you saying, exactly?”
I knew I sounded like a stone-cold bitch. Immature and stubborn and stupid. And I hated myself for it, I really did. But it was so hard to see him sitting there, holding my hands, treating me like a patient when I was anything but at this point.
> Treating me like a patient, sitting on his pedestal as the immaculate, spotless doctor, when we were both rolling in our own filth. And I was falling in love with him.
I swallowed with sudden difficulty. I knew he felt it, too. Around me, the pale-green walls covered in detailed cardiac charts were almost taunting. I hated everything about it.
“This is my fault,” he muttered. “I’m so sorry. I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have said what I said, Mia. Do I think it would help? Maybe. But…” he paused. “I’m giving you my professional opinion.”
“Professional opinion,” I clarified, repeating like a parrot.
“Yes,” he said. “Because you don’t want my personal one. Mia, I don’t even want to contemplate that course of action.”
We both understood. Therapy, fake-talking my way through the stress that was causing my suddenly irreparable chest pains, or dropping the sword on our skewed, fucked-up relationship entirely. And what would be worse at this point?
I couldn’t lose him. I was irritated, hurt, confused. But he was, too. Look at what we were doing to each other.
Still holding his hand, I pressed his palm against my cheek, warm and slightly calloused. He grazed his thumb across my mouth, his lips parting. I knew he wanted to kiss me.
I touched his knee. He immediately swiveled the chair away, his eyes darting to the ground nervously.
“You fucked me here,” I told him. “I know I don’t need to remind you.”
“Jesus, Mia,” he whispered. “Are you insane?”
“Yes,” I told him. “And so are you. We both are.”
I reached over, sliding my hand up the inside of his thigh. He was already hard. His legs spread, slightly, and his eyes closed. I undid his belt buckle, sliding leather against leather. I undid his fly, zipping it down.
When his cock was in my hands, I knelt to the ground. In the harsh light, it felt completely unsexy. But I wanted him. I wanted to own this moment, and him, right now.
I took all of him in my mouth, and his gasps seemed to reverberate through his entire body. One palm pressed against his desk, the other tangled in my hair. He tasted like salt water and something sweet, bitter, musky.