by Phoebe Fox
Chip stood up and came over to sit on the other end of my love seat, and my heart thunked against my ribs as I scooted back toward the arm behind me. What was happening? How had I lost control of this meeting to the point that I couldn’t even—
“Look, Doc—Brook,” Chip said quietly, “can we drop the BS for a sec? Just person to person, I like you. I’d like to see more of you. What’s wrong with that?”
He sounded so reasonable, his blue-green eyes steady on mine, one hand lifted toward me, palm up. This was the side of Chip that always gave me so much hope that there was a gentler man inside him, trapped under all his barbed edges.
I pressed cold fingers to my cheeks, trying to cool them. “That’s...Of course it’s nice to hear, but it’s...it’s unethical. Inappropriate.”
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Chip quoted the line in Inigo Montoya’s accent with a wink and a return of his crooked grin, and the reminder of my evening with Ben and his mom sent a surge of guilt through me. He must have seen my reaction, because he leaned away slightly, giving me space, and sobered. “It’s just...I feel like maybe there was a reason you didn’t want to take me back on as a client this time, Brook,” he went on. His sandpaper voice was a low rasp that seemed to hypnotize me, holding me frozen as I stared at him. “Maybe you knew that there was something more here—something I think we both felt that night on the beach—and part of you knew you wanted to keep this out of the professional realm?”
At the memory of us twined together on the sand that night several months ago, my face flamed further. “Chip, I...I don’t know what...” I couldn’t find words to respond to him. His arguments made sense. There was something between us that night—and long before. And he wasn’t my client anymore—it was true: I was the one who’d made sure of that. Was he right? Did part of me see this coming all along, and want to leave that possibility open?
“But...but what about your exes...making amends...?” I managed finally.
His lips curved up in a smile I could only call tender. “This was always about you, Brook,” he said gently. “How have you not known that?”
I reared up to sit straight and squared off with him, indignation a welcome replacement for the uncertainty I was swimming in. “Wait a minute, you mean you...This whole thing about making amends was just some kind of...of ploy?”
“What? No, of course not!” He let out a great sigh, close enough for me to feel his breath wash over my face, smell the cigarettes and cinnamon that I had come to associate with Chip. He lifted his hands suddenly, and I flinched before I realized he was raising them to his shaved head. He scraped them along it with a rasping sound, as if he were trying to scrub his brain clean.
“This isn’t coming out the way I...Look, Doc—Brook. Here’s the thing. You make me want to be a better man. For you.”
Something twanged powerfully in my chest. “Don’t, Chip. Please don’t,” I murmured. “This can’t go anywhere—you have to know that.”
My voice was wobbly and uncertain, but I knew the words were harsh.
He looked plaintive. “Why not? I don’t understand. You know me, Brook—you have to know how rarely I feel this way about anyone.”
A wild laugh yipped out of me before I could hold it back. Another inappropriate reaction, but at this point, what did it matter? “Let’s not overstate things. We’ve been working on your making amends to what is apparently a long list of people you’ve felt this way about.”
“It’s different.” He was adamant, but not aggressive. “That’s just dating. This is deeper than that. You get me like no one else has. You make me...I don’t know...calmer. Better. You make it easy to be better.”
“That’s my job. It’s very common for patients to confuse that feeling with the feeling of—”
“No—don’t do that. Don’t hide behind all that psycho mumbo jumbo. See? I get you too. I know that you use all this therapy stuff to keep your own feelings under wraps.”
He wasn’t wrong—I did pull the logical concepts of psychology over me like a force field when I felt myself drowning in emotions I was afraid to feel. It was actually a big part of the reason I had gotten in Chip’s truck that night—I’d spent so long pushing everything back behind that shield, it was ready to blow past it when I ran into Chip on one of the lowest points of my breakup with Kendall.
“And I know that you feel something for me too,” he pressed, as if sensing my vacillation. “I knew it all the way back when we first worked together.”
That was a little close to home. I’d been feeling—and fighting—an attraction to him from almost the first time he came to me at my old practice. I couldn’t explain it then and I still couldn’t—he was everything I knew was a bad bet, relationship-wise, even if he hadn’t been a patient. There was something primal and chemical and basic to the way I was drawn to him—if I hadn’t believed in the power of pheromones before, I’d have had to after I met Chip. My body went haywire every time he’d stepped into my old office.
“Doc, there’s something here,” Chip went on in the face of my confused silence. “I’m not saying we’re soulmates or something. Just that it’s obvious we have a connection—there’s something about us that just works with each other. I didn’t expect it any more than you did. But it happened, and I think it’s worth exploring.”
He sounded so reasonable, so persuasive.
There was a time when I wouldn’t have even allowed for the possibility of dating someone like Chip. When my every rational impulse told me one thing while my basic instincts were screaming the exact opposite, it never made sense to overrule my head and follow my...well, whatever always responded so strongly to him.
But things had changed since we knew each other before. He had changed—this new Chip was gentler, more genuine. Someone who made me laugh, and who was clearly working to become the person he wanted to be. But more important, I had changed. I didn’t operate exclusively from my left brain anymore; more and more lately my emotional right-brain side was weighing in—and I was letting it.
Maybe this persistent pull between us was a symptom of that. Maybe, now that I was dropping my rigid shield of rationality, I was more willing to open myself up, to be less predictable, less controlled. Less careful.
Could Chip be just what I needed right now?
But if so...what about Ben?
“Are you two looking for a little more?”
The voice startled me out of the rabbit warren of thoughts I’d been lost in, and I looked up to see a woman in a white shirt and green apron holding a carafe of coffee in one hand, a pitcher of iced tea in the other.
I hadn’t touched my coffee, so there was certainly no need for a refill. Chip nodded at the barista and touched her wrist as she poured more tea into his glass. “Would you mind bringing my friend a fresh cup?” he asked softly. “I think hers has gotten cold.”
“Sure thing. Right back.” She leaned over to take my cup, flashing an uncertain smile to the wide-eyed mute woman I’d become.
It was such a thoughtful gesture...almost sweet the way he’d called me his friend. Could we be that? Friends?
Or, as the barista had unintentionally said, were we looking for a little more?
I used to always know the right answer in any situation—or thought I did. The maddening downside of the awakening emotions I was discovering was that I couldn’t always sort through the chaos jumbling inside me.
Chip wasn’t rushing me, wasn’t pushing. He sat back with one arm draped behind the love seat, his left leg triangled over his right, giving me space. By the time the woman returned with a new cup of coffee, setting it down in front of me, my croaked “thank you” was the first words we’d spoken in minutes.
I busied myself leaning forward to pour creamer into my coffee and tear open two sugar packets.
White crystals spewed all over the cocktail table and the floor.
I took a deep breath to steady myself. “Chip,” I said, and then cleared the falter from my voice. “This is a lot to take in. I can’t just—”
“I’m not asking you to make some big commitment or anything, Brook,” he cut me off. “I’m just saying can’t we maybe get to know each other—as people, not like doctor and patient—and just...see?”
If it hadn’t been for Ben, I realized with a queasy feeling of guilt, I was ready to say yes.
“I don’t know,” I said finally. “I have to think.”
He nodded. “Okay, I get that. Take your time. I can wait. I will wait....How about now?” That little-boy grin was back.
I almost felt an answering smile creep onto my lips, but my thoughts—and my stomach—were still churning.
seventeen
Of course I took my dilemma immediately to Sasha.
“What do you think about seeing two guys at one time?”
She mulled my question over. “Honestly, that’s the only kind of three-way I’ll consider anymore. With two girls I’m just not as into it.”
I just stared, pulling my feet back from where they commingled with Sasha’s as we each slouched back against an arm of her red velvet sofa.
She kicked my ankle. “Not with you, idiot. That would be like incest.”
Dropping my legs back down where they’d been, I reached over to the cocktail table for my wineglass. “I meant dating, actually, though of course I can understand your assumption. Don’t we all have three-ways at some point?”
“I know, right?”
I just shook my head. Did my brother have any idea what he was getting into?
“What if I wanted to date someone besides Ben?” I asked.
Sasha sat up, crossing her legs. “You met someone else? Where?”
“I already knew him, actually.”
She grinned. “And he asked you out? You playa!”
“He hasn’t actually asked me on a date yet. And I don’t even know for sure if I want to go out with him. I just wondered...if I did, would that be bad? I mean, considering Ben?”
“Well, have you and Ben talked about it?”
“About whether I’m going to go out with another guy? No, Sasha, geez!”
“No, duh—about what your relationship is. I mean, you’re like some weird sexless Victorian couple, so you can both be forgiven for having no idea where you stand.”
“Shut up.”
“So who is it? Do I know him?”
Ugh. I was afraid she’d ask. But I couldn’t lie to her. “It’s Chip Santana.”
“What! Oh, my God!” She shot off the couch, turning to face me with hands on hips. “For God’s sake, Brook, what’s the deal with this guy? You know he’s trouble!”
“Oh, come on, Sash. You of all people can’t see taking a chance on a guy who’s not perfect?”
She raised her eyebrows. “‘Not perfect’ is one thing. Abusive is another.”
I sat up and clinked my glass down on the table.
“He’s not abusive.”
I was grateful Sasha didn’t know about Chip strangling his ex—even though he wasn’t a formal client I wouldn’t betray doctor-patient privilege—but in his defense, Katie had shot him. “He has a temper problem, I admit. But he’s working on it, Sasha—and honestly, he’s a really sweet guy underneath it.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s what all the battered wives say.”
I stood up too, pacing across her living area to get out from under her accusing stare. “You don’t even know him. And frankly I feel like you’re implying I’m an idiot. Don’t you think I of all people would know if Chip’s a wife-beater?”
“I don’t think you’re an idiot, Brook. But you’ve got some kind of weird blind spot with this guy. Like you can’t see past the attraction.”
Resentment flared up in me. Sasha was a few months into the first healthy relationship of her life, and she suddenly thought she was some kind of expert?
But it died almost as quickly when I met her concerned gaze. All Sasha wanted—all she ever wanted—was what was best for me. If the tables were turned I’d probably be giving her the same warnings. And hadn’t she hit on some of my own concerns? I did feel a powerful physical pull to Chip that more than once I’d worried overcame my better judgment. As our night in jail so eloquently demonstrated.
“You’re right,” I finally admitted into the ringing silence. “It’s not a good idea.”
Sasha came over to where I still stood near her television and pulled me into a hug. I stood stiff in her embrace for a few moments, and then finally raised my arms around her waist.
“Ben’s a really good guy, Brook. It’s not worth risking something great that might develop between you two for someone who doesn’t deserve you.” She pulled back and winked. “And by something great developing, I mean finally getting it on, of course.”
“Of course.”
I returned her smile, but it took more effort than it should have.
I didn’t know what to say to Chip, so I took the coward’s way out and didn’t say anything at all. Work kept me busy enough to justify avoiding calling him.
Cameron Mitchell had broken up with Wayne Bukowski, and was in the acute stages of mourning. I worried she’d go right back to him if she didn’t have someone to talk it over with, so we scheduled several additional sessions over the week. Frank Farqu—a client I’d been seeing for many months, since he first came to me to help him win back his ex and instead I’d realized he needed help to stop stalking her—had met someone new, but couldn’t stop thinking about Carole and wanted my blessing to contact her and let her know that (I met with him ASAP to decline to give it). Lisa Albrecht, my editor at the paper—and my first client—had been working with me on her resentment and rage at her ex-husband. When her sons told her that her ex moved his much younger girlfriend—whom he’d left Lisa for—into his apartment over the weekend, she was desperate for a session to keep her from going over there to slash their tires. Naturally I had to prevent her from getting arrested for vandalism. Between clients, my radio shows, and writing my column, I had my hands too full to worry about Chip.
Whenever I had a few free minutes, I worked with Jake on obedience. Results continued to be uncertain: some days he seemed like the greatest, smartest dog on earth, responding almost immediately to my commands of “sit” and “stay” and “down,” grinning eagerly up at me for one of the treats I kept in a fanny pack at my waist. Then other times he refused to engage, leaning up against me for affection, licking my legs to get my attention, and finally throwing himself on the floor at my feet, belly-up, like a dead dog. I didn’t know if it was something I was doing wrong as a trainer, or if Jake was simply messing with me.
On Thursday I took him over to visit with Adelaide. She was easy to talk to, full of compliments about my column and my radio appearance Monday, and we made dinner together while we chatted. She told me stories about Ben as a curious, busy child always rigging up something: building a working safe out of LEGOs, creating complex Rube Goldberg devices that were set off by his parents opening a door or walking into a room, starting “businesses” for lawn care or car detailing from the time he was twelve.
I couldn’t help smiling through her descriptions of a kid who was so similar to the adult he became—industrious, creative, entrepreneurial. Sasha was so right—regardless of whether Chip was a reformed man or not, it wasn’t worth jeopardizing things with a man like Ben.
Not that it mattered. I hadn’t heard from Chip since his declaration anyway.
I guessed he wasn’t that into me after all.
Adelaide told me about Ben’s dad, her husband, Jim. Even now her love for him was palpable, as if he’d merely left the room, rather
than been dead for years. “We did almost everything we talked about doing,” she said as she plated the broiled salmon. “Lived in every city that piqued our interest, traveled, tried surfing and spelunking and whitewater rafting, had Ben. And we told each other everything we wanted to say, before the end,” she said. “So I have no regrets.”
“But you miss him,” I said.
“Every day.”
Ben had told me the night I first met him, sitting in the emergency room with his broken arm and my perforated foot, that his mom was having a hard time letting go of his dad. It wasn’t my business, but Adelaide was still vibrant and active and pretty, and too outgoing to be alone for the rest of her life.
“It would be nice to be able to do some of those things still, if you could find someone who enjoyed them,” I said casually as I took our plates to the table.
“It wasn’t the activities as much as it was the company,” she answered with a fond smile.
I tried again over dessert. “You know, they say the concept of a soulmate is a construct. There are a lot of people we can be happy with.”
“Lightning doesn’t strike twice,” she said.
“It can, actually,” I replied with a grin. “Just not in the exact same way.”
Friday nights used to be my “date night” with Sasha, but now her Fridays always seemed full: “Stu and I are going night rowing in Bonita—crazy, right?” “I’m VIP’d in for a new nightclub opening in Naples and Stu’s driving my drunk ass home afterward.” And the one that always gave me a twinge: “We’re just staying home curled up on the couch and watching movies. Come on over!”
Sometimes I did. And sometimes it was like old times—all three of us camped out on the floor, eating takeout food right from containers we passed around like a buffet, heckling whatever stupid movie had tickled us to pick out—Sharknado or Battlefield Earth or Freaks.
But other times I felt like an appendage, the obligatory maiden aunt that my two clearly happy best friends had invited over out of charity. Not because they did anything overt to make me feel like a third wheel—to their credit, Sasha and Stu refrained from cuddling or holding hands or kissing when I was over. But I could see in the occasional naked glance between them, or a brushing of their shoulders on the sofa, or a secret smile, that the two of them now shared something that I didn’t with either one of them. So I stayed home with Jake that Friday night, curled up on the sofa as he tried very hard to make me feel less lonely by crawling all the way across my lap—where he promptly fell into a loud snoring sleep.