The Commitment Test (The Marin Test Series Book 2)

by Aksel, Amanda

  David cleared his throat and headed for the table. James and I watched him walk away.

  “Is he okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he’s all right,” James answered. I looked at him unconvinced, but he just smiled. “C’mon, I’m hungry.”

  James and I sat down at the long outdoor dining table over a delicious looking Easter feast. We passed around plates of greens, rolls, salads, starchy sides, and of course turkey. Aside from watching Holly and Noom feed each other green beans and David throw back drink after drink, it was nice that we could all come together during a holiday and enjoy a family meal. It felt so traditional and warm. I looked at James and he smiled at me while he chewed his salad.

  What, if anything, was he hiding behind that smile? I knew he loved me and wanted to be with me, but it seemed like he didn’t want the same things I wanted. Or at least, not the same way I wanted them.

  After dinner, the ten of us spread out in the backyard while we stuffed our faces with strawberry pie and whipped cream. I was sneaking an extra bite from James’ plate when Noom called for our attention. They stood by the wooden swing, his arms around Holly’s waist.

  “I want to thank Mr. and Mrs. Jensen for having us all over today for a real American Easter,” Noom said. “It has been a great experience. I love California. I love Holly’s family and her friends, but most of all I loooooove Holly.” The girls awed at his sweet words. “There’s something that I want to say to Holly.” Noom turned to Holly and began speaking to her in a mesh of Thai-English. She seemed to hang on his every word, like she was trying too hard to remember every syllable. Or maybe she was just trying to understand him?

  Rachel and David looked confused, while my parents and the Jensens smiled. I glanced up at James and he shrugged. Were we supposed to be watching them still? Finally, Noom took Holly’s hand and kneeled.

  I shook my head, clearing my vision. Was he about to propose? Oh, my God, he was. Holly yelled, “Yes!” and everyone applauded, it took me a moment to put my hands together. Holly and Noom engaged? How could it be?

  Noom took Holly in his arms as tears fell from her eyes.

  Did she really want to get married? She’d never said anything about it, and despite each of them telling me they were crazy for each other, I really didn’t think their relationship was that serious. Yet, they were going to be husband and wife. They were going to be family.

  “I can’t believe it,” I whispered to James. He leaned toward my ear.

  “Believe it, baby. Go congratulate your friend.”

  I forced a smile before approaching Holly.

  “Congrats, guys,” I said and hugged Noom, then Holly. I looked into her tear filled eyes and could tell she was really, very happy. She was in love. I wanted to cry too, not because I was elated by the proposal, but because I was heartbroken by it. I wanted to be happy for her, I really did, but in that moment, I couldn’t think about anything other than everyone else getting married. Everyone but me. Holly was going to be Noom’s wife. How would it change our friendship? Would he take her back to Thailand?

  I prayed that my true feelings didn’t show, not that Holly would have noticed. This was her moment. “I’m so happy for you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Friendly Advice

  It had been an eventful few weeks, and all I wanted was to take a step back from pretty much everyone. Holly must’ve called me at least twice a day, but I dodged every one of them. Not my greatest moment as a friend, I know, but I didn’t want to risk saying the wrong thing because I was feeling, in my opinion, the wrong thing. The longer I waited, the more my rational senses returned, and eventually I was ready to take her call.

  “Where’ve you been? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you since the weekend.” Holly didn’t sound upset, just concerned.

  “Sorry, Hol, I’ve been tied up with house stuff.” A little white lie that my honest friend would never tell.

  “It’s okay. Can we get together and talk?” she asked.

  “Sure, what’s on your mind?”

  “Are you kidding? Everything. You’re buying a house, I’m engaged. I just want to see you and catch up.” She sounded like she missed me, and I had missed her too. Things were just a little weird. I hoped they would return to normal again soon.

  I agreed to meet her for coffee the next evening after I finished with my patients. My body stiffened and my smile turned phony when she walked into the café, an unusual and uncomfortable reaction. I hoped she couldn’t tell. Little lies were easy on the phone, but I’d have to work really hard to lie to her face.

  Her manner was awkward too, as she sat across from me with her steaming cup of tea in a ceramic mug. Holly insisted on using real drinkware. I looked at my paper cup and felt a little pang of guilt at the “waste” she’d say I was creating. Holly really was a much better person.

  We made sixty seconds of polite small talk when she gave me sad puppy-dog eyes. “Are you mad at me?”

  I sighed. “I’m not mad at you, I’m just . . .” I didn’t want to sound like a big baby, but the truth was that I was, “—a little jealous.”

  “I had a feeling.” Holly put her hand on mine. “I wasn’t expecting a proposal at all. It just happened. I know the timing is weird for you. I’d probably be upset too.” How many girlfriends would have reacted like Holly? Not many. Her friendship was my true fortune.

  “I’m sorry. I really am, because I want you to be happy. And if this makes you happy, then I support it a hundred percent.”

  She smiled as if I’d said the magic words.

  “Does this make you happy?” My face cringed slightly.

  “Yes!” She beamed. “I’ve never been happier and I love him, Marin. He’s my James.”

  Noom? Holly’s James? That meant she’d do almost anything to be with him. Even move away.

  Tears burst from my eyes and I covered my face. “Is he taking you back to Thailand?” I asked.

  “What?” She snickered a little. “Is that what you’re upset about? You think I’m moving to another country?”

  I nodded and wiped my drippy nose with a rough brown napkin.

  “Aw, Marin.” Holly put her arms around me. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m sure we’ll spend some time away, but we’ll live here. My life and my work is here, and Noom wants to be here too.”

  I wanted to say something, articulate anything, but my words were smothered by my uncontrollable waterworks. What a fucking mess I was.

  “Is that the only thing that’s bothering you?” she asked and sat back in her chair.

  “No,” I said, finally managing to get a word out.

  “What else is going on?”

  “James doesn’t want to get married.” I sobbed harder.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s his ex-wife. She ruined it for him and now . . .” I cried. “I’ll never be his wife.” I blew my nose hard into the coarse napkin.

  Holly came to my aid, crouching next to my chair and rubbing my back. “Just give him more time. You’ll see.”

  “I have and the more time I give him, the more he’ll take. I don’t know how much I’m willing to give up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if I’m wrong? What if he’s not the guy for me? What if there’s someone better, someone who can give me what he can’t?” I couldn’t believe I had admitted that to myself, let alone to someone else. The relief from releasing the words was short lived, quickly replaced with a queasy sense of guilt.

  “Marin, James is the one for you. Maybe he’s a little spooked about marriage now, but he’ll come around. He’s crazy about you. Why do you need a piece of paper and a title to believe it?”

  Easy for her to say. She was the one wearing the engagement ring.

  My crying slowed, and I took a deep breath. “I just do.” Holly had no rebuttal. What could she say?

  “There’s something else,” I said, regaining my normal tone.

  “What?
” Holly looked alarmed.

  “I ran into Jack in San Diego.”

  Holly rose over me, frowning. “Jack? As in Jack-Ass-Face, Jack?” I nodded. “You ran into him? What happened?”

  “It was a totally random run in. We met for drinks, then we had dinner, and he told me that he made a mistake, that he never should have let me go.”

  “That fucking guy,” Holly said under her breath. She took her seat across from me, worry spread across her face. “Remember how heartbroken you were?”

  “Yes, but things have changed. What if there’s a reason he came back in my life? He even lives here now. I mean, what are the odds?”

  “Wait, what?” She held up her hand and took a deep breath. “Listen to me, whatever ideas he’s put in your head, you have to forget about them. This path you’re on is a slippery slope, and as your best friend, I forbid you to see him again.” Her tone was as severe as the time the Man Test came to Rachel and David’s house.

  I scoffed. “You forbid me?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, you can’t forbid me. I’m a grown woman.”

  “Then start acting like it, Marin.” She raised her voice. “No wonder James hasn’t proposed. You’re no more sure of him than he is of you.”

  I gasped.

  Holly grabbed her bag. “James already gave you a second chance. You might not get a third. I’m saying this with love. Get your shit together before you blow it.” Before I could defend myself, she stomped out of the coffee shop.

  What had just happened?

  I should’ve known Holly would react that way after everything that happened when I left med school. Maybe she was right and letting Jack back into my life would turn out to be a huge mistake. But what if it wasn’t? I picked up my cup to take a sip then realized I was going to need something a little stronger to numb the pain of it all. That’s when I called my therapist. Yes, alcohol and an objective pep talk from Andy were just what I needed.

  We met at a desolate bar near his neighborhood. Burgundy and hunter green leather seats lined the old wooden bar top. The floor was sticky under my shoes and I noticed the tops of the tables were dirty as I walked over to meet him.

  Next time, I’d pick the place.

  “Hey there, Andy.” The blonde bartender flashed her blue eyes at him. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-nine, at least fourteen years his junior. “Haven’t seen you in a while. We missed you around here.”

  “Yeah, you know how it is,” he said and looked away shyly, which was odd because Andy didn’t have a shy bone in his body.

  “Is this your girlfriend?” She gave me a once over.

  “No,” I said abruptly. Andy looked at me as if to say ‘okay, nutcase.’

  “Liz, this is Marin. She’s one of the doctors from my office.”

  The bartender perked up enough to match her silicone breasts. “Hey, what can I get you?”

  “A glass of cab, please,” I said.

  “Your best cab,” Andy confirmed. “She’s having boyfriend trouble,” he whispered.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got the perfect wine for you.” Liz winked and flashed a knowing smile. “What about you, Andy?”

  “Usual, please.”

  “You got it!” Liz bounced away, and Andy’s gaze followed her around the bar as she poured and mixed.

  “Ahem,” I let out, and it diverted his attention back to me. We sat quietly for a minute. A familiar song played faintly in the background. I listened for the lyrics, trying to identify the tune, while Andy stared at me. Taking mental notes as he usually did.

  “So, what’s goin’ on?” he asked, playing with the paper bar napkin in front of him.

  I let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Start at the beginning.”

  I hesitated for a moment, wanting to get the words right. Anything I said to Andy could and would be used against me in a later discussion. The guy never forgot a thing.

  “James still hasn’t asked me to marry him, and it turns out that he might never propose.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I overheard him talking to his best friend over the weekend.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said that marriage was possible, the same way people say a zombie apocalypse is possible. Then his ex-wife came up and . . . I could just hear it in his voice. She ruined holy matrimony for him. Maybe forever.”

  Andy gave me a sideways look, the kind that meant I was fucked.

  “Here you are!” Liz sat the drinks in front of us.

  I nodded a thank you.

  “Thanks, Liz,” Andy said with a wink before sipping his Jack and coke.

  She leaned on the bar, boobs spilling out of her tight tee.

  “You got it.” She winked back.

  “Andy,” I said through gritted teeth, “this is serious. Can you please stop flirting with the bartender for two seconds? I need your help.”

  “I can do two things at once.” He chuckled.

  I sipped my cabernet and stared at Andy with disdain. “You’re very arrogant, you know that?”

  He smirked.

  “What about you? You’re divorced. Think you’d ever get married again?”

  Andy grimaced. “Ooh, I doubt it.”

  “Why not? What happened with you two?”

  He sat his drink down as if to prepare to engage in a long tale. Yes! I’d waited years to hear this story. I leaned forward slightly.

  “You know how married people say marriage changes things?”

  I nodded.

  “A lot of couples who live together and share everything think it’s a joke. That nothing’s going to change. We’ll have this big party, then a nice vacation, and come back to the same ‘ole, same ‘ole.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “It’s not that simple. Marriage makes the relationship more complicated. For some couples it’s a good complicated. The relationship deepens and becomes stronger, but for others, it’s a bad complicated. You feel trapped, which is why I don’t believe in long-term monogamy.” I opened my mouth to speak, but he kept going. “The moral of the story is that getting married put unnecessary pressure on my relationship with my ex-wife and it destroyed us, what we had. And the divorce. Well, even the simplest divorces are excruciating.”

  “I guess I should talk to Telly about that,” I said and watched Andy’s cheeks turn pink. I smirked.

  “How’s your wine?” he asked.

  Nice save.

  “It’s good,” I said with a chuckle.

  He gave me a strange look so I straightened up. “Well anyway, I don’t think James had the same marital experience that you did.”

  Andy shrugged and stirred his cocktail. “Maybe not, but coming back from a failed marriage is easier on some than others.”

  “So you’re saying what exactly?”

  “If it ain’t broke . . . what’s the problem? He loves you. You two are buying a place together. Life’s good, enjoy what you have. Why do you need a marriage certificate?” When did it become so wrong to want a marriage certificate?

  “I just want someone to call my own, someone to grow old with, someone to raise a family with.”

  “Typical girl,” he said. Then in a mock-girl voice, “When are we getting married? When are we gonna have a baby?”

  I shoved him playfully to get him to stop, which he did and laughed. He had to know he was irritating me just a little.

  “What’s wrong with that?” I said.

  “It’s the millennium. You don’t need a wedding to have a family or have a baby. You don’t even need a man to have a baby anymore.”

  “I know,” I said looking down and picking nervously at my nails. “But I want to be married. I don’t think I should have to give that up.”

  “If it’s that simple for you, then maybe you should just let him go. But if you love him like you say you do, then why would you give him up f
or a piece of paper that has no real value or use?”

  I thought about it for a moment and sipped my dark wine. The smell of the cabernet reminded me of the visit to the vineyards last spring with James. By the end of the night we were so intoxicated we could barely get our clothes off. So we slept on top of the covers, fully clothed with wine stained lips. We made love that morning and I remember thinking that I could have lived in that moment forever.

  My phone buzzed with a text from Telly.

  I know this is a bad time, but I really need to talk to you. Are you free to meet?

  “Telly needs to talk,” I said while replying to her text. “I’m gonna tell her to meet us here.”

  “Us? No, I have to go.” He took a big gulp, finishing his drink. “Liz.” Andy raised his glass to get her attention. “I’ll take the check whenever.”

  “Wha . . .” I started with my hands up in question. “Where are you going? I’ve got more stuff to unload.”

  “I told you I couldn’t stay long.” He’d never said that. “Besides, you can get on my calendar.”

  “Yeah, but c’mon.” I searched his face for the truth. It was Telly. Would she have agreed to come if she’d known Andy was here?

  “What happened with Telly anyway?” I asked.

  “I told you, nothing.” He pulled a few bills from his wallet. “Keep the change,” he told Liz.

  “That’s what she says, but I know it wasn’t nothing. Just tell me, I can handle it.”

  “Fine, you want to know what happened?” He seemed serious, and I shook with anticipation. I’d been waiting to hear the story for over a year. Andy looked over his left shoulder, then his right, and leaned in. “Nothingggg,” he whispered like a ghost.

  “Ugh, just go,” I said, shooing him away.

  “I’m going.” He stood up and put on his sports coat. “About James . . . just talk to him.”

  I gave him a half smile and he patted my shoulder before walking away.

  “Hey, Andy,” I called and raised my wine glass. “Thanks for the drink.” He raised one hand to bid me farewell and I took a long sip.

  “You doin’ okay?” Liz asked.