But it was too late. Lyssa nearly gasped. Her blue eyes became very wide and she covered with mouth with both of her soft, pale hands.
“You must think I’m totally crazy,” she said. “Coming to you and begging like this ... when I didn’t even know it was you who I was coming to see.”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “You’re not crazy, Lyssa. I see a lot of women who are equally ... passionate about their desire to have a child.”
That, at least, was true. True enough that Alice had always ordered tissues in bulk – on a weekly basis. I saw a lot of tears in my office, but what kept me going was that many of them were happy tears. Women crying from the relief of knowing that they were able to conceive. Tears of joy at the sign of a positive pregnancy test.
But, of course, not all of the tears were happy ones. There had been many a time where I’d quietly slipped out of the office, leaving my patients alone with their husbands or partners or boyfriends as they sobbed disconsolately.
I just hoped that if Lyssa ever cried, it wasn’t from disappointment and hurt.
It was impossible to explain. Despite vowing to myself that I’d never work with someone so close to my personal life, as soon as I saw her I’d had a wild urge to take her into my arms and protect her. Keep her close and make her feel safe and happy.
Well, I couldn’t do that. There was no way she’d ever go for it, not to mention that Steven would murder me.
But I could help her with this particular issue, murky ethics aside.
I just wished that the attraction to her wasn’t stronger than ever, that seeing her blue eyes spark to life again hadn’t aroused a deep, white-hot lust for her.
“Thank you,” Lyssa said finally. She took a deep breath and smoothed her coat. Her red cheeks had paled again and she bit her plump lower lip.
“I have a lot of other patients to see,” I said regretfully. “But your next appointment will be longer, and we’ll be a lot more thorough. This was just a consult,” I added.
Lyssa nodded briefly. She gave me a hesitant look. “Dan?”
“Yes?”
“I might have to ask your receptionist about a payment plan, if you take those,” she said quietly, and I sensed her embarrassment rolling off her in waves.
“We do that often,” I lied. “I’m sure it won’t be a problem. Let me speak to Alice – she’s very busy today.”
Lyssa nodded again, looking relieved. She got to her feet, hesitated, then gave me her hand. When I touched her soft skin, I had to actively work to keep from groaning with lust. She was so soft, so vulnerable, that I was afraid I’d bruise her just by touching her.
“Thank you again,” she said.
“I’ll have Alice call you to book your first appointment,” I said.
When she pulled her hand away, I resisted the urge to reach for her again. Lyssa held my gaze for a long time, then left my office. Immediately, I collapsed into my chair and put my face in my hands, groaning.
“Fuck,” I muttered. “What the fuck did I just agree to?”
It was impossible: out of the hundreds – maybe even thousands – of fertility doctors in New York City, she’d found me. And goddamnit, why oh why did she still have to be so gorgeous? Her curvy body was just as alluring as it had always been – even though she’d come dressed in a conservative wrap dress, keeping my eyes away from her ripe tits had been almost impossible. The attraction was stronger than ever.
And weirdly, it had seemed as if she’d felt the same way.
I was delusional, thinking that. She’d never see me as anything but a kid. That was clearly the reason why she’d felt so comfortable being so open, so vulnerable with me. Because I was a friend of the family, someone who she’d known practically forever. Not some stranger with a cold stethoscope and a brusque demeanor.
Seeing her so emotional and so guarded at once had been strange and upsetting. Even at thirty-seven, her face was still youthful and unlined, pale and as beautiful as she’d ever been.
Hell, even more so.
There was a deep hurt there, lingering behind her lily-soft skin.
That’s what did it, I realized.
I hadn’t agreed to help Lyssa because of my feelings for her, which I adamantly wished would go dormant.
I’d agreed to help her because of how obviously she needed help. How desperate and sad and scared she was. Seeing her like that had nearly killed me – which just made my pathetic attraction to her even worse.
Lyssa didn’t need a man coming on to her and drooling over her incredible, generous body.
She needed someone strong, a protector, a savior.
I was just a doctor.
But I vowed that to Lyssa, I’d be more.
At the end of the day, I stopped by Alice’s desk. The waiting room was free of patients, and I cleared my throat.
She turned to me and flushed. “I’m almost done with these invoices, Dr. Andrews,” she said. “You might want to think about cutting back on new patients for a while – you’re booked solid for a month.”
I nodded. “Listen,” I said. “I want you to treat Lyssa Holm as a pro bono patient.”
Alice made a note on the file she was working on. “Okay,” she said. “Well, that’ll be good – we haven’t made up any pro bono hours yet this year, and the last case was October.”
“And prioritize her appointments,” I said. “I want her to have the best of care.”
If Alice looked surprised, she didn’t show it. “Yes, Dr. Andrews,” she said. “Of course.”
I left the office where the grey and blustery morning had turned into an even greyer late afternoon. As I walked down the block, I shoved my fists into my coat pockets. I knew that I shouldn’t be dwelling on thoughts of Lyssa, but I couldn’t help it. Seeing her again had done something to me, shaken my orbit, pulled me out of my established adult life and pushed me back to my teenage years of uncertainty and acne.
Nothing like a drink to fix that, though. I had a beer while I texted Steven and asked him to meet me. As I nursed my beer and prayed that he wouldn’t bring Meredith, I wondered what the fuck I would tell him.
I was already keeping secrets from Lyssa – my ongoing crush, the pro bono lie – that I was determined not to keep any more from anyone, no matter how hard it would be.
When Steven got there, we ordered a pitcher and an order of wings.
“So,” I said, clearing my throat. “Your sister came into my office today.”
“Lyssa?”
“No,” I said sarcastically. “Your other sister.”
Steven rolled his eyes. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Long day. Meredith and I were up half the night, fighting about this goddamned wedding. I swear to god, she wants to put us in the poor house for the sake of her fucking Instagram feed.” He took a long swallow of beer. “What did Lyss want?”
“Well, she made an appointment without knowing who I was,” I said. “Or rather, without knowing that Dr. Andrews and I are the same person.”
Steven pressed his lips together. “Yeah, well, ...” He trailed off. “She’s wanted a kid for a long time. I remember her talking about even when she was back in high school. She loved babysitting for the neighbors.”
“That hasn’t changed,” I replied. Understatement of the year, more like.
“Are you going to work with her?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “I mean, I was going to say no, at first. But something about her ...”
An odd look came over Steven’s face.
“What?” I asked.
Steven sighed. “Look, man,” he said. “Just don’t try anything, okay?”
“Like what?” I feigned innocence. “I’m her doctor now. Of course, things will stay professional. It would be completely unethical to take advantage of a patient.”
“No, I didn’t mean like that,” Steven said uneasily. “She’s just ... she’s been through hell, man. Like that fucking asshole ex-husband of hers deserves to rot in prison for th
e rest of his life, for what he did to my sister.”
Hot anger rose in me like a geyser and under the bar, I clenched my hands into fists. I both wanted to know everything and nothing that had happened between Lyssa and Curt – wanted to know everything so I could kill that fucker, one step at a time.
And wanted to know nothing so that I wouldn’t have the horrible mental images of Lyssa being abused.
“I just don’t want her getting any false hope,” Steven continued. “I don’t want you lying to her and telling her that it’ll be easier to get pregnant than it actually is. Just be honest with her, man.”
“Yes,” I said slowly. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
“She’ll be crushed if she can’t get pregnant,” Steven said. There was pain and anger in his eyes now, and I realized that Curt had hurt more people than just Lyssa. Her whole family had dealt with his atrocities, and they were only pulled together now by a thin, gossamer thread.
“She should be able to. She’s only thirty-seven.”
“If she can’t, I worry about what it would do to her,” Steven said darkly.
His words erased the most conflicted part of my mind: that by agreeing to help Lyssa, I’d somehow wind up hurting her.
Now, I vowed to myself that that would never be true.
She had lost so much already.
The least I could do was help her work towards something she desperately wanted.
7
Lyssa – Wednesday
The next day, I was at work but my mind was on Dan and everything that had happened yesterday. I had been feeling so embarrassed when I’d left his office that I’d gone to my own job and kept my head down all day, neglecting any of my duties that involved speaking to any other person.
Which, as a paralegal, was a sizeable chunk of my work. Back when Curt and I had been married, I’d worked various part-time jobs. Holding them down for more than a month or so at a time had been hard. Curt’s explosive anger sometimes translated into him keeping me at home, letting me soothe him and calm him down, before it was safe for me to leave.
And employers don’t exactly love it when their shift lead can’t make it in on time to open. Being fired had been embarrassing, but at least I hadn’t been at any of those jobs for long enough to really get to know my coworkers – not like I would have ever hung out with them outside of work, not with Curt’s jealousy and temper.
Things were different now, which I was pleased about. But on the other hand, working a real office job made it hard to be productive when I was so distracted. I was lucky that my boss, Brent, had been out the rest of Tuesday and that I’d let calls sit unreturned and emails left unreplied to.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Dan. How strange it was to see him in a professional context. How strange it was that he’d grown up.
And how he’d changed on the outside while remaining the same serious, kind person on the inside. I recalled with deep embarrassment how I’d behaved when we were kids. He’d had the biggest crush on me, and I’d always written him off as a child.
It was ironic, almost, that one of the first really huge fights I’d had with Curt had been over Dan, or rather the way that Curt thought Dan was looking at me.
“Hey, Lyssa,” Dan said as he walked up to me on the dance floor. “Can I have a dance?”
“I’m so tired,” I said, but I was smiling, too – although it was more from sheer nerves than happiness. My wedding day was almost over and so much of it had passed in a blur.
“I’ve barely seen you today,” Dan said. He was grinning, all sixteen years of him smirking up at me like he was my age, or even older. “Come on. One dance.”
“I don’t know,” I said, glancing over my shoulder. My new husband, Curt, stood in the corner of the room with his friends, swigging back beers and laughing. I told myself that maybe he wouldn’t notice another man touching me – or that if he did, he’d understand. It was our wedding day after all, and everyone always wanted a dance with the bride. That was what my mother had told me.
That was normal. It had to be.
“Lyssa, please,” Dan said. He held out a hand to me like a gentleman in an old movie and something about the look in his eyes was so touching that I felt compelled to accept. I took his hand and he pulled me closer – but not too close – and rested his other hand at the small of my back. The song was a slow one, an old doo-wop song from my parents’ childhoods, and dancing with Danny felt so natural and nice and friendly.
“You look stunning,” Dan said to me. “I hope you’ll have a long and happy marriage, Lyssa.”
I bit my lip and looked away. For some reason, I was compelled to tell him the truth: that ever since Curt had slipped a small diamond ring onto my finger six months ago, I’d felt like a rabbit with its leg caught in a trap. That planning the wedding had been so overwhelmingly stressful and upsetting. My mother had said that it was just nerves, but every time I thought about it, my stomach hurt.
I’d even thrown up that morning.
“Thanks,” I said finally.
Dan glanced up at me and frowned. “What’s wrong?”
Internally, I cursed myself for having been so candid with a kid. Of course, he wouldn’t get it. I was twenty-one and a woman but Dan?
He was still in high school.
How could someone who hadn’t even been to college understand what I was going through?
Of course, Dan was sweet, and he meant well.
But he was a kid, and it would have been wrong for me to saddle him with my true feelings.
“Nothing,” I lied. “I’m just tired.”
That was when I noticed Curt was staring in my direction. He didn’t look like a proud groom. He was staring at Dan, and I could see the veins in his neck popping and straining with anger.
“Excuse me,” I said to Dan as I stepped back. He gave me a wounded look, which I couldn’t bear. I knew that what I was doing was wrong – dancing with my brother’s friend and even contemplating the thought of telling him everything. How my life was going off the rails, how I was terrified of my new husband.
How I was so afraid and ashamed and sad.
Instead, I lied.
“I have to use the restroom,” I said. The tears welled up in my eyes and I fled, away from Dan.
Away from the one person who truly seemed concerned for my well-being.
Now, so many years later, I cringed when I thought of that night. That night was the last time I’d seen Dan for years, until right after my divorce had been finalized and he’d come over to my parents’ house with a bottle of wine.
Of course, I hadn’t really felt like talking, then.
“Lyssa?”
I glanced up and saw my boss standing over my cubicle wall.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I think I’m getting a cold or something – I’m really distracted today.”
He nodded. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off,” he suggested. “You look like you could use some time to relax.”
I was so grateful to him that I could have cried. Between worrying about not being able to get pregnant and the shock of seeing Dan again, all grown up, I was basically a useless blob.
“Thank you,” I said.
“And Lyssa?”
I looked up. “Yes?”
“If there’s anything you need, we have a great Employee Assistance Program,” he said. “It’s helped me a lot over the years.”
I swallowed. The only thing worse than my boss noticing my distracted brain was the thought of going to a work-affiliated counselor.
Still, it came from a place of kindness, and I nodded.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Thanks.”
Brent nodded and returned to his office as I quickly gathered my things and left the building. Outside, it was sunny but cold. The wind was whipping, and I walked with my shoulders hunched around my ears as I made my way to the subway station. On the way, I passed a playground littered with small childre
n and their parents. Watching the kids run around and shriek and whack each other with toys normally would have filled me with sadness and frustration and longing.
And, not going to lie, I felt a little bit of that.
But I also felt something foreign and new.
Hope.
Someday, maybe I’ll be one of those mothers, I thought as I stood by the fence and smiled at all of the little kids running around. Maybe I’ll bring my daughter here and let her play when it’s nice outside.
It took me over an hour to get back to Brooklyn. As soon as I did, I called Anna and asked if she’d come over with Trina. The two showed up with a pizza and a six-pack of beer, as well as boxes of apple juice for Trina.
As soon as Trina was settled and playing on the living room floor, Anna and I cracked open two beers and I told her everything – all about Danny, and how he was now Dr. Dan Andrews.
And how he’d promised to help me.
“Wow,” Anna said when I was finished. She blinked and took a sip of her beer. “That’s pretty crazy. I don’t normally believe in this stuff, but it seems like more than a coincidence.”
I took another piece of pizza and folded it in half before taking a bite.
“Don’t you think so?” Anna pressed. “Doesn’t it seem totally crazy to you?”
I nodded. “I think I knew what he’d gone into, Steven mentioned it before. But I had no idea he was working in New York.”
“Yeah, well, totally insane. But like, in a very good way,” Anna said. She leaned back on the couch. “And how are you feeling about it?”
I held my breath for a minute.
“I ... I feel like it’s weird that I’ll be working towards my goal with him,” I said slowly. “But I’d do anything for a baby, Anna. I really would. And it sounds totally nuts, but I have this weird feeling that like, he’s the only one who can really help me. I sensed it about him – that it wasn’t just him doing his job.”
Anna nodded. “That makes sense. I mean, you’ve known him for so long. And he’s a good guy.”
I flushed and squirmed uncomfortably. “He is,” I said. And he still looks at me like he adores me, I thought. But that can’t be true. It’s been years. He knows I’ve been through so much ... and that I’m definitely not ready for a relationship.
Baby for Brother’s Best Friend: Brother’s Best Friend Book 1 Page 5