“Yes, Dr. Hines, I see what you mean.”
“Let’s bring this full circle, now.” A pause, her eyes serious, searching. “If you can love Lizzy—if you can say it, mean it, show it, do it—and if you can be loved by Lizzy in return, accept her love, her affection, her gestures, her words, and believe she means it and be comfortable in it…what makes you think you can’t do the same with Titus? You have no problem believing you have something to offer Lizzy, right? So my point is, the only significant difference between letting yourself love Lizzy and letting yourself love Titus is that with Titus, there would be a sexual element.”
“You make it sound so fucking simple.”
“It is, Laurel. It is simple.” She leaned forward and touched my knee. “That doesn’t make it easy. You’ve never seen a healthy romantic relationship. Never had one, never even tried. But you do have an example—six examples!—of healthy platonic friendships.”
“Lizzy and Braun’s marriage is amazing.” I looked up, blinked, dabbed at my eyes. “They love each other. They communicate. It’s…I’m jealous, honestly. I’d never admit that to anyone but you, and you’re legally not allowed to tell anyone. But I am.”
“My point in this entire session, Laurel, is that you don’t have to be jealous. You can have that.” She set aside her notepad and pen, took my hands and squeezed them. “Do you hear me, Laurel? You—CAN—have—that.”
I was weeping openly now, not even worried about my makeup. “What if I can’t? What if I’m too fucked-up? What if…what if he doesn’t want that with me? What if we have that and then he leaves? He cheats on me? He…he fucking dies? Jesus…it’s just so terrifying. What if…what if I tell him I love him, and…and he rejects me? I don’t think I’d survive that.”
“There are just as many opposite what-ifs, though.” She remained where she was, facing me, hands around mine. “What if he’s already in love with you? What if you take this risk—and it is a risk, make no mistake—and you offer him yourself openly and truly and with complete vulnerability, and he accepts you, exactly as you are? What if you develop a relationship as amazing and fulfilling as Lizzy and Braun have? What if you spend the next thirty, forty years together, happy and in love? You’re not even forty—you could easily live to at least seventy or eighty, and that’s a whole lifetime of love for you and Titus to make together. What if you’re exactly perfect for each other?”
I nodded. “What-ifs go both ways, is your point.”
“Right, exactly. You can ask as many negative what-ifs as you want—and they’re endless. Or, you can ask as many positive what-ifs, and those are just as endless.”
She leveled a long, serious look at me. “The real question, here, Laurel, is which are you going to focus on?”
9
It had been a very, very long, and very, very difficult day. I had a listing that was currently Six Chicks’ most expensive property, and I’d been trying to sell it for months without success. I’d shown it half a dozen times without so much as a sniff of real interest—today, I’d shown it to someone who’d come with fully qualified funding, spent an hour showing it to them, feature by feature. They’d expressed interest. Had talked about possibly putting in an offer once they’d seen it in person.
They’d walked away leaving me a distinctly negative impression. The master hadn’t been as big as they’d thought it would be. The views weren’t as impressive as the photography had them to believe. The kitchen and dining room weren’t open plan to the main den.
And then, a sale that had been literally a handful of signatures away from done had fallen through due to financing issues with the buyers.
Titus hadn’t called me, hadn’t sent flowers in three days, hadn’t shown up, hadn’t even contacted me through Alaina.
Autumn was still gone and we were all covering for her, which meant extra paperwork and extra showings and extra phone calls and extra client meetings.
I’d had a killer headache for hours.
I was horny.
I missed Titus.
On the way home, I’d run into an accident and had been stuck in traffic for over an hour, and then I’d finally gotten less than a mile from home, and I’d blown a tire. I didn’t have a spare. I didn’t have a jack. My phone was at two percent battery, I didn’t have a portable charger and my very cool and hot classic Aston Martin DB6 didn’t feature a charging port of any kind that I could even get an adapter for.
So, I sat in my car on the side of the road, a mile from home, and just cried for a few minutes.
And then I’d called Lizzy.
“Hey, you,” she answered. “What’s up?”
“I’m a mile from home with a flat, no spare, no jack, and my phone is about to die. I’ve had the worst day. I need help.”
“On it,” she replied. “Girl power to the rescue.”
Twenty-five minutes later, a flat-bed tow truck arrived. The driver was burly and smelled like cigarettes and was super nice, in a gruff, businesslike way. “Been taken care of,” he mumbled to me, an unlit cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth. “Takin’ your baby here to a buddy of mine, he’ll fix her up and bring her back to you.”
I frowned at him. “Is that how this stuff usually works?”
A shrug. “Nah, course not. But you got friends who like you, I guess.” He gestured at the passenger door. “Climb on up, missy, I’ll run you home. You’ll have this pretty little ride of yours back in an hour or two.”
He dropped me off at home and gave me a two-finger salute. “There you go.”
“I feel like I should tip you or something.”
He waved a hand. “Nah. I’m being well compensated. If I’ve got it right, your friend’s husband is friends with the owner of the company I work for.”
“Well, thank you. I didn’t even ask your name, I’m sorry. I’ve had a really horrible day.”
“Name’s Rob. And you’re welcome. See ya, now.”
He rumbled away in a growl of diesel fumes and noise, and I headed inside. By the time I was in the kitchen, my heels were off and my purse on a counter. By the time I hit my bedroom, I was naked, leaving a trail of clothing down the hall. I may or may not have had a bottle of champagne in hand, from which I was drinking directly.
I started the bath, setting the bottle of champagne on my vanity as I somewhat frantically yanked my hair out of the complicated braid-bun; makeup wipes, meet face. Once the water was hot and filling the tub, I tossed in my favorite bath bomb, which gave off crazy bubbles and a divine lavender scent.
I lit a good half dozen different candles while the tub filled, and then danced and swigged my way into the kitchen where my purse was, so I could grab my phone—I wanted to connect it to my Bluetooth speaker for some relaxing music.
I was searching for the right playlist, standing naked in my kitchen with the champagne bottle in my other hand—now a third empty and nearing the halfway mark.
I hadn’t selected a song to play, yet, so I was rather confused when I heard the soft, delicate strains of a guitar being played.