His phone started to buzz, which startled him enough to jump, and he dug into his coat pocket, not bothering to look at the screen. “Dr. Nadav,” he said, leaning back and scratching his temple with one of the cheap plastic pens the last pharmaceutical rep had dumped on his desk.
There was silence, then static, then the sound of his realtor’s voice. “Sorry, I…shit…going to…”
The call dropped, and Ilan reached under his glasses to rub his eye, staring at the screen as he waited for Jack to call him back.
“I’m gonna fucking murder every fucking cell phone tower in this god forsaken swamp,” was the greeting he got when he picked up again, and it made his grin tug at his cheeks.
“Not enjoying your stay here in our little corner of the world?”
“I fucking hate this place,” Jack said, sounding like he was gritting his teeth. “But we got an offer. Asking, they want ten in concession because they want to re-do the pool deck.”
“Did you tell them to go fuck themselves?” Ilan asked. “Because my job isn’t to line their pockets so they can make superficial changes.”
Jack laughed. “No. I didn’t tell them anything, because my client wants to get the fuck out of town in the next forty-five days, and we have a meeting to go look at houses this weekend.”
Ilan groaned, but he knew it was just his pride talking. He didn’t want to concede more than asking on his house since he’d priced the damn thing to sell, but he could afford to do whatever the hell he wanted. He was a single man on a doctor’s salary, and even after paying off every cent of debt his parents had accrued, and every cent of his student loans, he had more money than he knew what to do with.
He didn’t want to be the asshole all those dickheads at school had grown up to become with their trust funds and self-importance, like nothing else in the world mattered except what made them happy. But Ilan was self-centered. He had known that about himself since he understood the man staring back at him in the mirror. It was why he never really inflicted himself on anyone as a boyfriend, no matter how many times he’d been tempted to do it just for the perk of regular, uncomplicated sex.
He loved easily, but being in love felt damn-near impossible, because he’d seen what it had done to people across the course of his life. He saw it ravage Fredric as he gave everything to a woman who would sooner spit on him than inconvenience herself for his well-being. He saw the way Julian had struggled to find worth in himself, and when he finally let himself open up, he was mocked, cheated on, and abandoned.
But Ilan couldn’t deny it had worked out for Julian in the end. Archer had come along like some avenging angel from the stars, using a flaming sword to put an end to every single sharp tongue that had ever made Julian feel like he was less than perfect. But Ilan also knew that Archer was the exception, not the rule.
He was fine with that, of course. He didn’t want love. He just wanted to be somewhere that allowed him some measure of contentment. And although change was hard, it was necessary.
He’d already put feelers out in Crescent Cove, and there was plenty of work there, plenty of room for a doctor to get established. He was looking forward to having his own practice though. To avoid hospital shifts and the manic mood of the ER on holiday weekends.
He wanted to carve out a little piece of the world and call it his own and limit the people who loomed over him and told him what to do. And he wanted to be somewhere he was allowed to take time away from being a doctor, where no one could guilt him for taking space that was made for people whose lives were fuller than his own.
So, the time had come. He’d accept the offer on the house. He’d hit send on the letter to his patients. He’d say goodbye to the people he’d been treating and his staff who had been at his side for years. He’d set his little name plaque and all his stupid diplomas into a box next to the succulent Julian had gotten him that wouldn’t die no matter how many times he forgot it existed. He’d send someone for all the books he owned because he thought they made him look smart but were far less convenient than google.
He’d carefully pack each and every item that ever meant anything to him, and he’d set them up in all the new shapes that he wanted to define this life. Shapes that didn’t quite resemble who he was—yet. But they would.
Maybe he’d make a friend. Maybe he’d find himself worthy of more than just a quick fuck in a club bathroom or in the backseat of his car on a dirt road. Maybe he’d take a trip to across the ocean and let himself sit back and appreciate that even if love wasn’t for him, it could be for the people he cared about, and that mattered just as much as anything else.
“Dr. Nadav?”
He looked up at the voice and smiled at his nurse, Lizzie, who looked a bit frazzled from the afternoon, because Mondays were always the longest. “Hit me with it.”
Her smile softened, and she let out a breath. “Mrs. Carson is in four. I measured her knee, and it’s fine. Her BP is up, but I think she’s just nervous. She didn’t seem interested in talking to me, but…” Lizzie’s voice trailed off, and she frowned. “Ilan. Are you okay?”
He felt a wave of something that kind of sounded like his mother’s voice reminding him that people would miss him, and they’d feel bad that he was going. But that it was okay. Everyone would be okay—with or without him, and it didn’t have to have deeper meaning than that.
“I’m good,” he said, then pushed up from the desk and decided to get on with his day.
Chapter 3
Fredric ignored the sounds of his cabinet doors opening and closing, and he dragged his hands down the back door until they curled around the small latch, letting the dog door swing free. Sebastian gave him a quiet huff of appreciation before he darted out, and Fredric turned, reaching for the little breakfast bar as his daughter quit her silent judgment of his new place.
“It’s bare,” Corinne declared after a moment. The furniture had helped dampen the echo, but there were a lot of empty corners that needed to be filled. “You’re going to starve to death. Or kill yourself on take-out.”
Fredric snorted and felt along the counter until he found his glass, taking a long drink of his water. “If eating midnight Chinese at the office five nights a week while working on three hours of sleep didn’t do me in,” he reminded her, “I think I’ll survive a couple taco nights.” His work had been chaos right until the moment he quit—but most of that was self-inflicted. It was stay at the office and delegate, or it was go home and face whatever battles Jacqueline had decided to wage that week, and if he wanted his heart to survive any of it, the office always won.
“You’re not funny.” Corinne hadn’t gotten the brunt of her mother using Fredric’s health as emotional manipulation—not the way her brother had—but she’d dealt with it enough. Jacqueline spent nearly thirty years using his stroke as a way of guilting her children into doing whatever she wanted, and Fredric hadn’t put a stop to it before it created a gulf between him and the two people he loved most in the world.
He sighed as he heard her come around the corner, and he smiled when her hands fell on his shoulders. “I know it’s not funny,” he told her, laying a palm over hers, “but I promise I’m not dying. I actually can take care of myself.”