His brows do that thing that tells me he has no idea what I’m talking about. “How do you know about Lavoie’s party?”
Better question—where was he that he doesn’t know that Duncan had a party? “Kami told me. What happened? Did you find out he uses your face on his dartboard? Did Rooster steal your phone and send inappropriate suggestions to your sisters? Did you fall asleep and wake up with shaving cream in your ears? Did you proposition a bunny and she turned you down?”
“Yep.”
“You weren’t actually at Duncan’s party, were you? Oh my god. You weren’t invited.”
“Are you going to talk this much the whole drive?”
“You keep telling me you have four sisters. You’re not used to this?” I can’t believe he wasn’t invited. Maybe it wasn’t a party. Maybe it was what the players with kids and wives call a party, but it’s really them sitting around talking about what it’s like being in their thirties with responsibilities.
I could see not inviting Tyler to that kind of party, but Kami loving it. She did say Ares and Manning and their wives and kids were there too.
Tyler answers my question about his sisters by cranking the stereo, gripping the wheel with both hands until his knuckles turn white, and staring at the road straight ahead.
And I go silent, wondering if he was actually at that secret club that Maren took me to the night Tyler and I hooked up.
I say secret club like I don’t know it’s the bunny bar, because I don’t like to think about Tyler at the bunny bar. If I had a lot more confidence and a smaller butt and no hang-ups about sex, I’d like to think I’d fit right in with the bunnies.
I love the bunnies. They’re smart and kind and killer businesswomen, putting their sisterhood ahead of even the hockey players they claim to love. It’s weird to me that they know their friends might also sleep with the same players they sometimes sleep with, but it’s also kind of a thrill to think about being so utterly free and open about sex being a fun adult activity. There’s no stigma to it. No name-calling. No backstabbing.
If one of them does get serious with a player, they all talk about it, and everyone knows that player’s off-limits. If a player gets too clingy to one of them and makes them uncomfortable, they kick him out.
It’s like the best kind of power. No one’s putting them down. No one’s putting them in a corner. They’re stronger because they’re together.
They’re living life on their terms.
Whereas I can’t even tell Tyler why I want a date.
Or what the date actually is.
So instead, I settle deeper into my seat and pull out my phone and work on scheduling out a week’s worth of motivational and supportive emails to my clients, plus do a little pre-screening of potential matches for them, pausing occasionally to look out the window.
I like the drive to Richmond. Lots of pine trees to keep things green even when the rest of the trees have lost their leaves.
But I also don’t like the drive to Richmond, because I know what’s waiting for me there.
Haunting old memories.
Some good memories too. I had friends. I liked my classes. We had our favorite bars and restaurants.
But it all ended with one terrible idea with an even worse outcome.
That seems to be the story of my life, though I still have hope that Muff Matchers is on the right path.
Once I’ve finished my work, I make it through two songs and half a dozen Donettes before I reach over and turn the volume down. “What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?”
He slides a look at me that lingers longer than it probably should, given that he’s flying down the interstate at ten miles over the speed limit. “Hold on. Let me dig deep into my buried memories to relive something painful since you asked completely out of the blue.”
Sarcasm seriously makes him so hot. So does that flat, blue-eyed glare. And the beard. I am completely digging the beard.
Not that I’ll be telling him that.
I probably shouldn’t poke at the bear, considering he’s doing me a huge favor.
And considering he’s doing me a huge favor despite me telling him sex with him wasn’t all that great.
I should probably also tell him I thought he ghosted me instead of me taking all the credit for doing the ghosting, but it’s easier to make him not like me than it is to admit he hurt me. “I just…I remember getting embarrassed over this little thing once when I was in medical school. That’s all.”
His eyes shift again, and it’s like I’m looking at Tyler Jaeger, number ninety-one on the Thrusters, in his zone on the ice, ready to kick ass and take names.
I want to take my coat off, but I already have, which means I can fan myself and let him see he’s affecting me, or I can pretend I’m not sitting here breaking into a sweat and ignoring the way my body’s tingling again despite all the ways I was disappointed the last time we were close and friendly.
“Someone embarrassed you?” The words come out rough and annoyed, and I don’t know if he’s annoyed because he doesn’t think I can handle being on the receiving end of a joke, or if he’s annoyed that I’m talking when he wants to listen to music, or if he’s annoyed that someone embarrassed me.
Considering our discussion the other day was plenty embarrassing for both of us, it’s probably some combination of not wanting to talk and not really caring if I’ve ever been embarrassed.
Everyone’s been embarrassed. It’s not like my embarrassment is special or more embarrassing than anyone else’s, except for the part where my most embarrassing moment could’ve gotten me on the kind of daytime talk show that gets ratings for catfights and unexpected paternity test results.
“Never mind.” I reach back into the bag of Donettes.
“Does your friend know you got embarrassed?”
“Which friend?”
“The friend with a thing? The friend who’s the reason we’re going today?”
“Oh. Veda. Right. Yeah. We were tight. Like, if we’d been on a hockey team together, we would’ve been Ares Berger and Manning Frey tight. If we were candy, we’d be toffee and chocolate. We used to study together in this back corner of the library and we called it the hole. We’d meet there before big finals or whatever, when we really needed to concentrate and study, and no one ever wanted to go along to a place called the hole, so we had it all to ourselves, especially after we put the sign on the door labeling it as the hole. She’d tell me about who she was dating, and I’d tell her about which new Ben & Jerry’s flavor I tried after I stayed up late studying on Saturday nights.”
I wasn’t a great student, even if I am excellent at deflecting questions.
I wasn’t a bad student, but I wasn’t at the top of my class either. See also: I didn’t get hired for a residency and wasn’t sure what I was going to do after that final year.
But I believed if I made it through medical school, I really could help people. That it’s not all about you heal a broken bone by setting it, but also about why were you doing what you were doing to break your bone and what can we do to help anything else that might be wrong?
I wanted to be the doctor who listened.
The one who got to know her patients.