“This is true,” she sighs. “I’m happy in my lab, and you’re happy with people.”
She’s right again. I want to be the person on the front lines of medicine. Being chief is a lot of paperwork, politics, and pissing people off. I’ll stick to the patients, where I can make a real difference.
“I have to pee,” Julie giggles as she hops off her barstool. “Don’t do anything stupid!”
“Okay,” I say as my head lolls to the side. “I’ll be right here.”
I never drink like this, but it feels good to relax for once. I feel like the last fifteen years of my life, I’ve had a great big stick up my ass. It was college, mom being sick, med school, internship, residency, and now it’s just constant death. Not to mention my father isn’t going to be around forever and my wayward brother can’t do shit.
I’m tired. I’m tired of always doing the right thing.
I’m tired of always being a damn adult.
When do I get to have fun? Never, that’s when. My friends enjoyed the first four years of college, but I wasn’t at bars or frat parties, I was studying or with Bryce. It was my choice, I know this, but I thought I had more time.
When Mom got sick, everything changed. My entire life became about cancer. I need a little fun once in a while.
“This seat taken?” A deep voice I’d know even in a crowd of screaming people asks from beside me.
Our eyes meet and there’s an ache in my heart as I take him in. He looks tired and desperate, and yet on the outside, you only see perfection. Bryce Peyton was trained to never show emotion, but I can see it. There were always fissures in his stone-cold façade that I was able to pick up on. There’s pain and fear in those gorgeous eyes, things he thinks he’s hiding, but I see his wife’s sickness is weighing him down.
Wife.
Remember that, Serenity. It’s not because of me or being around me. It’s because his wife is sick.
“I’m waiting for my friend,” I explain and turn back to my drink.
“Not what I asked,” Bryce says as he sits without my answer.
“Well, the seat is taken, but I’m sure you’ll sit anyway. Not like you care about what makes me happy.” I mumble the last part and then drain the rest of my martini.
It’s clear that he’s not going to respect my request for him to stay away from me.
“I’ll move when your boyfriend gets back,” he tosses out and then orders his drink.
A whiskey neat.
Some things never change.
“I never said Westin was here.”
“He has a name.” Bryce smiles and I glare at him.
“Yes, he has a name. Why do you care?”
Bryce shifts so we’re close enough that I can smell the mint on his breath. “I don’t. I’m married. Remember?”
I roll my eyes and lean back. “Yes, you are. I remember.”
The two of us continue to stare at each other and I work hard to read him. I’m not sure why he’s here or why he felt the need to talk to me, but Bryce is fighting his own demons.
“So, we meet again—in a bar.” Bryce clears his throat, breaking the eye contact, and I fight back the desire to trudge down memory lane. We’re not those people anymore.
I lift my glass, letting Rich know I need another. At this rate, he could bring me the bottle of Tito’s and I’d be happy. Who needs olives after the fourth—or was it fifth?
“Shouldn’t you be with your wife?”
“She’s sleeping and I needed to work,” he explains.
“Work? In the bar?” I question.
Bryce rolls the drink around his glass before bringing it to his lips. I’m just drunk enough to allow myself a momentary lapse in judgment as I think about what he once tasted like. The memory of a mix of whiskey, mint, and just . . . him, sends my pulse into overdrive. I remember how he’d kiss me with his entire body. It wasn’t just his mouth. I could feel all the energy he carried flow through the two of us, causing an overwhelming surge of emotions.
He kissed me with tenderness and power that battled for dominance.
I remember feeling drunk afterwards even though I hadn’t had a drink.
“Does it matter? I needed a drink, and here I am.”
Lucky me. “Yeah, here you are.”
Where the fuck is Julie? I really need her to get back here.
“So, you and the doctor?”
My eyes narrow and I try to piece together why he’s asking. This is the second comment now about Westin and I can’t help but wonder if it’s bothering him. It shouldn’t, considering he’s the one that actually moved on. Of course, he doesn’t know anything about my life and I’m not about to admit how pathetic I am.
“Westin and I have been together for a few years,” I admit.
“I don’t see a ring,” Bryce notes.
“Unlike you, who found someone and got married. Although I’ll admit Allison seems great.”
He takes another long sip before finally speaking. “She is. She’s been good to me, and,” his eyes meet mine, “she saved me after I went down a dark road.”
My breath hitches as the passion in his gaze tells me so much more. We were always in tune with each other when we were together. Bryce could look at me and I’d know what he was saying. It was like we were two halves of a whole that came together without any gaps.
“Because I left?”
“Yeah, Ren. You left and shit went downhill for me.”
“Don’t think it was so easy for me either,” I counter. I’m still recovering from it, and him being here has reversed what little progress I’ve made.
He looks up at the television, sighs, and then his eyes close. “I didn’t sit down next to you to fight.”
I don’t want to fight either. All I want is for things to go back to the way they were. I liked my life a few days ago. It wasn’t perfect, but I was . . . content. Westin and I were going to turn a corner and now I feel as though I ran into the wall—a wall named Bryce.
I play with the stem of the martini glass. “Then why did you sit?”
“I don’t know. I saw you and started to walk toward you. I swear it was like I couldn’t stop myself.”
His admission stuns me. There’s a hint of defeat in his voice. Bryce is struggling just as much as I am.
“Why were things so dark?” I ask.
He pinches the bridge of his nose and then takes a long, slow slip of his whiskey. “You think I wanted you to leave? I was a wreck after you decided to go to Northwestern. We were stronger than that, Chick. We were supposed to go to school together, start our life, and you came back home and then it was like I didn’t matter anymore.”
He mattered. He always mattered. Hell, at one point, he was all that mattered.
Maybe we should talk about all of this that lingers between us? Closure is what we’re both lacking. If we could get it out there, we could finally put this thing to bed.
“Oh my God. I met this guy right by the bath—” Julie’s voice breaks the intense moment. “Well, hello there.” She looks at Bryce.
He drains the remnants of his whiskey and stands. “It was great to see you, Dr. Adams. I appreciate you lending me your seat, miss.”