Sara continued sneaking glances at the women speaking to her father while I signed for the check. "They could be my children."
"Tell those thoughts to shut up." I wrapped my hand around her elbow. "Let's say goodbye."
"Awesome," she mumbled as we crossed the restaurant to join two men in their late sixties and a pair of women who couldn't be a minute over twenty-one. Yeah, they could be my children too. My knees ached thinking about that reality.
Dr. Shapiro pivoted when he spotted us, clapping the other man on the back and saying, "Dr. Ron Gilletti, this is my daughter Sara and Dr. Stremmel. They're in from Boston. Still working on convincing them to quit the winters and come to California for the good life."
Ron shook our hands and offered some boilerplate reasons to flee New England. He insisted Vegas was wonderful and the summers not nearly as bad as we might assume. I nodded that away, saying, "Nice to meet you both. We have to head out. Ross, dinner's on me."
I didn't know what was going through Dr. Shapiro's head, but his face looked very much like I'd thrown a bowl of hot soup in his lap and informed him his wealth manager was missing. Didn't even know which insult to address first. Within a few blinks, he recovered, saying, "It's my treat. I insist."
"Already done," I replied, stepping away. "Safe travels back to California." I pointed at Ron. "And Vegas."
Sara took hold of my hand and led the way through the restaurant. She moved quickly, and when we exited, she shook me off. "I need—"
She ran toward the bushes and it took me a second to process what was happening. I went to her, gathered up her hair as she gagged, smoothed a hand down her back. To the valet attendants watching from the curb, I called, "Could I get some water? Tissues? Thanks."
She tried to elbow me away but that wasn't happening. I should've kept an eye on her. Should've slowed her down instead of goading her father. Should've kept it low-key. I waited while the spasms moved through her. The tissues and water arrived, along with a very concerned restaurant manager who was quick to summon a taxi to take us back to the resort. No one wanted a woman tossing her cookies in front of their restaurant.
When Sara was ready, I ushered her into the back seat of the taxi and tucked her close beside me. "What do you need?" I asked.
She shook her head against my bicep, kept the wad of tissues pressed to her lips. Tears streaked her makeup. I kissed her forehead. She was clammy there. I didn't care.
As the taxi pulled onto the road, I said, "My dad left us when I was three. It was two weeks before Christmas. Right before I turned four. It's wild that I remember it, but I do. Every bit of it. There was an investment that had paid off. He said things were changing for him and we had to change too. I thought that meant we were moving into a bigger house. Nah. He was getting the fuck out. He was done. We were holding him back. He left that night. My mother said he'd return and she believed that too. She put me to bed, saying he was going through a phase. That he was out sowing some wild oats and he'd return as soon as he was done with that." I thumbed a tear from her cheek. "My sister was two at the time. She has no memory of this, but she likes to say I told her oats were very, very bad and must be avoided."
A soundless laugh shook her shoulders. I kissed her forehead again.
"It was years before my mother stopped believing he'd come back for us. I was probably eight or nine by the time she gave it up. Took off the wedding band. The part I'll never forget is how he made her think she wasn't up to his standards. None of us were, but I was barely four. I didn't have a lot to show for myself. My accomplishments were limited. My mother, on the other hand, had been with him for years before I came along. Before my sister came along. And he just blew her the fuck off because he got some cash in his pocket and decided he deserved better than her."
Sara drew in a deep breath, counted it out with light taps to my wrist. I waited until she did it twice more.
"We didn't see or hear from him again until I was finishing high school and even that was little more than a fly-by. He didn't want anything to do with us. He wanted attention and he wanted to make noise, but he never wanted us. Not until my sister came to control tickets for a Division I football team and I got an MD. My sister—bless her and her big, brass balls—doesn't participate in that shit, though I take some of his calls. I take the self-aggrandizing speeches and the circuitous asks for so-called investment capital. The asks to present some of his wealth-building opportunities to my colleagues because they're the valuable ones in this equation."
I ran a hand down her back, over the silky dress that hung beautifully from her body, but had no business in the closet of the Sara I knew. The Sara of yellow sneakers. The Sara of sweaters I wanted to pet. The quippy t-shirts. The jeans that blew my fucking mind. The pastel cups and the velvet furniture. The Sara I knew. The Sara I loved.
"I always tell him to fuck off because I'd wanted to do that from the very first moment I learned the expression. I never get tired of it." I dropped a kiss on her temple, tucked her hair over her ear. "I will always run that interference for you."
When we arrived at the resort, we strolled to her bungalow. Mine was all but forgotten. She wanted to shower alone and she did. That I leaned against the bathroom vanity, my arms crossed and my jaw locked as I watched did not change that fact.
I wrapped her up in another long, fluffy bathrobe and tucked her into bed with a bowl of crackers and a large carafe of water. She twisted her wet hair up into a bun and sent me to find the heating pad in her suitcase. I cued up a new movie on my laptop and settled in beside her.
"This isn't what you had in mind for tonight," she said.
I nabbed one of her crackers. They were not terrible. "Yeah, it is."
"Don't do that," she said. "Don't pretend this is the same as whatever crazy, wild sex plan you had for me."
"I like how you think I have crazy, wild sex plans. Like, I'm sitting at home and writing out naked itineraries."
"You're not?"
"If I'm sitting at home, I'm probably trying to ignore the noises coming from Alex and Riley's apartment downstairs."
She dropped her head to my shoulder. "Are they that loud or are the walls that thin?"
"I think it's both," I replied. "The honeymoon never ended for them."
"Must be nice," she murmured. "I'm sorry about, you know, everything."
"I am still in bed with you," I said. "This is exactly what I wanted."
Chapter 27
Sara
Sebastian pointed his beer bottle down the beach to where white chairs and an orchid-draped arbor stood. Hotel staff were busy lining the perimeter with flower petals. "Are we going to a wedding today, Shap?"
I groaned from the comfort of my beach chair, pushed my toes deeper into the sand. "As long as I don't have to fly to Nashville for the bachelorette or spend five hundred dollars on a dress that won't be worn again, regardless of what the bride says, sure. Sign me up."
He turned toward me with a chuckle. "Always the bridesmaid?"