My cheeks heat from his words, which sound awfully like a pickup line that shouldn’t make me blush. I hate that I’m having this kind of reaction to him. He’s making conversation. Saying nice words about me as a teacher in relation to his nephew. But the tone of his voice, and the way he’s looking at me, it’s definitely not the way a married man should be looking at any woman.
Not only am I attracted to a married man. I’m attracted to a married manwhore. Look at me, Ma! Aren’t you proud?
Before I can respond, Garrett winces as Charlie slaps him on the shoulder. “Dammit, Garrett! What did I tell you? Did you not listen to a word I said! Don’t make googly eyes!”
“Dammit, Garrett!” Cullen repeats, giggling from around his mother’s back.
Charlie sighs before leaning down and picking up Cullen. “I promise you, we aren’t as Neanderthal as you think.”
I shake my head, happy for Cullen’s interruption. “Really, it’s fine. I need to be going anyway. It was good seeing all of you.”
I tell Cullen I’ll see him tomorrow and make my way back to my classroom, where I shut the door and quickly fall into my desk chair.
In all my years of teaching, I have never found any relative of a student so attractive that I had to make sure I didn’t drool in front of them. In my defense, the man I just met doesn’t look like most of the dads, uncles, or brothers who have come through my classroom doors.
I never thought I had a type. Apparently, that’s because I never met Garrett Dixon.
None of that matters though. He’s married. He’s older. He’s the uncle of one of my students. It’s not forbidden for teachers to date relatives of students, but it’s definitely frowned upon, at least while you have them in your class. And if I am one thing, it’s a rule follower. Even the unwritten ones.
Besides, even if none of those factors existed, I don’t have time to date. I have things I need to do. Differences I need to make. A world to help make better.
Being in a relationship definitely gets in the way of all of that.
And that’s what I try, but fail, to tell myself as I lie in bed later that night, thinking of the sexiest man I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Chapter Seven
Garrett
If there is one thing I love about living in Virginia, it’s days like today. Here I am, one week from Christmas, and it’s warm enough to run on the beach. It’s sixty degrees with a slight breeze and all I see is miles of sand in front of me.
It’s the perfect way to unwind after a stressful week.
“You ready?” Trevor asks, retying his shoes.
“Hell yeah.”
We start off at our normal warm-up pace, letting the wind hit our faces as our feet connect with the sand. The good thing about running with Trevor is we never feel the need to make small talk just for the sake of it. Sometimes we vent about work. Sometimes he’ll share with me his many female conquests, always reminding me what single life is like and what I’m missing out on. When I was debating on whether or not to ask Annika to marry me, he let me pro and con every reason for five miles. I insisted that there were many pros to marriage—including that donors loved giving money to doctors with pretty women on their arms. He just kept saying the reason “you’d be married” and putting it into the con column.
Thinking back, he did have a point.
“What is Annika up to today?” Trevor asks, breaking the silence after the first mile.
“Who the fuck knows,” I begin, and realize it’s the truth. I have no fucking clue where she’s at. “If I had to guess, she’s buying shit she doesn’t need after drinking overpriced mimosas with women she doesn’t like.”
Trevor laughs, and I join in to make it seem like I was kidding. Annika is now on an allowance, so if she’s choosing to use that on frivolous things, then that’s her decision. He might be my best friend, but even he doesn’t know how bad things really are in my marriage. He doesn’t know about the cut-off credit cards, or the cut-off sex. For all he knows, my marriage is fine and dandy.
If he opened his eyes and took them away from his woman of the week for five seconds, he could probably figure out that things aren’t all rainbows and butterflies in the Dixon home. Why else would I be staying at the office until all hours of the night doing paperwork that isn’t due for another month? Does he think I did next year’s clinic budget ahead of time for shits and giggles?
Trevor is just as selfish as I am, maybe more. And he might be a brilliant doctor, but he’s a clock watcher. I don’t remember the last time I saw him pull a late night in the office. So he’ll never realize that I’ve been putting in late hours to simply avoid Annika at all costs.
Even if he did realize that I was pulling insane hours, I don’t know if I’d tell him the truth. I don’t think I’d tell anyone the truth. Not him. Not Mark or my mom. How do you tell the people closest to you that yet again you have a failing marriage? That they were all right and I shouldn’t have married Annika? It’s embarrassing. I’m a successful doctor still in the prime of my life and I can’t make a marriage work.
“Can you imagine if we didn’t get to run on the beach? God, I’d be a miserable sonofabitch.”
I let out a big breath, thankful for the change of topic. “Wait, you aren’t already a miserable sonofabitch? This is you being nice?”
He barks out a laugh. “You know we are both assholes. It’s what makes us friends.”
He’s right. We are both cut from the same cloth, not the good kind, and I can’t imagine this phase of my life without him.
I didn’t have a friend like him in New York. Hell, I don’t think I had an actual friend in New York at all, or maybe even since high school. Between my residency and being married to Michelle, I didn’t have time for friends. Any doctor who was in my class or around my age I saw as my competition. I didn’t have a buddy to go grab a drink with after work. No, the only “friends” I had were the ones I rubbed elbows with at the charity events that Michelle and I attended. And those weren’t friends. I knew it then and I know it now. But I needed them. They are the reason I was able to later forge a successful practice in a city like New York.
Come to think of it, I did have time for my nurses. We can call them friends. In break rooms. I was never too busy for them. Those “friends” are the reason I lost everything. My marriage. My practice. My growing wealth. It all went down the drain because I couldn’t keep my dick in my pants.
Do I regret it? Yes.
Not the sex. Not a chance I’d ever regret having sex. What I regret is getting caught and the fallout.
Maybe things would have been different if we had stayed in Boston like I wanted to for my residency, instead of moving to New York. I had dreamed of going to Harvard since I was ten, and I fell in love with everything Cambridge and Boston had to offer.
But Michelle wanted New York. She wanted the culture and the prestige that came with the city. Even though I didn’t want to move, I didn’t care enough to fight her about it. When it came down to it, my success was the most important thing. I didn’t care if it was in Boston or New York. As long as I had a thriving practice and plenty of money in the bank, I was happy.