by Iris Trovao
He clucked his tongue. “As if you ever do.” He whirled and headed back behind the counter, leaving her mock-flabbergasted.
She gasped, with an extra heaping spoonful of drama. “The nerve!”
“Sometimes I think you both just need to fuck already,” Jolie said, massaging her temple.
Alicia let out a wistful sigh. “I would totally hit that if he wasn’t as gay as a pride flag,” she admitted. “What’s wrong with you anyway? You and my brother get too wasted for Valentine’s day?” She held up her hands, palms out. “Wait, nevermind, I want zero details, please.”
Jolie swirled the rest of her latte around her mug. “There are no details,” she replied, then threw caution to the wind. “I drank by myself. No idea where he was last night.”
“What?” Alicia demanded. “That dick.”
That dick, indeed, Jolie thought bitterly, but she didn’t want to explode into a rant. Her best friend liked to poke fun at her big brother, but she wouldn’t actually do anything about it. She’d never confront him, and when push came to shove, she’d roll over like an obedient puppy if he pressed her to back him up.
Jolie knew she couldn’t fault her for that. They were family. She’d been the one to marry her best friend’s brother, and Alicia had always been super cool about it, despite the fact they’d all known each other since they were kids.
The blonde always joked that at least she didn’t have to compete for eligible bachelors with her best friend, because she chose the one guy Alicia would never want to bang.
“You should come out with me tonight,” Alicia suggested, swiping a perfectly manicured finger through the whipped cream on top of her mocha. “Let me make up for the other night. There’s a networking thing downtown.”
Jolie couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose. “I hate those,” she whined. “I always end up alone somewhere while you collect every business card in the room.” She sucked in a sharp breath. Her head pounded.
“Maybe you should collect some, too,” Alicia said. “Join me in the workforce!”
It wasn’t the first time her bestie had suggested that Jolie come work with her. Alicia had a hard time holding on to good secretaries at her magazine, and of course it had nothing to do with her demanding personality.
“I’m good at being a trophy wife,” Jolie lied. “Maybe I’ll take up knitting.”
Alicia barked a laugh. “Oh my god, please do, and then make John an ugly sweater. The ugliest. Then we can force him to do family pictures in it!”
“You’re evil.” Jolie forced a smile and shook her head, immediately regretting it as her brain rattled back and forth inside her skull.
Alicia’s phone buzzed, and she picked it up with a bright, “Hello!” She proceeed to chat with the caller at an obnoxious volume—likely a work contact.
Jolie took the opportunity to check her own phone, still seeing no new messages. She pursed her lips, and swiped over to her conversation with Dr. Tweedledick.
I know you’re probably sleeping, she typed out, but I just want you to know I’m not some crazy chick that hits on every guy she meets. I just really like talking to you, and would like to continue to do so.
She cringed. Continue to do so? She erased what she’d written, startling when Alicia poked her arm.
“Who are you talking to?” She waggled her eyebrows. “My idiot brother?”
Jolie set her lips in a thin line. “Yeah, just trying to figure out what to say.”
Alicia tossed her phone on the table and scooped another fingerful of whipped cream into her mouth. “Try: you’re a dick. You’d better be home early enough to give me some of yours.”
“Ew, dude, that’s your brother,” Jolie whined, shaking her head. “Topic change. Did you end up calling back that guy you hooked up with last week?”
With her bestie sufficiently distracted by her deflection, she tucked her phone safely into her pocket and resolved to just be patient and wait. She wasn’t going to force this poor guy into interacting with her if he didn’t want to.
Chapter Eight
Carson checked the time on his phone as he shifted in his seat—Gina was late, of course. He took a deep breath, trying to let it out slowly without grunting in frustration. Rose was due to be up next, and his wife hadn’t even messaged to say she wouldn’t be on time.
He wanted to laugh at himself. She would have been more likely to text Lily, but she wasn’t there with him. At seventeen years old, she had far too much homework to do to make time for her baby sister’s piano recital.
Of course, he knew she wasn’t doing homework, instead messing around on the internet with her friends. But he couldn’t begrudge her. She was supportive of Rose’s talents, especially now that the fourteen-year-old had six years of piano lessons under her belt and could play actual songs instead of banging out off-kilter renditions of Old Macdonald Had a Farm eight hundred times. She just didn’t want to spend her whole evening listening to a bunch of other kids slam on the keys to wait for her sister’s turn.
Tonight Rose would be performing Für Elise, one that he hadn’t yet heard her play. Last year, they’d gotten her headphones for her digital piano so that if she wanted to practice incognito she could.
And his sweet daughter had chosen this piece because she knew it was one of his favourites, practicing it only with her headphones so that he wouldn’t hear it before this day.
It warmed his heart that they shared a love of classical music—hearing her play was a surreal experience.
Being a father was a surreal experience in itself, but watching his tiny babies grow up into walking, talking, talented young women…the sheer terror that coursed through his veins was only eclipsed by bubbling pride at the amazing people they were becoming.
Where the hell is Gina? He sighed.
“Sorry dear, do you mind if I sit here?” an old woman asked from beside him, and he nodded, moving his coat from the seat he’d been saving for his wife.
The old woman thanked him and nestled into the seat, wiggling her bottom back and forth as she got comfortable. “Which one is yours?” she whispered, folding her hands in her lap.
“The one with the pink ribbons braided into her hair,” he replied quietly with a smile, and caught Rose’s eye. She waved at him, blushing and chewing her lip, her common tell that she was nervous. He gave her a thumbs up, and she pretended to hide behind her sheet music.
He hoped she wasn’t too heartbroken that her mother was late. Hurry up, he thought, as if he could will her into appearing.
“She’s lovely!” the woman said in a stage whisper. “My grandson is the fidgeting one on the far end.” She pointed, and Carson couldn’t help but laugh.
The boy looked no older than eight or nine, and he was indeed wriggling in his chair, legs kicking around everywhere. With any more velocity he would be sure to knock himself clean over.
“They get very excited.” He remembered back to both Rose and Lily when they were little, jumping up and down and all around while waiting to go on stage for their dance recitals.
Oh, the days of tutus and buns and ballet shoes. Much less stressful than makeup and homework and boys.
He pulled out his phone again, unused to having it on silent and feeling a compulsion to keep looking for a message. It was almost as if his nervous hands just needed something to do.
And if he were being honest with himself, he was checking more for Jane than Gina. He hadn’t responded to her message from that morning. He’d seen it as soon as he’d gotten up in the evening before he’d gotten Rose ready and drove her to the recital right away.
Excuses aside, he wasn’t sure what to say. Part of him knew that he should text her and tell her that it was inappropriate to be talking. That any time she got drunk and decided to text him lurid things…
His eyes slid closed for a moment, and he forced his breathing to stay steady. She knows better now, though. She knows to keep it appropriate, he thought desperately to himself.
&nbs
p; Carson felt like he had a little angel and a little devil on his shoulder, competing for attention. It was cliché, he knew. And maybe if Gina had shown up on time and sat next to him, he would be a lot more staunch in how he dealt with this situation.
But she wasn’t here, wasn’t next to him, and he didn’t even know when the next time they’d be next to each other would be. Having her so far away from him despite them sharing a house and family gnawed at his insides.
He opened his conversation with Jane.
What do I even say? he thought, sighing as he typed out, Yeah, we’re good. He shook his head and erased it, drawing his lower lip between his teeth. Yeah, we’re cool, he typed, then erased that as well. We’re cool? he thought, rolling his eyes at himself.
Did you know that the smell of apples can make you feel less claustrophobic? He wrinkled his nose. He really didn’t know what to say. Firing off a random health fact had seemed like a good ice-breaker, but he decided against pushing send.
Applause rippled through the crowd as the kid who’d been playing finished his song, and Carson propped his phone in his lap so that his palms were free to clap. Rose grinned at him as she glided over to the piano and slid onto the bench.
She waited for the room to quiet down, and then began to play.
Her fingers danced over the keys with expert grace, the notes tinkling out of the baby grand softly at first, then picking up in weight and gravitas. His throat grew thick as he watched her, head bobbing and shoulders shifting as she put her all into the piece. The timing was perfect, the melody floating from the strings like a summer breeze.
When she finished, the final notes hanging in the air, Carson got to his feet, applauding loudly. A few others nearby stood up as well, and Rose blushed crimson as she slid from the bench and curtseyed, scurrying back to her seat to the side of the stage.
He let out a sharp whistle, and she covered her eyes with her hands, but her smile covered her whole face.
Carson finally sat down, and the old lady next to him patted his arm.
“She’s very talented,” she said.
“Thank you,” he replied as he leaned down to grab his phone from the floor where it had clattered when he’d stood up. “She works very hard.”
He brushed off his phone, and he couldn’t help but laugh when he realized that at some point during the performance he must have accidentally sent the random fact text he’d typed out.
Well, I guess she’s going to get a random health fact after all, he thought, and pocketed the device. He noticed Rose grinning at someone in the crowd, and followed her gaze to the far side of the room, a few rows back from him.
Gina sat there, waving and smiling, staring at her daughter with love.
He sighed. In relief that she hadn’t missed her daughter’s performance—and with loss that she hadn’t come to find him and sit near him. He turned to face the front once again, focusing on Rose’s joy. Rose and Lily’s joy was all that mattered.
His phone buzzed, and he pushed aside his melancholy as he checked the screen.
Jolie: You are such a dork.
Chapter Nine
Jolie rolled over for what felt like the millionth time. She wondered if Dr. Tweedledick was working that night. She didn’t know if he worked some kind of swing shift where he was on days sometimes, or if he was on straight nights but still had days off.
Doctors got days off, right?
As if on cue, her phone buzzed, and she scrambled to grab it from the nightstand.
Dr. Tweedledick: You’re definitely not the first person to call me a dork.
She settled back against her pillows, drawing her knees up to rest her phone against her thighs. I believe you, she sent back, I bet all doctors are nerds outside of the office.
Dr. Tweedledick: I suppose I could be called a nerd. I like to read kinesiology books in my spare time.
Jolie wrinkled her nose. That sounds boring as fuck, she sent back, immediately followed by a groan at herself. “Yeah, just keep insulting the poor guy.”
Dr. Tweedledick: It is. But it keeps me up to date on the human body.
She drummed her fingernails on the side of her phone for a moment, resisting the urge to make a filthy joke about body knowledge. Don’t you ever read anything for fun?
It was a bit of a hypocritical thing to ask, since she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d read a book. Magazines sometimes, if she was sitting in a waiting room, but a novel? Nope.
Dr. Tweedledick: I listen to audiobooks sometimes in the car. Mostly sci-fi.
“Of course you do,” she teased out loud, then sent, See! Nerd!
Dr. Tweedledick: And what do you read? Vampire romance?
She rolled her eyes. I resent that! I’ll have you know that I only consume werewolf romance. A much higher art form.
Dr. Tweedledick: Men that turn into dogs are classier than bloodsucking men?
She barked a laugh, fingers flying across the touchscreen. LOL when you put it like that it sounds gross. I’m jk tho, I don’t really read. I hated all the books I had to read in high school and it kinda killed the joy for me.
Dr. Tweedledick: That’s sad. The classics are not always the most interesting. My daughter really likes mysteries.
At the sight of his three little dots, she paused and waited before replying.
Dr. Tweedledick: Now that I think of it though, I think they have vampires in them.
Jolie hissed to herself. This guy was old enough to have a daughter old enough to read novels. Her salt-and-pepper haired fantasy vision seemed so much more on point. I may have watched the tv show of that series lol, she sent back.
Dr. Tweedledick: I bet the books are better.
“The book is better,” she teased in a high-pitched voice, and sent, Spoken like a true nerd.
Dr. Tweedledick: We’ve already established that I am a nerd and a dork. But you can’t argue until you try it.
“Says you,” she muttered, thinking about all of the sexy shirtless actors from the show. However, she did understand the power of the human imagination, if her own was any indication of what it was capable of. You got me there, doc.
Dr. Tweedledick: Shouldn’t you be sleeping?
“Should,” she muttered. I have insomnia. Shouldn’t you be working?
Dr. Tweedledick: I’m on break. You should see a doctor if you have actual insomnia.
“Aren’t we a sassface tonight?” Jolie sang as she sent back, ACTUAL insomnia lol.
Dr. Tweedledick: Sorry, just lots of people say insomnia when it’s really just bad lifestyle habits like diet, alcohol/cigarettes, staring at a phone screen in bed.
She immediately thought of the burger she’d had with three beers at 9pm and the pack of cigarettes she’d smoked that day, not to mention the fact that she was lying in bed texting with him at that very moment. Why you gotta call me out like that? I love all of those things, she sent back.
Dr. Tweedledick: Try healthy food, cutting back on nicotine and alcohol, and no screens after 8pm.
She rolled her eyes and sent back, Thanks, dad. Got homework for me too?
Dr. Tweedledick: Read some vampire mysteries. I expect a full book report next Friday.
Get back to work, mister English professor, she sent, but couldn’t hold back the goofy smile on her face.
Dr. Tweedledick: I do actually need to, now. I hope you get some sleep.
Jolie yawned. Have a good night, doc.
She set her phone on the nightstand and snuggled down under the covers. Maybe the cure for her sleeplessness was just a bit of good conversation.
Her heart clenched when she thought of how she and John used to lay in the dark together and talk until they fell asleep. Back when they’d been excited to get married. Ready and hopeful for the future.
So young and so naive.
There had been a time that they had sworn they only needed each other. That they were best friends—along with Alicia of course—and they were going to spend the res
t of their lives just taking on the world.
Together.
Now they’d drifted so far apart that there was no together. There wasn’t even ‘taking on the world.’ For her at least, it was just taking on every day. The same fucking thing, every single day. Every once in a while she’d hang out with Alicia, but she had her own life and a magazine to run and didn’t have the time to play emotional support animal.
Except now, Jolie had a friend. Now she had someone to talk to every day. She had someone to inspire her to do something more than just drink coffee and whiskey and watch stupid shows from morning until night.
She thought about the little bookstore a few streets over that she’d never been to. She wasn’t sure when they opened, but she could check online in the morning and grab a coffee on the way before perusing their selection of vampire mysteries.
As she drifted off, visions of a shirtless vampire in a lab coat pulling books from a shelf wafted into her mind, and Jolie fell asleep with a smile on her face…
“What about this one?” the silvery-haired doctor asked, flashing Jolie a thousand-watt smile complete with pointy fangs. His voice was husky and low, the bass of it rumbling through her veins like a drum solo.
She took the book from him but didn’t even look at it, tucking it across her chest. “How are you even here right now?” She motioned over her shoulder at the blinding sunlight filtering in through the window. “It’s daytime.”
“Because I’m not a real vampire, silly.” He popped the fake fangs from his teeth and tossed them onto the floor. “I just thought you would like it.”
She giggled, but her voice sounded far away from her body. “I guess I do. Were you going to bite me?” She fluttered her eyelashes, and his lips curled into a devilish smirk.
He shrugged out of the lab coat and stepped forward, pressing his palms to the bookshelf on either side of her head. Except it wasn’t a bookshelf anymore, it was a stone wall of some kind, and they were outside now, in the dark.
A full moon bathed his smooth skin in an ethereal glow, deep-set eyes sparkling as he stared down at her with a hunger she’d never seen before on a human being.
