by Max Monroe
At the mention of Lexi, affection, love, pain, and regret warred for supremacy on his face more than even before, and the dam on his words finally broke. “Is she still awake?”
My jaw dropped to the cement. Is she still awake? What in the hell was he trying to do here? He just said he can’t do this. Now, he wanted to see Lexi? Seriously, was I in the Twilight Zone?
“No,” I lied. “She’s already in bed.”
He looked away for a brief moment and stared out toward the street. A shaking hand ran through his hair until his eyes eventually met mine again. “Will you tell her I stopped by and that I’m really proud of her?” he asked, voice quiet. He didn’t need a decoder to crack the mystery of my face. Anything he wanted to say to my daughter could die a painful death in hell. “Please, Winnie.”
Before I could muster the strength to form a response—even “fuck you” took energy—he turned on his heel, jogged down the stairs, and away from my life. He didn’t go to the car and driver that he always kept on staff to get him around the city, and he didn’t look back. I was powerless, standing there in the bitter wind and watching until he reached the end of the block and turned the corner—for good.
I had no idea how long I stood out there on my porch, staring in the direction that Wes had gone. I knew his driver had long since vanished, and I knew the cold burned all the way into my bones. But I honestly couldn’t find the brainpower to get myself to move.
As the icy air numbed my anger, inquisitiveness tingled along my skin.
What in the hell just happened?
It was like Wes Lancaster had just broken up with me even though he didn’t want to break up with me.
If that wasn’t the biggest mindfuck I’d ever been dealt, I didn’t know what was.
Five…Four…Three…
The last seconds on the clock ran down as New England’s quarterback took a knee on the forty-yard line. I stared at the scoreboard and watched with a heavy heart and regret gnawing at my chest. It felt like so much more than a shitty end to an otherwise spectacular season as I watched Winnie on the sideline from above. She was still beautiful, but all the light was gone from her eyes. Instead, anger lived there, laced toxically with the memories of us in every inch of stadiums across the country.
Two…One…
I watched from the Owner’s Box as our opponent ran out onto the field in celebration, rowdy and taunting, their chants nearly audible despite the distance and thick glass, and the Jumbotron blinded my eyes with confetti and congrats to New England.
Our season had officially come to a close, the evidence of a seventeen to thirteen loss in the divisional round play-offs stamped out on the scoreboard. Our guys had played good for the first two quarters, great even, but shit had sprayed violently from the churning fan after halftime. Three minutes into the third quarter, we’d been up by thirteen when Bailey had thrown an interception that led to a defensive touchdown for the opposition.
And unfortunately for us, that set the pace for the rest of the game.
One mistake trickled into another, penalties and turnovers and too many goddamn third and outs to count. We’d become our own worst enemy, playing head games with ourselves, and eventually, loss by self-detonation occurred.
Our guys walked slowly off the field with their heads down and their helmets hanging limply from their hands, disappointment visible in every step they took toward the tunnel, but my focus wasn’t on them.
I only had eyes for the victim of my own self-destruction, her blond hair and white shirt shining startlingly bright through the crowd of blue.
I had let my own demons fuck with my head. I’d been scared of the commitment and the speed with which I’d decided on it, Amelia’s words ringing soundly in my ears.
For the first few days this week, I’d done my best to blame it on Amelia, like she held responsibility for my downward spiral by simply voicing her own fears.
It was cowardly and petty and nothing more than an attempt to avoid the facts: the tragic end to my relationship with Winnie Winslow rested solely on my shoulders.
When she disappeared into the shadowy recesses of the tunnel, my mind and focus finally came back to the room around me.
The chatter was dismal, as expected, but I just didn’t have it in me to make small talk or to relive the mistakes of this horrible game. I needed to get the fuck out of there. I picked my jacket up from one of the black leather sofas resting against the wall of the suite and put it on, zipping it up to my chin. Halfway into January, the frigid temperatures had set in. A true fair-weather dweller, I always hated this time of year, but now, after everything I’d done to destroy my own life, the real cold lived inside of me. Deep in the depths of my empty soul, and I didn’t know how to vent it out.
I missed both of my girls more than I had ever missed anything in my life.
I missed Winnie’s texts. I missed her smile, her laugh, our inside jokes. I missed having her in my arms, both platonically and laid out beneath me as I made love to her. I missed everything about her—everything about us.
And I missed Lexi. Her football season was over just like this one, and after all the work we’d put in together, I had nothing to show for it. I didn’t get to see her smile at me at first sight, and I’d never hear her sweet voice as she scoured the world and people around her for knowledge.
And now, with the Mavericks’ season officially over, my opportunities to see Winnie at work would be few and far between until the summer months.
I had absolutely nothing tying me to them anymore.
I can’t do this.
Four bullshit words had ruined everything.
My office was drab and dreary for a Friday morning and smelled nothing like peaches and goddamn sunshine.
In fact, it smelled so bad in comparison, I’d almost gone out to get an air freshener. But I didn’t want to go out into the bustling crowd of Manhattan. There were too many people in a really small proximity to hate. I’d have wound up getting arrested or stabbed or worse.
I wasn’t really sure what was worse than a stabbing, but I was pretty sure it lived in Manhattan and it definitely resided post Winnie-breakup.
My office was eerily quiet, none of the hustle and bustle of the stadium, and notably less to look forward to. But as much as this place blew, the stadium wouldn’t have been any better.
After last week’s upset in the divisional game, most of the employees had crawled away to get in vacations and family time before serious preparation for next year began.
I had no family to have time with. I’d considered going to see my dad, but January in Wisconsin seemed even worse than heartbreak in New York.
So I was here. In my office. Doing a whole lot of nothing disguised as something.
I’d just finished reading an article in the New York Post about a blind hoarder in Brooklyn who’d been unknowingly living with the skeletal remains of her daughter for nearly thirty years. Apparently, she’d thought her daughter had simply moved out.
And still, when I thought of all the people who were the most unbelievably fucking ridiculously dumb in the world, my name came up number one on the list. Losing Winnie and Lexi was proof of that.
A knock on the door barely preceded its opening, and Kline and Thatch stepped in without invitation.
“Ah, see,” Thatch told Kline after nothing more than a quick glance in my direction. “The little bird’s nest has come back to Manhattan.”
“Shh,” Kline shushed him before stepping forward into the office and taking a seat in front of my desk. He rubbed at the leather of the armrests as he made himself disgustingly comfortable.
His hair was messy as though he’d visited his wife first.
I hated him for it.
“She’s busy working, you know,” I said in an effort to lash out, picking up a random stack of papers on my desk and slamming the stapler down on them.
“She wasn’t five minutes ago,” he countered without shame and no more than a glance in
the direction of the angry stapler.
“Fucker,” I insulted.
“Nah,” Thatch said with a laugh. “Just a little foreplay.”
Kline laughed at that, but all I could do was glare.
We stared at each other, letting the testosterone fill the space until any movement from the outside world would make it explode.
“So?” Thatch questioned like an impatient bastard.
“So…what?” I asked, snatching the football-shaped stress ball off my desk and squeezing it to the point that the fake laces threatened to pop.
“How are you going to win Winnie back?” Kline asked, cutting right to the chase. I both loved and hated that he was so straightforward. Hated it because it was annoying, but faced with it or Thatch, I unabashedly loved Kline’s ability to cut to the chase.
“Win Winnie,” Thatch murmured. “I like that.”
I shook my head before I even started to speak. My mind was made up. “I’m not.”
Kline blinked and turned to Thatch, who reacted altogether less calmly.
“What the fuck does that mean?” he asked with both freakishly long arms held out in exasperation.
“They’re better off without me,” I told them, and they were. I was completely messed up and mixed up and just…fucked up. I was a fuck-up, that was for sure.
I’d gone over everything again and again in my mind, from the meeting to the way I’d handled everything afterward, and it all reeked of immaturity. Thirty-five goddamn years old and immature. But, out of everything, I hadn’t been able to forgive myself for not being man enough to ever tell her how I really felt. She deserved that—someone who not only loved her but told her he did. Repeatedly. They both fucking did.
“How the fucking fuck do you figure that?” Thatch yelled. Kline put a hand to his elbow and subtly shook his head.
All of Thatch’s anger had already snapped something inside of me, though, and I started to talk.
“I’m fucking unreliable, busy, always goddamn late. I’m not any of the things Win and Lex need.”
Thatch opened his mouth, but Kline again stopped him from speaking, and I gladly filled the silence.
“Lex is so fucking special. Smart and unique and goddamn perfect. Society doesn’t think so, but they’re wrong. But she doesn’t need me out there getting into fistfights with every fucking person who looks at her wrong, and Win doesn’t need that either. She works so hard and, God, she’s brilliant too, so it’s no wonder Lex is as smart as she is. Win needs to be able to come to work without dealing with some Neanderthal asshole. She needs to be able to relax for once in her goddamn life and know everything is taken care of.”
By the time I was done, I was breathing heavily, and Thing 1 and Thing 2 had smiles on their faces that would rival a lottery winner.
“What?” I asked with irritation highlighting my voice.
“Okay,” Kline said simply, and I blinked.
“No argument?”
He shook his head and shrugged. “You’re right.”
“I’m right?”
“Yep.”
What the fuck did he mean I was right? They weren’t going to try to convince me otherwise? I was that wrong for Winnie and Lex? So much so that my own friends weren’t even going to try to tell me I wasn’t.
Jesus. I wasn’t Satan, for fuck’s sake.
And I loved them. Both of them. They could do worse than me.
Angry, I told Kline and Thatch that. “I’m not that bad, you know. I love them. Christ, I could be fucking no-good-Nick, having it all, and throwing it all away, even though they constantly gave me chances.”
Kline bit his lip and then shook his head. “No, you’re right. You’re too busy for them. You can’t be there the way they need you to be.”
“I can be there,” I protested.
“You missed that game,” Thatch pointed out, and I faltered. I had. I’d missed it, and goddamn, the disappointment in their voices and in Winnie’s disgusted eyes still made me feel sick when I thought about it.
But I could do better. I had the money to slow down. I didn’t have to be here every second of every day.
“I could take a step back from stuff.”
Kline looked skeptical.
“I could,” I affirmed.
“Well, I mean, if you think you could,” he said in half-assed agreement.
“I could. And anytime I couldn’t be there, I could send one of you guys. I could make sure they always had someone.”
“You’re right,” Kline agreed, and I paused.
Jesus. Reverse-psychology-wielding motherfucker.
“Stop being so goddamn clever,” I demanded.
“He’s good, huh?” Thatch said with a chuckle.
Fuck. Two minutes with this guy and he’d managed to rework my entire line of thinking. But he was so good, he didn’t tell me the way it was; he made me figure it out all on my goddamn own.
“You know, I’m pretty sure I actually helped you fuckers when you needed it instead of putting you through this fucking bullshit.”
“But I thought you didn’t want a relationship like we have?” Thatch teased.
“Fuck you guys.”
“We love you too,” Thatch said mock-sweetly.
Even though Kline had helped guide me to realization, I still wasn’t sure how I could right the awful wrong. How could I get Winnie to forgive after I had done what every other man had done in her and Lex’s life?
It truly was the fuck-up of all fuck-ups in the history of fuck-ups.
I’d hurt her—them—in the absolute worst way.
And honestly, I wasn’t sure how in the hell I could fix that…
January had bled into February, and now March was in full swing. Remnants of dirt-covered snow—probably piss-covered, too—rested against the edges of the streets, and it took a whole lot of effort to get my favorite black suede pumps into the building without a tragedy of epic stiletto proportions.
Tonight, I was attending a Children’s Hospital charity function at Apella. The sleek and modern reception venue was decked out in a kids’-style circus theme. Tables were covered in bright cloths, mimicking the appearance of a clown’s costume, and the spacious room was encased in a gorgeous red tent that hung from the ceiling. The ambiance all but screamed, I’m whimsical and entertaining.
If only I felt as upbeat. For two straight months, my insides had been feeling like perpetual night. I waited and waited for time to heal my Wes-inflicted wounds, but the goddamn sun never rose.
Attendees littered the room, chatting animatedly with one another as I headed in the direction of our assigned table with Scott Shepard, my date for the evening. I’d known Scott for years, having attended med school together at Yale, done the same surgical rotation at Mount Sinai, and even worked together at St. Luke’s for about three years before I had left to work for the Mavericks.
He was an all-around good guy. Super sweet, charming, and handsome in a slightly rugged way, and his dark hair, even darker eyes, and jawline covered in five days’ worth of scruff had a lot of female staff members at St. Luke’s begging for his attention.
But I’d never really seen him that way. We had more of a brother-sister kind of relationship, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that he reminded me of my brother Jude.
But Scott was a good friend. He had always been a good friend. And even though we didn’t speak often, I knew he was someone I could always count on. Which was why he was doing me a huge favor by being my date for the evening.
Although I’d never specialized in pediatrics, I still donated my time and money to help the Children’s Hospital raise funds and awareness for various causes, and tonight’s focus was on autism research. Obviously, it hit very close to home. I knew firsthand what it was like to have an autistic child, and I knew how much specialized programs and therapies could help families raising children on the spectrum.
“You look gorgeous tonight, Win,” Scott complimented as he pulled out my
chair and helped me into my seat.
Gorgeous? I hadn’t felt gorgeous in what felt like forever.
Broken? Yes.
Sad? Of course.
But gorgeous? Maybe I was in a tragic way, I guess. But it was safe to say, ever since Wes had broken my heart, it took a lot of effort to have an outward appearance of put together and okay. I was still so far from okay that no high-tech navigation system or Siri herself could help guide me back at this stage in the heartbreak game.
I smoothed my hands down my simple yet classic black silk gown and forced a grin in his direction as he sat beside me. “You’re not looking so bad yourself, Dr. Shepard,” I said with a wink.
“Oh, c’mon, Winnie. We know I always look good.”
I laughed. “Are you trying to tell me I don’t always look good?”
“Well…I’ve seen you at three a.m., half asleep and busting ass out of the call room…”
“Whatever,” I scoffed. “Just so you know, your three a.m. bedhead look isn’t exactly cover-worthy either.”
“That’s not what the nurses say,” he teased, and I rolled my eyes.
“Tell me, Scott, how do you find the time to brainwash all those girls?”
A server stopped by our table and took our drink order—wine for me and a beer for Scott—and made quick work of getting our drinks while we chatted politely with the other guests at our table. A few were also physicians we had met through various hospital and charity functions, like nearly every gathering of certified med-heads, the conversation pretty quickly dissolved into a gore-fest recounting of our most cringeworthy cases. An orthopedic attending surgeon at Mt. Sinai had just finished regaling us with tales of amputation when the waiter brought us our second round of drinks.
“I thought Lexi was coming with us?” Scott asked after taking a drink of his beer.
“I figured it’d be best if Melinda didn’t bring her by until after dinner. That way, she can enjoy the kids’ fair without having to sit through boring adult conversation.”
Scott grinned. “You calling me boring, Win?”
I laughed and shrugged. “Maybe.”
