Bedside Manners (The Breakup Doctor Series Book 2)

by Phoebe Fox

  “I know, babe,” he shouted back, not moving. “But don’t advertise it to everyone.”

  Sasha fell onto the sand laughing, and I marveled at how perfect they were for each other.

  We finally conveyed that we wanted him to join us, and to bring my phone, and Stu waded in with that, his own towel, and—bless my brother—the cooler full of lunch and drinks that I’d packed.

  Sasha rinsed off in the water as we waited, and we scrambled to snatch the phone as soon as he cleared the shoreline.

  “Oh, hi, girls. You’re welcome. I’ve missed you too,” he said as we scurried back to the towels to check my call log.

  Sorry I missed your text! Sounds like fun—maybe next time. Hope you have a great time. You could use a day off.

  I stared at it in perplexity.

  “What does that mean?” Sasha spoke my thoughts.

  “I don’t know. It’s weird, right?”

  She nodded. “Definitely. Stu, come here.”

  “Yes, mistress. As you command, mistress,” he said, trotting over like a dog.

  Sasha turned to face him and gave him a long, intent stare. “That’s fun. Hang on to that. We can use it later.”

  “Stop!” I said.

  Sasha plucked the phone from my hands. “You have a penis,” she said to Stu. “Decode this.”

  Stu read the message. “This is from a guy?” he asked me, and I nodded. “Ah,” he said. “Okay.”

  “What? What does it mean?” Sasha prodded.

  “Well...” He took the phone and peered more closely at it, then fixed me and Sash with a hard glare. “Don’t you dare reveal that I let you in on the guy code, okay?”

  “We won’t,” she promised.

  “Swear,” I added.

  “Okay.” He held the phone where we could both see it. “See this? What he’s actually saying is that he’s sorry he missed the call and might like to go next time. But he hopes you went and got to relax. Now forget everything I just told you.”

  Sasha slapped his arm. “You are such an ass.”

  My brother was grinning like the Cheshire cat. “When will you girls learn? Quit trying to read guys’ subtext. There is none. We have no depth.”

  While Sasha wrestled Stu to the ground, I read the text one more time, and decided to agree with my brother. There was no sense worrying about it now anyway—I’d know soon enough if something had changed between me and Ben.

  Meanwhile, I was starving.

  I broke up the cage match at my feet, and we unwrapped the sandwiches I’d thrown together out of whatever was in my kitchen—one roast beef, one cheese and tomato, and one peanut butter and jelly—and shoved them into our faces between handfuls of Pringles and Fritos. Afterward the three of us lay on the sand, Sasha between me and Stu, the way it had been most of our lives, and let the sunshine lull us into catnaps.

  Jerking awake to frigid liquid trickling across my stomach, I yelped and opened my eyes to see my bratty brother pouring icy cooler water from Solo cups onto both me and Sasha, a fiendish grin lighting his features.

  And so of course Sasha and I each lunged forward and grabbed a leg, yanking Stu to the ground and proceeding to bury him in sand. Where we left him for a good twenty minutes or so while we wandered off to gather shells, which we then used to create a shell bikini on him, and snapped pics with my phone, which naturally Sasha immediately posted to Facebook.

  When he roared and burst through his sand cocoon like the Incredible Hulk, we ran into the water shrieking, and Stu came barreling after us, catching us over and over and throwing us with great cannonball splashes back to the surface.

  We laughed so much I got a cramp and had to get out of the water. Sasha and Stu stayed in, taking turns seeing who could float facedown the longest without air.

  For this one afternoon we were just like we used to be, our unit of three—carefree and silly and happy. I wished we could stay here—pitch tents like we used to and just not go back to shore—where all my worries waited for me.

  I knew we’d go home in a couple of hours. But I pushed the thought away, leaning back in the sand on propped palms, letting myself just enjoy where we were right now. I watched my brother and best friend, sleek as dolphins in the water, as the sun’s warmth dried the salt on my skin and seemed to sink all the way into my body.

  The day had done me more good than I realized. As busy as I’d been lately, it was easy for my tired brain to get caught up in loops of worry and overanalysis. By the time I got home I realized I’d overreacted about Ben. Of course everything was fine.

  That feeling lasted up until I scrambled out of the shower to answer my ringing phone, expecting Ben’s call, but missed it and listened to his message.

  “Hey, Brook—hope you had a great day today. It sounded like fun. I’m headed back to Cedar Key in just a few—just wanted to let you know Mom’s knee’s a lot better and she’s able to keep Jake, so you can finally have a break from the Kraken. Give me a call when you get this, if you get a chance.”

  And just like that, I felt sick again. I hadn’t imagined it—somehow I’d blown it. Ben had said what I thought I’d heard, and when I didn’t even acknowledge his feelings...Well, I knew how I’d have reacted if it had happened the other way around.

  I’d cut my losses and get out.

  I was still dripping on my tile floor where I’d hustled out of the shower. Laying the phone carefully back down on the counter, I used my towel to dab it dry, then wrapped the terry cloth slowly around my body.

  Then I sank to the floor, knees drawn up, leaning against the cabinet and staring at nothing as I wondered how everything had gone so wrong, so fast.

  I didn’t call Ben back. If he’d wanted to see me or to talk, he’d have come over, or at least called again. He’d left the call ball in my court, but I’d dated enough to know when I heard a polite copout, and Ben was nothing if not polite and kind.

  I just wasn’t up for a half-hearted conversation with him, or a distant, awkward call where both of us cordially pretended everything was the same, but the sick feeling in my stomach told me nothing was.

  I put on layers of lipstick—the armor my mother always advocated—and headed over to Mom and Dad’s for dinner. I thought I did a spectacular job of keeping up my end of the conversation, a smile on my face, but Sasha’s furrowed brows every time she caught my eye told me she was seeing through the facade.

  In the driveway afterward, as we were leaving, I gave her the quick recap of Ben’s call and his not bringing Jake over, and she leaned out the open passenger door of Stu’s Jeep for a quick hug. “Remember what the Monty Python boys say,” she said encouragingly.

  It was an old joke between us from Sliding Doors, one of my favorite movies.

  “‘Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,’” I recited.

  She pinched my cheek as if I were five and she was eighty. “No. ‘It’s just a flesh wound.’ Chin up, honey. Don’t panic.”

  I went to bed early—tomorrow was my radio show, and Mondays were always hard when the alarm rang at four thirty a.m. I didn’t sleep for a long time, though—my mind was too busy churning, and I missed the sound of Jake’s snuffles and snores and existential groans beside me. For the first time in a long time, my house felt empty and lonely.

  When my phone beeped I lurched over, hope flaring in my chest, only to sputter out when I saw it was Chip instead of Ben.

  I just want U to know Im not mad at U. Im still writing letters to my exes, b/c I want to be better & that has a lot to do w/ U. I know why U can’t answer me. But if it’s OK with U, I’m just going to text now and then anyway. G’night, Brook.

  Stupidly, I felt tears heat my eyes. I held the phone, my thumb hovering over the keypad, but I didn’t make a move to respond. It beeped again.

  I kn
ow U won’t text back. Miss U, Doc.

  I put the phone down and lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, waiting out the night until it was time to get up.

  nineteen

  I arrived for my radio appearance on Jim Veneer’s show at five forty-five the next morning, groggy, irritable, and heartsick. But when I walked into the studio to Jim’s big goofy smile and slipped the headphones over my ears, I let it all spiral into the compartment where I kept my personal matters when I was working with clients.

  As soon as Jim had done the intros, traffic, and other housekeeping, he pressed the first lit-up button.

  “Hey, there, caller—you’re on the air with Jim Veneer and the Breakup Doctor,” he said in his smooth patter.

  “Hey, Breakup Doctor, I’m Gina. I’m not the kind of person who usually calls you.”

  No one ever was.

  “Hi, Gina,” I said.

  “So I haven’t been dumped or anything. Actually just the opposite. I want to break up with someone. I have, actually. But then he gets all upset and I feel bad, so we get back together for a while, but the same stuff drives me crazy, and then I try to do it again. He’s a really nice guy—just not what I’m looking for. I don’t want to hurt him. What’s the gentlest way to break up with someone?”

  Thoughts of Ben eked into my conscience, and the sick feeling in my stomach was back at her words. Was he wondering the same thing—how to break things off with me gently?

  “Well, you may have just saved yourself the trouble if he’s listening in,” I muttered.

  And then ice shot through my body. Ben always listened in on my show at work. Or he used to.

  I heard a nervous chuckle on the other end of the call. “Uh, I didn’t really think about—”

  “You know, maybe this is a miscommunication,” I blurted. “Maybe, for some silly reason, he didn’t understand something you said, and he’s acting in a way that seems odd to you. But really he’s just confused about your feelings, and wasn’t sure how to answer you.”

  There was a silence, and I glanced up to see Jim looking at me with a perplexed expression.

  “Um...” The caller sounded uncertain. “I don’t think that’s...I’m sorry, I think I missed something—a misunderstanding about what, exactly?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you don’t either. Maybe you should just ask him. Or give him a chance to explain, you know?”

  “Explain what?” Gina said. She gave a nervous chuckle. “Honestly I just don’t want to date the guy anymore.”

  From the corner of my eye I saw Jim make a wrap-it-up motion with his finger.

  “You want to dump the guy?” I said brusquely into my mike. “Fine. Then would you rather have your leg chopped off or sawed off?”

  “What? Neither!”

  “You’ve got gangrene. The leg’s coming off. Chopped or sawed?”

  “Uh...chopped, I guess?”

  “Right. They’re both going to be awful, but if you feel you have to do it, quick and clean is better. A breakup hurts, but once it’s finished the person can start to heal. Sawing is messy, and the pain goes on and on.” I dropped my gaze so Jim wouldn’t see the moisture I felt in them.

  Silence on the line always felt three times as long on-air. Finally the caller said, “Yeah. I guess the leg’s coming off either way. So what, I just say it? Just tell him straight-out, ‘Dude, I’m done’?”

  “You could try to be a little gentler.” She laughed again, but I hadn’t meant it as a joke. “It’s a conversation, like any other—just about a more difficult topic. The hard part about breakups is that they feel like such a personal rejection. Because, of course, they are.”

  “But he’s a great guy—”

  I cut Gina off. “Yes, I have no doubt. But clearly not for you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Here’s the deal: In situations like this, just man up and tell the truth.”

  “What?”

  I caught myself. “Sorry. Figure of speech. Just have the courage to be honest, knowing the other person is an adult and can take it. ‘I’ve enjoyed what we had. But it’s just not working out, and it’s not fair to stay in a relationship with you when I know that.’ That’s it—no need to delineate every single reason you have for not wanting to be with her anymore. Sorry...with him.” I stopped and took a breath to collect myself. “Be direct, but tactful.”

  “That’s a tall order,” Gina said. She sounded uncertain.

  “Just try to remember to treat him with respect as a person, whether or not he’s the person for you.”

  “Um, okay. Thanks?”

  “Good luck. And remember—” But Jim had already cut the call, and I was talking to dead air.

  “So that was weird.”

  I’d taken another handful of callers before the show ended, and my cell phone started ringing almost the second I went off the air. I’d eagerly answered, my heart sinking when it was only Sasha.

  “What was weird?”

  “That first caller?” she said. “Gina?”

  “You listened to the show?”

  “Heck, yeah, we always listen to it. Stu needs to know about breakup behaviors, and that if he breaks up with me I’ll kneecap him.”

  It worried me that I was only pretty sure she was kidding.

  “What was weird?” I repeated. “I gave her the chopped off/sawed off analogy. You always love that one.”

  “Uh, yeah. Buried inside a whole bunch of off-topic crazy.”

  The building’s front door was hard to open, as if it had to push through the thick humidity of a Florida morning in July. Blinking against the bright sunshine, I said, “What do you mean?”

  “You were all over the map with her, Brook—talking about misunderstandings and second chances. You weren’t even listening to her.”

  “I wasn’t?”

  “No. She wasn’t calling about whether to break up with the guy. She knew she wanted to. She keeps doing it. In fact, I was kind of surprised you didn’t tell the woman to examine her own behavior: why she keeps getting back with a man she says she’s finished with. She’s the one who’s kind of stringing the guy along.”

  I stopped halfway to my car. “Holy crap. You’re right. I didn’t even see that.”

  “Eh, you can’t bat a thousand all the time. But it was a little strange that you went off on a tangent about letting the guy explain. I’m assuming this is really about Ben?”

  My grip on the phone suddenly felt slippery. “Oh, God. Did I really...I never bring my own stuff into a client’s issues. Never.”

  “Not sure we can say that anymore,” she offered cheerfully.

  “This isn’t funny, Sasha. I just shot all my credibility.” I didn’t know when I’d started walking again, but I’d somehow reached my car, and I slumped against the driver’s door, the metal already warm even this early in the day.

  “It wasn’t your best advice,” Sasha said mildly. “But do not freak out about it. I’m serious.”

  “I have to go.”

  “Ohhh, no. If you hang up you’re going to spiral into beating yourself up. We know where that leads—and based on past events, I’m going to say jail and a whole bunch of crazy. Meet me at Sunrise in twenty.”

  She hung up before I could argue.

  In season, the Sunrise Café was so packed for breakfast every day of the week, you could hardly push inside to put your name on the wait list. But in the dead season of July it was a ghost town. Sasha was already waiting for me in an isolated corner, and the server had coffee slapped down in front of me almost before my butt hit the seat.

  I held it in my oddly icy fingers and took a grateful sip as I eyed Sasha. She wore a tan pencil skirt that fit her as if it had been stitched onto her body, a cowl-neck coral blouse—and, incongruous
ly, a gaudy yellow plastic choker that was unlike anything my fashionable friend would ever put against her skin. Examining it curiously, I did a double take at the ring of faint blue and purple peeking out just above the awful thing.

  “Jesus, Sash—are those bruises around your neck?”

  My best friend turned fiery red. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Of course I do. Tell me.”

  She shook her head, staring down at the wide white mouth of her coffee mug around her black brew.

  I reached over and took one of her hands. “Sash, you have to know you can tell me anything. Always. What happened?”

  She turned magenta.

  “I, uh...I tried onomono his face the ocean,” she muttered.

  Or that’s what it sounded like. I leaned in. “What?”

  “I tried autoerotic asphyxiation!” she whispered fiercely. “Now shut up!”

  My mouth dropped so wide I swore I tasted the steam from my coffee.

  “You strangled yourself for an orgasm?! Why?”

  “Really, drop it, Brook,” she hissed. “You do not want to know more.”

  Then it was my turn to blush—or so I guessed from the surge of heat flooding my face—as understanding exploded in me. “Oh, dear God. Did my brother do this?”

  “I made him. He didn’t want to,” she hastened to assure me. “He’s not the type to just strangle me for no reason.”

  “You think?!” I yelped.

  “Shhh!”

  “Mother of God, Sasha, what were you thinking? It’s dangerous! What if he’d accidentally killed you? How on earth would he live with that? How would I?”

  “It’s supposed to be crazy hot. I just wanted to try it,” she whined in a tiny little voice I’d never heard from her. “Would you please keep your voice down?”

  “You’ve told me about sexcapades a prostitute would be embarrassed to repeat,” I said in disbelief. “Suddenly this is over the line?”