D is for Doctor (ABCs of Love Sweet Romance Book 4)

by Brenna Jacobs

  “I tried to tell you,” David said. “Or at least hint at it. But you always shut me down.”

  “Because you didn’t give me any information,” Avery shot back. “You just tossed out self-righteous judgements without any justification.”

  A group of people stopped just to the left of the bench where they sat. David stood up, taking a step toward them before looking back at Avery. Two people in the group were clearly a couple; the other was a woman who kept looking expectantly at David. Had he been on a date?

  “Oh my gosh.” Avery stood up. “You were on a date when you set all this up? What is wrong with you?” She was halfway to the theater exit when David called after her. “Avery, wait!”

  She turned around. “No. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. You just humiliated me in front of a lobby full of people. You embarrassed me in front of my ex-boyfriend and his fiancée. You lied to me. You manipulated me into a situation that I never would have chosen for myself. And worst of all, you completely neglected another woman who came into this evening believing she would have your undivided attention in order to set it all up. You screwed up, David. Big time. From now on? Please, just . . .” Avery’s shoulders slumped and she shook her head, the fire in her finally ebbing. “Just leave me alone, all right?”

  Back in her car, Avery gripped her steering wheel and took three slow, intentional breaths, feeling the need to calm down before trusting herself to drive. Fury over Tucker’s betrayal coursed through her, hot and thick. How had she let him back into her life? How had she forgotten all of the things that had led to their breakup in the first place? Avery thought back to the weekend before when Tucker had spent the night and she cringed, shame burning from the inside out. She’d been a conquest, a challenge, a notch in his bachelor belt he likely wanted to get before he walked down the aisle.

  And she’d let him do it.

  Worse, she’d let David’s judgement of Tucker drive her to do it. Because she felt like she needed to defend him. Because she felt like she needed to show David that she was smart enough to make her own decisions without his input.

  David had known then that Tucker was engaged. And that betrayal almost stung as much as Tucker’s. David’s arrogance was maddening. She could almost see how a threat from Tucker regarding his career could coax him into silence, but there were so many other things he could have done to solve the problem. He could have just come home from the movie theater and said, “Hey, I saw Tucker at the movies and he was with someone. You might want to talk to him and see what’s going on.” He could have trusted Avery to be tactful, to not bring David into the conversation at all. Armed with the right knowledge, she could have just dumped Tucker, no explanation needed. Was David really so insecure and socially inept that he couldn’t finesse a way around Tucker’s flimsy threat? Was he really so clueless to think that Avery would be okay with a public humiliation if it meant learning the truth about Tucker?

  Even worse, had he expected her to go running into his arms, grateful that he’d finally helped her see the error of her ways?

  Avery shifted her car into drive and pulled out of the movie theater parking lot.

  Maybe David could feel good that he’d bested Tucker without jeopardizing his career, though Avery was pretty sure Tucker’s words had been more hot air than actual threat. But she wondered if, in the end, he’d think losing Avery’s friendship had been worth it.

  Because Avery?

  She was done.

  Chapter 16

  David pulled into Haley’s driveway and cut the ignition. He should say something, anything to try and fix the horrible turn the night had taken, but what could he say, really?

  “So, tonight was really horrible,” Haley said.

  Well, then. That about covered it.

  “I’m so sorry, Haley,” David managed. “I got distracted and then I . . . I don’t know what happened. I lost my head.”

  “That’s actually what surprised me the most,” Haley said. “After watching you in the ER, I thought it was impossible for you to seem flustered. But, wow. Did you ever prove me wrong.”

  David almost laughed. His social self couldn’t be any more different than his doctor self. “It’s different at work,” he said. “At work, I’m in control.”

  “But you’re not, really,” Haley said, turning slightly in her seat. “You never know what’s going to come through the ER doors. It’s more like the opposite of being in control. It’s trusting your instincts and making split-second decisions without second guessing yourself.”

  “But those split-second decisions are made based on the knowledge and experience that I’ve gained. It’s not as if I’m just guessing.”

  “But sometimes you do have to guess.”

  “But only if I’ve eliminated every possible solution otherwise. I’m not guessing blind, because before I guess, I’ve used deduction and reasoning to narrow my options down so significantly that the guess is less like a guess and more like a calculated risk.”

  Haley raised an eyebrow. “You do all that deductive reasoning even if you only have five seconds to make a call?”

  “My brain works very fast.”

  Haley shook her head and laughed. “So smart, and yet you still screwed up tonight in such a big way.”

  David nearly winced at her words. “Screwed things up with you?”

  “Me? No,” Haley said. “I’m a nonissue. You’re nice and all, but I more than recognize my cue to bow out gracefully. You’re clearly hung up on . . . Avery? Was that her name? I’m not stupid enough to hang on when you’re clearly into someone else. I mean, you must be in order to do what you did.”

  “Then you understand what I was trying to do,” David said, suddenly hopeful that maybe he hadn’t just made the most colossal mistake of his life. “I was just trying to help. And since I couldn’t tell her, I just wanted her to see.”

  “Wait—I didn’t say I understood. I mean, I’m only piecing details together here, but from what I gathered, you knew the guy she was dating was cheating and rather than just tell her, you had her come to the movie theater so she could see for herself?”

  “I couldn’t tell her,” David reiterated, though the more he said it out loud the less he actually believed it. He could have told her. He should have told her right from the start. “I only knew about the guy’s fiancée because I treated him at the hospital. And he . . . he threatened me.”

  “Sounds stupider every time you say it out loud, huh?” Haley said, her tone flat.

  David looked up, surprised by Haley’s candor. “Thanks for the pep talk, Haley. This has been really fun.”

  She smiled at that. “Look. I can almost see where you were coming from. Your mistake is that you plowed forward with a plan without any consideration for Avery’s feelings. You thought about how you would feel if she knew her boyfriend was cheating. You thought about how the truth might help you out. Because she can’t date you as long as she’s dating the other guy. But did you ever really stop and think about how knowing might hurt her?”

  “You work in medicine, Haley. You know that if we only prescribe treatments that don’t hurt, we’d lose twice as many patients. Sometimes the right course is the most painful one.”

  “But when it’s really going to hurt?” Haley said. “We use anesthetics. We numb people so they don’t have to feel how much it hurts to get better.”

  David paused, trying to understand Haley’s point. “So you’re saying what I just did to Avery is akin to performing surgery on someone who’s still awake,” David said, a statement, not a question. He didn’t need Haley to confirm because he felt the truth of his realization all the way down to his bones. Logically, knowing was the best thing for Avery, even if it hurt in the moment. But he hadn’t done anything to prepare her, to protect her, to ease the pain of learning that truth.

  “Exactly,” Haley said.

  David shook his head. “I’ve really ruined things, haven’t I?”

  Haley shrugged. �
��Tonight was definitely not your best work. But I don’t think I’d give up if I were you.”

  “No? She told me to leave her alone from now on. That feels pretty final.”

  “She was angry,” Haley said. “And rightly so. Just give her some time.”

  It wasn’t lost on David how ridiculous it was to be having a conversation about working things out with Avery at the end of a date with another woman. Particularly when he’d treated her so badly. He’d walked out of the movie twenty minutes before it ended so she could find him in the lobby with another woman. That was the kind of bad date you tell stories about.

  And yet, she was still being nice to him. Giving him advice. Helping him sort out his feelings.

  “Thank you for being so understanding,” David said, hoping Haley recognized his sincerity. “I’ve been awful to you. I want you to know I realize that. You deserved a better evening, a better date.”

  Haley unbuckled her seatbelt and reached for the door handle. “Honestly? It’s fine. Lucy begged me to give this a chance but dating doctors has never really been my thing.”

  David tried not to feel affronted. Not that he wanted to go out with her again, either. But to be dismissed over his profession? “No?”

  “It’s not personal. Work just already consumes so much of my time. I want to date a teacher. Or a botanist, or something. Someone that doesn’t also smell like the hospital when they come home. Does that make sense?”

  It made total sense. Avery smelled like sun and salt and sand and the giant gardenia blooms that lined the side of her house. He’d take that over the smell of the hospital any day. “I get it. So, I’ll see you around the hospital?”

  Haley opened the car door. “Sure. Good luck with Avery,” she said before climbing out. “I think you’re going to need it.”

  David drove home in silence wishing he could rewind the last three hours of his life and live them all over again. How had he been so stupid? So clueless to how his impromptu ambush would feel to Avery? Haley’s analogy, about surgery without anesthetic, had driven the point home hard. Good doctors didn’t just solve problems and make diagnoses. They solved problems while also caring for the emotional well-being of their patients. They made eye contact. They explained what they were doing and why. They answered questions and made each patient feel comfortable and secure in their doctor’s competence and ability to take care of them.

  David had treated Tucker’s presence in Avery’s life like a disease that needed to be rooted out and eradicated. But he failed to treat Avery like a patient—like someone who deserved communication and respect.

  He owed her an apology. Big time.

  Haley had said Avery needed time, so he resisted the urge to walk straight to her house once he’d pulled into his own driveway. But the idea of doing nothing didn’t sit well either. He felt antsy and uncomfortable, like he’d never be able to settle down if he didn’t do something to fix things.

  He needed to apologize, yes. But not just with words. He needed a gesture. Something that showed Avery he realized he was wrong and was sorry he’d hurt her. A gift, maybe? Or a letter? Back when he was a teenager, his parents had taken him to a therapist to help him work on his social anxiety and awkwardness. One of the things his therapist had told him was that if he struggled to express himself in person, he might try writing letters. Letters could be revised, after all, so it meant there was no reason to stress about saying the wrong thing. It had worked before, so maybe he needed to write Avery a letter.

  At the very least, that was something he could do now instead of later. And he wasn’t sure he’d be able to sleep until he’d done something.

  Chapter 17

  Avery heard a knock on her door just after eight on Sunday morning. She tiptoed into her living room and peeked through her blinds. She’d honestly been surprised David hadn’t shown up the night before, anxious to try and talk things through. She was prepared to ignore everything—knocks, texts, calls—but she hadn’t heard from him at all. It had been a blessed relief. She was in no mood to try and navigate his bumbled attempts at apologizing.

  Through the blinds, she did see David, but he was walking away, already down her steps and crossing the lawn back toward his own house. Curious, she moved to the front door and swung it open. On her doormat, there was a huge basket tied up with a giant bow. She hefted it—the thing probably weighed twenty pounds—and carried it into the kitchen. A watermelon filled up the left side; that’s what had made it so heavy. Next to the watermelon, Avery found three beautiful navel oranges, a box of fresh donuts from the downtown bakery she loved, a gift card to the Darling Oyster Bar, and a to-go box of Darling hushpuppies. The hushpuppies and the donuts were both still warm. The donuts she could understand. The bakery opened at six-thirty every morning. But how had he managed fresh hushpuppies? At eight in the morning?

  Avery dropped onto a barstool behind her. It was a basket of all of her favorite things. Nestled into the middle of the basket was an envelope, Avery’s name written across the front. She sighed and reached for it, laying it flat on the counter beside her. Before she opened it, she poured herself a mug of coffee and opened up the box of donuts. Cinnamon with a vanilla drizzle. Her favorite. Except, she’d never told David her favorite flavor. Had he guessed that part?

  Adequately fortified with caffeine and sugar, Avery finally opened the letter.

  Dear Avery,

  I wish that I could apologize to you face to face. Hopefully sometime soon, I’ll do just that. But since I’m notoriously terrible at getting my words right, I hope you’ll accept this letter as a first step. I’m not sure how I miscalculated so badly when it came to handling the situation with Tucker. The only thing I can figure is that I was blinded by jealousy that he was the one dating you, and furious that he would use you like he did. When he threatened my position at work, I lost touch with reality, an evidence of my continued insecurity in my profession. I am too young. Too logical. Too clinical to be a good doctor. These are the worries that still haunt me. Coming here, accepting this job at such a renowned hospital felt like a reach and a dream and Tucker played right into my fears that I might lose it. That I don’t deserve it after all. Those fears clouded my judgement and influenced my actions. I’m so sorry. I should have worried less about myself, and more about you. I did not think about how my interference might make you feel. I’m sorry I embarrassed you. I’m sorry I didn’t respect you enough to tell you right from the start that I knew about Tucker’s fiancée. I realize it might take a long time for me to earn your trust again, but I hope you’ll give me another chance to be your friend.

  I’ve probably done enough to scare you off as it is, I can’t write this much already without telling you how I feel about you. I’m in love with you, Avery. I almost decided not to tell you. My pride didn’t want you to know of my feelings unless I was certain you felt the same way. But I figure it can only help my case when it comes to justifying what I’ve done. It has to be better to just own it, openly, honestly, without posturing. Of course, I’m also motivated by a likely vain and ridiculous hope that you might consider the possibility of loving me back. Someday, at least? I don’t deserve you; I know that much. But I feel the feelings just the same and believe you deserve nothing but the truth from me after all I’ve put you through.

  From the first oyster you made me eat, I’ve loved you. You mesmerize me. You fill me up in ways I’ve never imagined possible. You inspire me. You make me laugh. You make me want to be better at everything I do.

  I’m so sorry I hurt you.

  I’m sorry I can’t say these words in person.

  I love you.

  Yours, David

  Avery read the letter through once, and then again.

  She finished her donut, ate a second one, and then ripped open the to-go box of hushpuppies and ate those as well. Nothing said comfort like fried cornbread, and she needed comfort. When the hushpuppies were gone, she read the letter one more time.

  It wasn
’t that she was mad he’d said so much. It was maybe the most eloquent letter she’d ever read. For all of his talk of being a terrible communicator, his letter was Jane Austen novel-worthy. But what was she supposed to do with all those feelings he’d shared? How was she supposed to respond? To react? She didn’t love him back. She knew that much. She liked him. She’d thought about the possibility of dating him, but how do you date someone when you know from date one that they’re already in love with you? Talk about pressure.

  Avery reached into the basket and pulled out an orange, ripping into the peel. It was the middle of freaking July. How had David even found beautiful perfect navel oranges in the middle of the summer? And in the middle of the night? It was almost as impossible as fresh hushpuppies.

  Avery ate the orange, which tasted perfect, of course, and paced around her kitchen. A walk on the beach might help clear her head, but if she went outside, she might run into David. And she still had no idea what to say to him. So she paced around her kitchen some more, periodically glancing out her window toward his house to see if he was still at home. A few more laps and she couldn’t stand to be indoors any longer, so she headed to the back door. It wasn’t David’s beach. She had just as much right to walk on it as he did. If she happened to see him, she’d just keep on walking.

  She pushed through her back door, nearly running headlong into Tucker who stood on her screened-in porch.

  She jumped and stepped backward, a hand flying to her heart. “Geez, you scared me half to death. What are you doing here?”

  “Sorry,” Tucker said. He sounded out of breath and looked awful. He still wore the clothes he’d had on the night before, his shirt untucked and sweat stained, and his eyes were bloodshot. “I parked down at the IOP county park and walked.”