“Yes, sir. Susan, here’s my proposal.”
She floated back into her office. She hadn’t won yet, and there was a long fight ahead, but at least the mayor was with her now. She walked into Theo’s office to shout the news at him. But it was empty.
“He’s having coffee with a reporter,” Theo’s assistant called out to her.
Damn it.
She needed to share this joy with someone. When she pulled her phone out to text Maddie, she saw a text from Drew.
How’s your Monday? Any word from your boss about your idea?
Huh. After their not-quite-fight about it on Sunday, she was surprised he’d brought it up again. She was so excited that she wanted to text him with about forty exclamation points, but she tempered her impulse.
Just talked to him. He’s in! Good start to the week.
Fine, one exclamation point, so sue her.
Great news! What did he say?
She made a mental note to reward him for giving her an exclamation point back.
Hardly said anything, sprung it on me during a meeting with the city atty.
She plopped down at her desk, slid off her shoes, and twirled around in her office chair. By the time her rotation slowed, she had another text.
Great work, I’m happy for you.
She spun her chair again and beamed down at her phone.
I’m happy for me too!!
She couldn’t hold back on the exclamation points that time, because it was true. She was happy about her project, happy that she had Drew to tell about this battle she’d fought, happy that he was happy for her. She was so busy smiling and spinning and looking at her phone that she didn’t even notice Theo come into her office.
“You were looking for me?”
She jumped up, almost knocking over her chair in the process.
“Theo! Listen to what just happened.”
Just as she finished telling him the whole story, her phone buzzed again.
We’ll have something good to celebrate this weekend.
She beamed at her phone again. Theo’s eyebrows shot up.
“You told him?”
She shook her head. “What do you . . . I didn’t . . . How did you . . .” She sighed and gave up.
“I knew because I know you. Okay, we have to plan this out. Coffee in an hour?”
She nodded and waved him out the door. Maybe all of her middle-of-the-night anxieties—about everything—had been for nothing.
Carlos had been so busy on Monday he’d barely nodded at Drew, and he’d gotten to their basketball league at the last minute. Drew hoped that meant he’d managed to escape the Carlos brand of humor about Alexa.
But he heard a shout after the game when he was almost at his car.
“I liked her, you know.”
Drew turned around to find Carlos jogging toward him, a broad grin on his face.
“I noticed. You sure seemed to want to spend extra time with her.”
Carlos caught up with him.
“How long did it take for you to jump her after I walked out the door?”
Drew flashed back to Friday night. They’d barely stopped to take off their clothes. He shook his head.
“None of your business.”
Carlos laughed.
“That fast, huh? I thought you’d throw me out the window if I was there for another minute.”
Drew unlocked his car and tossed his bag in the trunk.
“If you had stayed another minute, we might have tested that theory.”
Carlos wiggled his eyebrows.
“Soooo, when are you going to see her again? You are going to see her again, right?”
Yeah, he was going to see her again.
“This weekend.” He tried and failed to hold back a grin. “Flying up there for the long weekend.”
Carlos patted him on the shoulder.
“Finally. Good job, dude. Proud of you.”
Drew shook Carlos’s hand off his shoulder and opened his car door. Oh great, now Carlos was smug because he got him to text Alexa in the first place. He never would have done it if he’d known he was in for this.
Okay, never mind that, yes, he would have.
“Proud of me for what, asshole?”
Carlos grinned.
“Oh, you’ll see. Tell Alexa I say hi.”
“Is he sleeping with anyone else?” Maddie asked as she sipped her second margarita.
Alexa paused, her own drink halfway to her mouth. That hadn’t occurred to her. Why hadn’t it occurred to her?
“I don’t know.” Because she hadn’t wanted to think about him with anyone else, that was why. “Why do you ask?”
“You said he isn’t really one for commitment, so I wondered,” Maddie said. “Are you going to ask him?”
Alexa took a sip of her drink. This wasn’t what she’d expected from margarita night with Maddie. Taco Tuesday was not supposed to be stressful. She didn’t want the third degree about Drew; she just wanted some uncomplicated applause.
At least she’d gotten that from Theo.
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Okay. So I guess asking if you guys are dating now is going to get the same non-answer, isn’t it?”
Alexa set her drink down.
“What happened to ‘Don’t overthink everything, Alexa’?”
Maddie laughed.
“I guess sometimes you do listen to me. But that was different! And even now, I’m not saying you need to overthink things . . . just don’t under-think them.”
“Great, perfect thinking balance, that doesn’t sound hard at all. Why didn’t I think of that? Now can we talk about you instead? Who was the client who pissed you off this week?”
Maddie’s styling business was thriving, which meant she always had great stories. Alexa laughed throughout the tale of graduation dress shopping for a whole family, ages seventy, fifty-five, eighteen, and nine.
Unfortunately, now that she’d been given permission to start thinking more about the Drew situation, it was all she could think about.
“Should I ask him?” Alexa asked, midway through her second drink.
“I guess that depends on how much you want to know the answer,” Maddie said.
Wednesday afternoon, Drew’s phone buzzed in his pocket while he was in the middle of an appointment with Jack and Abby. He grinned, almost certain of who had just texted him. He and Alexa had been texting each other all week, both in innocent and creative ways, though she’d been strangely silent today. He fought the urge to pull his phone out of his pocket and concentrated on Jack.
When Abby and Jack were walking out the door, she stopped and turned around.
“Your friend Alexa’s been so helpful. She’s gotten me in touch with help that I didn’t even know existed. Please thank her for me.”
Alexa hadn’t even told him she’d been in touch with Abby.
“I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear that,” he said. Jack high-fived him with his good arm as they left.
He ducked into his office in between patients to text her. But then he saw the text that had come in during his appointment.
Are you sleeping with anyone else?
Whoa, wait, what had prompted that? He responded before he stopped to think.
Not at the moment, I’m at work.
Why did he never stop to think?
I see. What about after work, will I get a different answer?
Maybe another joke would help.
No, tonight is basketball night.
There was a knock on his office door, and he looked up.
“Dr. Nichols? Your one thirty is in the exam room.”
“I’ll be right there!” he said, and looked back down at his phone.
How about this: now you have the weekend free so neither work nor basketball nor I will get in the way.
What the fuck? How did that escalate so quickly? And why the fuck had she brought this up right now in the middle of the day? In a text message?
Come on, can you just calm down about this? I was just joking.
He sat down on the edge of his desk, ignoring the files that fell onto the floor.
Hahahahaha so funny.
Somehow, he didn’t think those were genuine hahahahas. While he was still thinking about what to say to her, his phone buzzed again.
Look, Drew, I’m too busy to deal with this. I don’t think this is a good idea.
Drew barely caught himself from cursing out loud, and luckily remembered that there were small children and their parents just outside the door.
“Dr. Nichols?” The knock on his door was louder. Shit, he was running even later than usual.
“Coming!”
Come on, Alexa. What the hell?
He slammed his phone down onto his desk and opened his office door hard enough for it to bang into the wall. Why the fuck did women have to do things like this?
“Everything okay there, Dr. Nichols?” the nurse asked.
“Fine. Who’s next?”
He raged through his next four patients. He forced himself to smile at the kids, but he was particularly curt to one of the moms, and he knew he’d hear about that later.
Carlos came into his office at the end of the day when he was getting ready to go.
“Why are you still in those clothes?” Carlos dribbled an imaginary basketball on his office floor. “Basketball tonight!”
He flashed back to the text he’d sent Alexa that day and cringed.
“Gotta bail, sorry.” His general plan was to go home and drink all of the beer in his fridge.
“Why, gotta call your girl?” Carlos asked. “You really going to ditch us for her? Though, I have to say, she is really . . .”
He didn’t want to hear the end of that sentence.
“She’s not my girl.” He threw his bag over his shoulder and walked out the door. Carlos, of course, followed him. Still talking.