Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
I tucked a stray curl behind my ear as I started talking, explaining what I needed.
“Oh,” she said softly, her voice no longer as confident and welcoming. “Give me one moment and I’ll be right back.”
I gave her the moment, tucking the phone between my ear and shoulder, as I began to straighten my kitchen up.
I was terrible at the best of times, but lately, I’d been even worse.
My usual clutter had turned to outright mess, and I had no one to blame for it but myself.
Well, I guessed I could technically blame Audric for it slightly.
We’d spent so much time together lately that I’d barely been at home. I was either at work or at his—and Gunner’s—place.
It’d been two solid, blissful weeks of getting to know the man Audric was now, and I was finding I liked that man a lot.
Too much.
Which was why I would have to talk to him about Patty tonight.
He needed to know, and if he wasn’t okay with Patty, now would be the time to cut things off between us.
We could still be friends, but we couldn’t be heading in the same direction that we were now barreling toward.
“Ma’am?”
I blinked, realizing that I’d been sweeping crumbs off the same counter for a solid two minutes now.
“Yes, I’m here,” I said quickly.
“Oh, good. Thought I lost you,” she sounded nervous.
“I’m here. Just daydreaming,” I admitted.
She drew a deep breath, and I had the sudden, blinding understanding that I wasn’t going to like what she was about to say.
“Your current psychiatrist is refusing to transfer your care to our offices, and since we value him and his practice, we’re going to have to decline your request to move to our office,” the woman said on the end of the line.
“I don’t have a current anything,” I said. “I saw that man one time. He shouldn’t be able to dictate if I get seen by another doctor or not.”
“In this instance, he can,” she admitted. “We value his opinion, and the doctor won’t take you on.”
This was now the fourth doctor I’d contacted in the DFW area, and it was looking like I’d have to travel outside of the metroplex to find anyone. All because of that one doctor.
Unless I did it online, which I was reluctant to do.
“Thank you for your time,” I said before hanging up.
Frustration poured from me.
And the one thing I could think of was Audric would know what to do.
So that was what I did.
I got my car keys, ignored the way my hair was a freakin’ rat’s nest, turned a blind eye to what I was wearing, and headed to the job site that Audric had said that he would be on for the next several weeks.
I was halfway there when I really thought about what I was wearing, but I blocked it out and stopped to grab some lunch since it was almost eleven.
With Audric’s favorite sandwich—that I remembered from the tenth grade—in hand, and a much smaller version in the other, I marched right into the job site.
I did, however, stop to grab a spare hard hat that was sitting on a table that had a sign in front of it that read: hardhat area. Use it or I’m going to fucking kill you.
I had to giggle as I placed the well-used hard hat on my head—choosing the cleanest among the extras—and headed inside.
I wondered who wrote that.
For some reason, the note was saying “female.”
Only a woman could talk to a man like that and get away with it.
I kept my eyes downcast as I wound my way up plywood stairs until I found where Audric was working.
He was on the phone, nose pinched between two fingers, head facing toward the floor as he spoke low and quiet.
“I realize that, but it’s the only way.” There was a brief pause and then, “Just take the divorce, Dad. I know that you feel some noble ‘I owe it to her’ bullshit thing, but you don’t. You don’t owe it to her, because she chose to leave us first. Just because she didn’t succeed in her attempt doesn’t mean that she didn’t make the decision. Don’t contest the divorce.” There was a long pause and then, “I love you, Dad. But it’s time for you to be happy. Mom hasn’t made you happy in so long that I don’t even remember what it’s like to see you smiling.”
That was a punch to the gut.
Now that he mentioned it, when I saw Carter around, he’d never once had a smile on his face.
Which was crazy, because I remembered as kids he had a great smile.
Laney and I had always called Audric’s dad the ‘hot dad’ among our classmates.
He’d been the star of our teenage fantasies, and it was startling to think about how different he was now.