Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Mrs. Price only gives the barest look of distaste before smiling back at me and Drew. “Are you going to settle in the neighborhood? It’d be great to have some new faces around. New…” She looks up and down the table of mostly older couples. “Energy.”
She looks back at me expectantly.
“Oh, well, we haven’t talked about where we’ll live—” I start, but Drew cuts me off.
“Certainly, we’ll live here. There’s no better spot in Dallas than Highland Park.”
My head swings toward Drew, my mouth dropping a little. This is news to me. I was lying when I said we hadn’t talked about it. “But I thought we’d discussed”—I glance around the table at the eagerly listening ears and lower my voice—“about living closer to the university.”
Drew stops the sushi roll halfway to his mouth. His eyebrows lift in surprise. “Well, that was before, honey. Now you’ve only got another year left. I thought you’d want to be in a safer neighborhood where we can start a family.”
A family? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who said anything about a family? I stare at him, bewildered. I thought we were on the same page. No kids. No kids till I have at least two clinics established and well-underway—
“This is the perfect neighborhood for young families,” Mrs. Price says excitedly. “I know the price point can be intimidating for young couples, but that’s why I got so excited when Carol mentioned you might be moving in. It’s not like money will be a problem for your family,” she laughs, waving a hand.
But I’m still stuck on the part where Drew thinks we’re moving here. To the same neighborhood our parents live. To start a family.
“Um.” I smile, heart racing and breathing getting short, then tap Drew’s knee. “Why does Carol think we’re moving here?” I whisper to him when the Prices move on to a conversation with others around them. “I thought we agreed that I’d need to get a practice established in the city first.” And then I figured once we got settled somewhere and started putting down roots, I could convince him to stay there.
He just shrugs, an easy smile as he nods to someone else down the table. “Wouldn’t that just be a waste to get a practice up and going if you’re only going to quit a few years later once you get pregnant? Then you’d just end up leaving your clients in a lurch. It’s much smoother if we only move once.”
I cough a little, bringing my napkin to my mouth. He massages my knee gently under the table. He can tell I’m getting upset, and this is one of the tricks he does sometimes to help me calm down. Usually, I love it because I’m so starved for touch. And it feels like a secret language between us—him seeing my anxiety in a way that feels like he’s seeing me. But what he’s just said…
“I don’t intend on giving up my practice. I’m getting my degree because I want to do important work. There are a lot of people in our community who need good psychological care—”
He chuckles under his breath. “Not in our community—”
I gasp and yank my knee away from Drew’s previously comforting touch.
Mr. and Mrs. Price’s eyes have zeroed back in on us, bouncing between Drew and me like a tennis match. A fact that’s not lost on Drew.
“Let’s talk about this later.” He grasps my cold hand underneath the table. “Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?”
“Yes,” I say succinctly.
Drew starts to discuss his father’s campaign, and I go quiet again, focusing on my breathing instead of my mounting frustration. This is nothing. All couples fight. And we’re barely a couple. Lord knows how Drew is planning to make a baby, considering he can’t even get it up around me.
God, that was an awful night. It was graduation night of our senior year.
I’d finally gotten over him… mostly.
We were all but inseparable senior year. He might have hung out with whatever girlfriend he was currently with during school—he never kept them for long because it was generally known that he slept around on them—but it was me he spent hours with after school in his SUV.
And I’d read enough romance novels to hope that someday he’d open his eyes and see that if he could just find the right one, he could settle down. Obviously, I was the right one, there in front of him all along. I was the one he depended on when things with his dad got bad. He put on a front with everyone else at school, but he confided in me. I was the only one he was real with.
I was the one he needed.
I kept my hope alive all the way up through prom, a secret little seed inside me wishing that he’d ask me. His latest girlfriend had just thrown an iced coffee in his face when she found out he was cheating on her. I knew he’d only acted out because he’d gotten into a particularly brutal argument with his father the day before.