Every Glance (Every Life #3) (11 page)

Even though she’s really good at playing a bitch, I can see what she’s covering up. There’s a raw vulnerability hiding behind that concrete exterior. And that impenetrable exterior is there because her trust has been obliterated a few times too many. Her husband must be a real piece of work.

I reach out and rest my hand over her forearm. “No ulterior motives. No games. I just want Simon to have some fun. You can come along, too, just to make sure everything I’m showing him is okay with you. Bring your husband, if you like.”

“I’ll think about it,” she stands abruptly, causing my hand to fall away. “I need to go check on Simon now.”

And before I can answer, she’s gone.

“I was wondering where you’ve been hiding, handsome,” Kyler gushes dramatically in front of her friends when I reappear.

I look down at my watch. I’ve been gone for over an hour, and she’s still gabbing to the same group of people. “I just ran into my buddy, Simon. We had some manly stuff to discuss.”

She smiles at me, but goes back to gossiping about Sarah Wilton—whoever the hell that is— to the woman standing next to her. I’ve only been standing here for about two minutes, and I’m already wishing Simon would come back out or that her other date would step in to relieve me. I can’t stand here for the next few hours and listen to how horrible Sarah’s new boob job looks. Unless the boobs are here for me to judge personally—from an unbiased medical standpoint, of course—I’m not interested.

“Hey, Kyler, do you think you could get someone to take you home? I need to get over to the hospital and order some tests for my patient.”

I’m not the typically the lying type, but I just want to get out of here. With everything I’ve had to endure today, I’m exhausted. And to be completely honest, I feel a little weird about Kyler using me to brag to her friends.

“Oh, sure, baby. I’m sorry you won’t be able to stay for dinner, but I’m sure my dad can take me home. Call me tomorrow?”

Baby? “Sure.” I lean in to kiss her cheek, but she turns at the last second so that I’m kissing her lips instead. And if things aren’t awkward enough, she invites her tongue to the party.

I pull back after a second. “Gotta run. Nice to meet all of you.”

Before she has a chance to corner me or ask any questions, I dart into the house, trying to remember how to make my way back up to the front door.

“Hey, Dr. Hoover?” Devyn calls out as I pass the library. She’s alone.

I swallow the lump forming in my throat and step into the doorway. “Yeah?”

“Simon can’t come the next two weekends because he’ll be with his dad. We’re, uh, we’re separated right now. So I appreciate the offer, but between your schedule and ours, I just don’t think it’ll work.”

The wheels in my mind are turning furiously, trying to process the new information and trying to find a way to make this work for Simon. He’ll be at his dad’s the next couple of weekends, and then I’ll be tied up with Sawyer’s wedding.

Wait. Yeah, that could work.

If she’ll give it a chance.

“Tomorrow, then. I’m free tomorrow.” I blurt out, realizing too late that I sound desperate, even though I’m not sure why.

Her eyes widen. I think she’s a little surprised, and possibly a little freaked out, by my persistence. “Well, umm…” She drums her fingers on the chair arm. “Okay. We’ll be there tomorrow.”

We
.

Devyn Rion and her son will be in the clinic with me tomorrow.

Alone.

“AND YOU JUST left? Uh oh, looks like the possibility of you winning the bet just got as slim as you were in seventh grade.” Sawyer jabs at my shoulder and snickers, proud of his joke.

He just stopped by my house to go for a run with me and talk about the bachelor party. No sooner than he walked in the front door, he remembered that I attended a party with Kyler yesterday. Of course, I had to tell him about the way Kyler acted to get his take on it. But I didn’t tell him everything. I’ve still failed to mention who Simon’s mom is. Or about the fact that I’m meeting the both of them at my clinic at two this afternoon.

Sawyer knows exactly how I felt about Devyn back in the day. The way I wanted him to think I felt about her,
and
how I really felt. Some days, it was interchangeable. These days, I don’t know.

A part of me still wants to taste that bittersweet revenge and somehow make her feel the way I did the day that she and her boyfriend—and now husband—slipped some ipecac syrup into my apple juice at lunch. Which is also the day that I vomited on her shoes with the entire school watching.

“I never said that I wasn’t going to see her anymore.” Although, I’m still a little irritated with her. “I’m just going to have to talk to her and find out why she felt the need to act like that. I’m sure she was just feeling insecure and wanting to make sure everyone there knew that she was dating someone with a job.”

“I guess you could be right, but my money is still on you coming stag to the wedding. Or with someone else.”

I pull the towel out from around my neck and pop him in the arm with it. “If you keep it up, it just might be your future wife.”

“Keep dreaming, asshole,” he chuckles, grabbing for the towel and only narrowly missing. “She would eat you alive.”

I clamp down on the words threatening to come out of my mouth. But this
is
Sawyer I’m talking to, the king of trash talk. Oh, what the hell. “Hell, yeah, she would. That’s exactly what I want her to do.”

Catching all of the innuendo I just threw his way, every visible muscle in Sawyer’s body comes alive as he lunges across my kitchen with a fist swinging. “Don’t you think for a minute I can’t kick your ass, Hoover.”

I’m not too worried. His wide, half-sneering grin is playful, and Sawyer knows me well enough to know that I’m all talk. I’d never disrespect him by hitting on his woman. Not after all he’s done for me. Even if he hadn’t…that’s just not my style.

“Oh, I know you can. But only if you can catch me.” I take off across the living room and out the front door, pumping my legs harder, faster, hitting the pavement with every ounce of force I can drive into my legs.

Sawyer’s pounding steps are just behind mine, getting louder, closer. So I pull everything I have and force it into my muscles, drawing out my secret weapon. I use my deep-rooted anger as my fuel. Years of rejection. A lifetime of bitter disappointment. Feeding my waning energy with the blackness I keep deep within. This is the only time I ever let it out, when I can use it the way it’s used me all my life.

Honestly, I haven’t thought about it much over the last few years, only paying it a moment’s notice when it reared its ugly head in moments of sheer exhaustion. But with Devyn suddenly back in my life, it’s risen a little closer to the surface. It’s on my mind a little more than I’d like it to be.

And damn it, when I start thinking like this, I feel like I should be wearing a freaking maxi pad. I have
got
to get myself in check.

The past is long gone. I can let it define me, destroy me, or strengthen me. And at times, I’ve let it do all three. But it’s time to get stronger.

It’s time to tell Devyn exactly who I am and forgive her. She’ll probably think it’s stupid that I’ve held onto all of it for so long, but what do I care? I don’t care what people think of me anymore. I’m finally confident with who I am.

Aren’t I?

“D!” Sawyer gasps. “Wait up!”

I slow my stride before coming to a stop, bending over and placing my hands on my knees to try to catch my breath.

Sawyer comes to a stop just beside me, and he staggers over to the grass of an empty lot along the road. “What…the hell…are you doing? Trying to…kill me?” He fights to push the words out between breaths.

“Just running,” I wheeze.

“What are you…running from?” He slumps onto the ground, resting his elbows on his knees. His labored breaths are finally getting deeper. “I know you were…joking. Damn, I can tell…I haven’t been running…enough lately.”

I sit in the cool grass next to him. It’s starting to get crunchy from the cooler weather. “I’ve been running a lot more than normal lately,” I admit. It’s the only way I can clear my mind, and with Kyler and Devin in my life, it’s been awfully foggy the last couple of days.

“Where’s your head at?” Sawyer nudges me. He may be trying to sound nonchalant about it, but I can detect the edge of concern in his voice.

I shrug. “Work. Kyler. Just…stuff. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“I know you well enough to know that you’re spazzing out about something. Care to elaborate?”

“Nah,” I say, standing and dusting myself off. “Like I said, I can handle it. It’s nothing to worry about. I’ll let you in on it soon enough, but I just don’t want to get into it right now.” I hold a hand out to Sawyer to help him to his feet. He knows me well enough to know when I don’t want to talk about something, but he always lets me know he’s willing to listen.

“Fair enough. You know where to find me.”

Clapping my hand on his shoulder, I nod. “Now, let’s pound some pavement and get your ass back in shape.” The irony isn’t lost on me. “Shit. I can’t believe I just said that. To
you
. For once in my life, I’m actually in better shape than you are.”

I may be in better shape as far as cardio, but Sawyer still has me beat in size. He’s always been a stocky guy, but he’s gotten even bigger since he got back from Iraq. Lifting weights has been therapeutic for him. Well…that and a lot of counseling. I do weights a few days a week, if my schedule allows it, but I always make time to run, even if it’s just a quick jog during a break. I work hard to keep a lot of muscle definition, but I’ll never have the mass that Sawyer does.

“
You’re
in better shape? Are you sure about that?” Sawyer flexes his pecs, making them jump under his shirt.

“Okay, so your boobs are bigger than mine.” I reach over and feel him up. “Yeah, just as I thought. They’re bigger than Makenna’s, too, and hers feel softer.”

Sawyer swings a heavy fist and connects with my arm. “Ass wipe.”

I laugh at him, taking a few steps back. “Are we gonna run or are we gonna stand here on the side of the road and talk about boobs.”

“I’m certainly not going to stand here and talk to you about my soon-to-be wife’s boobs. Let’s go.”

I start off with an easy jog, so Sawyer doesn’t have a heart attack on me today. “I can’t believe you’re about to get married in less than a month. I remember you telling me back in high school that you’d never get married unless it was Samantha Lowe. Man, you were head over heels.”

“Haven’t heard that name in forever.” Sawyer shudders. “Not sure why I had such a thing for her. She was borderline stalker. But it’s no different than you having the hots for Devyn Rion. She was such a bitch, but you got all dreamy eyed when she’d walk into a room. I never understood it.”

“Me either.” And now I’m kinda dating her sister. “But, damn, she’s gorgeous.”

He snickers. “Well, she
was.
She probably looks like shit now. Nobody can be that terrible of a person and still look like that after all these years. All of that ugly comes to the surface eventually.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

But he’s not.

After our run, we sit down to discuss what he’d prefer to do for the bachelor party. Sawyer isn’t a party guy by any means. He doesn’t do clubs or strippers or anything like that, which is perfect because that isn’t really my scene either. So we come up with a plan to spend the weekend before the wedding at Orange Beach. Just him, Wes, and me. The fishing is great this time of year, and I know a guy who can charter a boat for us. And because I covered for Stan when they went on vacation last month, he’s going to give me the entire week off before the wedding. I’ve never really had a vacation, per se, so I’m pretty pumped about it.

I promise to handle the charter and condo reservation, and Sawyer leaves feeling better about the whole thing. It doesn’t take much to stress him out these days.

And speaking of stress, realizing that I have to meet Devyn and Simon in an hour boosts my stress to a whole new level. But maybe Devyn will be content to just sitting in the waiting room while Simon and I play in the lab. I don’t know how I can concentrate on anything I’m telling Simon if Devyn is in the same room. Or maybe I should invite Kyler along to be there as a buffer. She and Devyn could talk while I’m in the back with Simon.

No, knowing what I do about Kyler, she’ll probably be right up under my nose, so she can tell all of her friends that I invited her into the clinic over the weekend to show her around. Which will probably result in stories floating around about us getting naked on an exam table at some point.

As small as this town is, it wouldn’t take long before my patients hear the lies, and people like Linda Avery will be asking for the weekend tour. No, thanks.

I remember the box of kids’ scrubs I had left over from an event I put together last year. The local children’s home wasn’t fairing too well financially, so I wanted to get them in the press to get some attention. I bought tiny scrubs—which were adorable—and toy doctor kits for all twenty-two of them, and I brought them in for a tour at the hospital. Then, they got wellness checks, their teeth cleaned by a dentist friend of mine, and we even took them over to the salon for haircuts. After a long day of the boring stuff, we rented out the pizza place and let them raid the pizza buffet and let them each spend 100 tokens in the game room.