Sweet Twins For My Brother's Best Friend: An Enemies To Lovers Romance (The Sweet Twins Collection)

Chapter Eight

Christopher

“—I think she’s going to need surgery. She called me and said the physical therapy she’s doing with you is making it worse. I don’t know, is there any chance her form is wrong and she’s irritating it?

“Chris?…“Chris!”

I snap out of a haze of sweaty bewilderment as Tyler shouts my name a foot away from me and I turn to look at him.

The freckles on his face stand out in the sun on the café patio, and it brings me back momentarily to the caramel freckles across Hannah’s jaw line, the ones that distracted me into becoming lost in the question mark curve of her neck.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“Ellen, the patient I referred to you last month, called to say her shoulder still hurts. She says it hurts worse after she has physical therapy. She wants you to write her a referral back to me so her insurance will cover it, I guess.”

He chuckles. “Red tape is the worst.”

“OK, sure, I can do that.” I shift in my seat and straighten my shorts out.”

“What are you staring at, dude? That woman? That’s creepy, bro. I thought you had game.”

Tyler takes a swig of coffee out of the ceramic mug. It’s green with gold swirls across it that eventually meld into the words ‘Make Your Own Destiny.’

It’s cheesy in the worst way, and Tyler says he comes here all the time on the weekends.

So here we are on a Sunday, enjoying our coffee in the corny mugs, and I’m already starting to feel jittery.

I once asked him why he doesn’t work weekends; don’t most doctors work weekends?

He told me that since he’s an orthopedic surgeon, he usually schedules all but the most urgent cases during the week.

I shrug nonchalantly and run my hand over my left pec.

“Doesn’t that woman across the street look a lot like Julie?”

Tyler’s amicable face morphs into one of pity, and I flinch away from the sincerity of it.

I hear the clink of his cup hitting the wrought iron of the table. I feel him shifting, leaning toward me.

I keep my eyes on the woman. She’s too far away to clearly make out her features, but from a distance, she looks just like Julie.

“It’s been five years, man. And you haven’t really had a serious relationship since. We gotta get you off the Julie train.”

I shade my eyes with the hand that isn’t cupping my coffee.

It’s nice of him to say “haven’t really.” The truth would just be “haven’t.”

I don’t need him to sugarcoat it, but I appreciate the gesture.

“I’m not on the Julie train, Tyler,” I tell him, pronouncing ‘Julie’ like my first curse word.

I couldn’t be on the Julie train if I wanted to be. That train left the station with me still holding my luggage.

“I just think that woman across the street looks like her.”

Tyler lowers a heavy hand on my shoulder in a gesture more appropriate for someone who’s just lost a pet hamster.

“Grief will sometimes make you see someone everywhere you look.”

I turn to him with a look that I hope portrays my disgust accurately.

I stand up and throw the rest of the lukewarm drink I’ve been nursing down my throat rather than taste it. I set it down and tuck a five dollar bill under the empty cup.

“Do me a favor, and the next time you want to say some lame shit like that to me again – don’t.”

“You can’t ignore it forever! You’ve gotta deal with it eventually!” he calls after me.

I don’t wait to respond but make my way down the shopping center. The breeze is in my hair, and the sun on my face is a reminder of how lucky I am to live in a place like this.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and see the fine wrinkles sprouting on my forehead, years of sun and very little sunscreen. There are always two ways to look at things.

I walk through the farmer’s market, stopping to admire the particularly large vegetables that farmers have managed to produce. I grab a few onions as big as my hand and multicolored carrots still attached to the stems.

Halfway through, I’m holding the vegetables in the bottom of my shirt like a child collecting acorns. I have to buy a reusable market bag made of cotton mesh just to hold it all.

A younger farmer is standing behind the strangest assortment of mushrooms. They look like the roots of trees and then there’s something that looks like a white carrot, and another that appears to be the leafiest, greenest cabbage I’ve ever seen, with a long stem to go with it.

I’ve only ever seen it uncooked in pictures. “Is this bok choy?” I ask him, pointing eagerly.

“Sure is,” the man says, tucking his hands into an apron he’s wearing.

He’s got an accent that borders on being Appalachian, and his mustache is slightly uneven. He doesn’t seem like he belongs here in the heart of LA, where everyone’s hair is perfect and they try to disguise their accents as soon as they arrive.

“How do I cook it?”

“Stir fry, steam, all the same ways. Just be quick about it or it turns to mush real quick.”

He smiles. “Here, this one’s on me. Practice round. You come back next week and get more if it doesn’t go right.” A twinkle shines in his eye.

“No, no, let me pay you.”

I scramble to find my card in my pocket, but he puts his calloused hand out and lowers my wallet from his eye line. “Nope, not this time.”

“Well. Okay. Thank you.”

Definitely not from around here.

“Where’s are you from? I can’t place your accent,” I ask lamely as I take the head of bok choy that he deems to gift me.

“Oh,” he laughs gaily. “Pennsylvania. My wife got a job out here, so we compromised and now we live out in Mariposa County. I still get to farm my days away and stay away from the hub bub of, well, you know.” He gestures widely as if to gesture to the entire city.

“Oh, I know.” I smile. “Thank you for this.” I lift the bag and nod at him.

“Oh, no worries, you’ll be back for more.”

“I’m sure I will,” I tell him.

He seems happy, happier than most of the people in this city, clawing their way to the top, wishing to be actors or singers or whatever else they think will bring them fame and fortune.

I wonder what his view is like in Mariposa, if they have a few farm animals and if his wife wakes him up with coffee and pancakes.

Swinging the bag and whistling to myself, I pop in my ear buds and turn on a meditative podcast, something to get me through the three-mile run back home. It’s a sunny day, and I know once I’m about two miles in I’ll be wishing I’d just driven to meet Tyler.

Once I’m through the throng of farmer’s market shoppers, I break into a jog to warm up my muscles, but I stop short after only maybe 50 feet when I see an easel in the window of an art store.

The store is small and the windows are stuffed with things I can’t quite make out.

Alongside the easel is a stack of ribbon spools, arranged in rainbow order, and what looks to be a vintage typewriter, though I probably wouldn’t be able to tell a vintage typewriter from a new one.

A compulsion to buy that easel itches at my fingers, and I realize how I must look standing and staring at it without movement. I’m frozen to the spot, considering the way Hannah might react if I bought it for her.

The picture she drew of me was so good that I can’t help but think that she must have even better art, art she’s taken her time on.

I can see her now, paint splashed across her face, a dot on her nose, her tongue peeking out. I shake my head. She’s not an artist in an indie movie, Chris.

She seemed so upset at me the last time I saw her just a week ago.

I haven’t drummed up the courage to make an appointment and I know I need to.

Every time I start to, a sickness balloons in my throat, and I stop. I know at some point I have to. She’s surely looked at all my financial reports by this time.

Maybe buying her a gift would help. Maybe buying her a gift would make it worse. My palms start to sweat with the effort of thought.

Finally, I give up, and I jog away.

About a block down, I pivot on my heel and run back to the store.

I’ll give it to her when this all blows over. Maybe for her birthday. She won’t ever know how long I agonized over it. To her, it’ll just be a birthday present. Easy.

Why am I making this such a big deal?

And then, Tyler’s going to kick my ass, right before he’s out of my head and his image is replaced with the image of Hannah’s scrunched nose over her sweet smile and a blush crawling up from her chest when she opens it.