Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A shley
Just as I suspected he would, Ross gives me the lecture of a lifetime. One for the ages, really. A diatribe he delivers with extra relish because, of course, he's talking to me. Someone he’s used to having more…for lack of a better word, control over.
Lucky for me, I'm not even listening. I tune him out right in the beginning as my thoughts get pulled with magnetic force to the memory of Liam’s incredible, sensational, spellbinding kiss.
It feels mean to think it, but I can't stop the voice in my head that says I’ve been missing out on make-outs like that for far too many years.
Kissing outside of intimacy was never something Ross could get into, which took me a while to accept. I almost forgot how beautiful time spent in a playful, passionate tease could be.
These aren't thoughts I lingered on while we were married, but the marriage is over, and since Liam has so valiantly reintroduced me to the joys of kissing and kissing and kissing, I'm reflecting on them now with a fair amount of relish myself.
"Okay,” Ross says as he removes the polishing burr from his dental drill and sets it on the tray. "Brenda, why don't you get an after picture of Ashley's repair job for her chart.”
Brenda pops up from her chair with the excitement of a teacher’s pet in the classroom. "You got it, Dr. Brynn," she says with cheery adoration and lashes fluttering fast enough to fan her blushing face.
Yeesh. No wonder he has such an inflated ego.
“Thanks, Ross. Err, Dr. Brynn,” I say because I am grateful. He’s a great dentist, and it’s always good to have one you can trust.
I go back to my musings as Brenda gets the after shots Ross requested, but Ross doesn’t leave just yet. Instead, he stands in the walkway and proceeds to lecture me one more time for the road.
“You really need to just listen to me in the first place so you can avoid this type of damage altogether,” he says.
But apparently, that’s still not enough for Brynny boy. “I’ll never understand why some patients don’t seem to…” Blah, blah, blah .
I clench my fist and inwardly will him to shut up, already. Talk about unprofessional; my next patient, who’s just been seated, by the way, is right next door.
When Martin was a toddler, I once warned him about a troublesome scab he kept picking, telling him he’d be left with a giant scar if he didn't stop. Suddenly, he interrupted me mid-sentence with the words, “ doesn't care.’ ”
He was young and still learning proper grammar, but the comment earned a laugh from Lucy and me both.
"Who doesn't care?" Lucy asked, to which Martin jammed a thumb into his chest.
"Me. I doesn't care."
From that point on, the phrase doesn't care lived on in the Brynn home. "Lucy, you better get some sunscreen on before you head out. You’ll get a really bad sunburn if you don’t.” The response would be, rather affectionately while heeding my advice, “doesn’t care.”
I played along, too. “Mom, my window’s not all the way up,” one of them would say from the back seat as we entered the carwash tunnel. “Doesn’t care,” I’d say while, of course, sealing it up tight. Ross never got a laugh out of it the way the kids and I did, but that didn’t stop us from using the now-classic phrase.
A phrase that comes to mind as Ross rambles the same things he already lectured me about while working on my teeth. Just when I think he’s done, his pitch shifts, and his volume rises, and suddenly I let the words fly out of my mouth with a nonchalant dismissal that rivals Martin’s first delivery.
“Doesn't care," I belt.
Ross sucks in air and clears his throat. "I beg your pardon?" He sounds miffed.
Brenda, who’s still adjusting the seat to set me upright, looks at Ross with wide eyes. Amusement pulls at the corner of her lips; I think she likes it when Ross and I are at odds.
"You heard me,” I say, climbing out of the chair and turning to face him. “I already thanked you, so spare me the lecture and send me the bill."
I can barely believe the words coming out of my mouth. It's like I’ve turned into a whole new woman, a woman I like more than the one who bowed down to Ross without a thought.
In the next room, I dip a Q-tip in numbing cream and waltz into Ross’s office. I smear the cream amply over the flip straw of his Stanley mug and wave my hand over it to fan it dry.
As I work on my next patient, I picture Ross getting fresh with Brenda as he sucks from his bulky straw. As he babbles about whatever he thinks will make him look smart, his lips will go tingly and slightly numb.
I love it already.
But by the time I’m done with my patient, guilt gets the best of me. As empowering as it might feel to take some sort of action, I know it’s not the type of action I’m supposed to take.
I race to Ross’s office to clean off the mug and stop short in the doorway at what I see. Brenda is standing there with her overfilled lips around the straw of Ross’s mug.
She looks up at me with wide eyes like she’s busted.
“You guys share the same mug?” I ask, caught between shock and amusement.
Brenda smacks her jumbo-sized lips and pulls a weird, foxlike face, eyes going sharp and accusing. She studies the straw for a bit, tipping it this way and that in the light.
I bite back a laugh.
Her eyes grow wide for a blink as if she’s just seen the light. And soon, she’s lifting her gaze suspiciously back on me.
“Never mind,” I say, and skip merrily back down the hall.
That night, Liam and I go out for the third time since the campout. He meets me halfway between my place and his—a short 15-minute drive for each of us. It's Tuesday, so we practically have the movie theater to ourselves. We hold hands — gosh, I love holding his hand —and even sneak in a few kisses during slow parts of the show.
He takes me to dinner afterward, and once we’re through, we grab gelato and chat while strolling around the park for nearly an hour. When we reluctantly walk back to where I’m parked, Liam kisses me in a way that makes me happy to be alive. We set up another date for Saturday. He’d like to cook for me while Martin and Lucy go to Ross’s and Cam is at his mom’s.
Part of me knows that we’re tiptoeing around something neither of us wants to address—our past—yet even as I think it, a rumble of fear shudders through me. I should be over it by now, I know that, but I can't escape the common element between my issues with Ross and the way everything went wrong between me and Liam.
The smart part of me knows that Liam is nothing like Ross, but the crux of our breakup remains: he thought he knew what was best. That I was too young, too immature, too fill-in-the-blank to see for myself what he could so plainly see.
And while that doesn't keep me from fully enjoying Liam's company, it doesn’t encourage me to broach the unpleasant topic either.
Which leads to another topic I’m avoiding. I haven’t exactly followed through with the say-yes-to-myself list I made. In my defense, I've been busy enjoying the very life I hoped the whole yes-thing would bring me. I'm enjoying my time with the kids more than ever, and they even say they’ve noticed a positive change in me since Liam and I started dating.
This is good, I decide. Healthy, even. It’s probably best to space things out, not try to tackle everything all at once. I said yes to the campout, and it brought me to where I am now. More positive yeses are sure to follow.
I let that thought reign and decide I'll worry about the rest another day.