Chapter 25
Twenty-five
Luc
When I wake up, the house feels wrong. For the three days since my last conversation with Addison, I’ve slept alone. I hate not having her with me. But there’s no direction to go but forward, so I get up and prepare to go into the clinic today.
The clinic won’t be fully mine until the first of the year, but Dr. Hutchinson and I are working more on the transition, as he wants to take most of December off.
I’ve been meeting with most of the patients on my own for a while now, so I’m ready to take over.
But I need to be sure he feels good about it too.
I arrive early, and the building is quiet. I like to go through my schedule and prepare before patients arrive. Mondays usually mean we have a lot of sick visits, and the appointments can actually be double what’s on my schedule. Seems there’s always some nasty virus out there to keep me busy.
I pick up a mug of coffee in the office kitchen and then go find Dr. Hutchinson.
I knock once on his doorframe and step inside.
“Ah, good,” he says, looking up from behind his desk. “You’re in early.” He finishes the note he’s writing and caps his pen. “Close the door.”
I do as he asks and take a seat across from him.
“How was your weekend?” he asks.
“Fine,” I tell him. “I’ve been looking for a place. My uncle will be back in less than a month.”
He nods. “That’ll keep you busy.”
“Yep. I’m hoping to find one of the cottages that are close to here available. It’ll be great to walk to work when it’s not raining or snowing.”
He nods again. “How are we doing on continuation of care?” he asks. “JoAnne Palmer?”
“Her MS is stable. No new lesions. Same protocol.”
“And Dane Corbett?”
“Severe allergies. I think it’s food-related. We eliminated dairy and soy. He’s improving.”
He gives a small nod, that quiet approval he offers when things are handled properly.
It used to steady me. But right now, my life outside of work keeps me permanently unsettled.
I wait for the phone to ring. I watch my email, hoping for an update.
I’ve even been known to drive by Addison’s building on the way home at night, just hoping to get a glimpse of her.
“And Addison Dempsey?”
I keep my expression neutral. “Twenty-eight weeks.”
“I saw the referral to Noelle Carroll.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you move her?”
Move. Not transfer. Not refer. Move.
“Her morning sickness was severe,” I explain. “She needed closer monitoring.”
He sits back in his chair. “You couldn’t provide that here?”
“Of course, I could.”
He waits.
“It felt appropriate,” I add.
“For whom?” he asks.
I look at the edge of his desk instead of at him. “I’m the baby’s father.”
He doesn’t seem to react. No raised brow. No sharp intake of breath. Just a longer pause than usual. Eventually, he sits forward with his brow furrowed. “How is that possible?”
“I met her when I was in town the weekend we inked the deal.”
“And now?” he asks.
“We’re working it out.” Just not the way I’d like.
“Maybe I’m rushing things with this retirement,” he muses.
My head lifts. “There’s no change necessary.”
“No?”
The thought of him staying because of something I complicated feels terrible. But that’s also completely unreasonable. As far as this practice is concerned, Addison Dempsey is not an issue.
“We’re handling it,” I assure him.
“Are you planning to marry her?”
I can feel my eyes widen, but he doesn’t seem judgmental. Just curious. “I’m not sure. Right now, we’re evaluating our options.”
His jaw tightens. “You understand how this looks,” he says. “And it had to be Addison Dempsey?” He sighs and looks out the window. “She’s a patient.”
I feel heat rise up the back of my neck. “I didn’t know that at the time,” I assure him. “And we used protection. We didn’t expect this.”
“Paradise is a small town divided between two families. Your uncle stands on one side, which means you do too. Addison stands on the other.”
I open my mouth. Close it again.
He shakes his head. “Personal relationships don’t remove professional responsibility. They complicate it.”
“I know.”
“Be careful,” he says after a moment. “Good intentions don’t protect you from ending up in a mess.”
I nod. Before I can say anything further, there’s a knock at the door.
“Dr. Hutchinson?”
He looks up.
“Your eight o’clock is in exam one,” the receptionist says.
He rises to go see his patient, and I head down the hallway to prepare for mine.
The rest of the day passes in a blur of patients and charts.
Many of them still prefer Dr. Hutchinson, and if he’s in the office, they’re disappointed when I’m the one who enters the room. Or at least that’s how it feels.
By the end of the day, I’m tired. And I’m stuck with the thought that no amount of being justified in my actions is going to fix the way Addie feels about them. I’m not sure where that leaves me. The path forward seems entirely unclear.
I don’t go straight home. Instead, I stop by Mikey’s. I’ve heard enough people mention it as a great little spot in town, and tonight, I don’t want to be home alone.
But I’m only halfway through my first drink when I realize I’m not particularly thirsty. I’m no longer sure why I came here.
“Rough day?” Ryker asks as he sets his glass down and takes the seat next to me at the bar.
I look up, surprised. “Hey. Yeah, something like that.”
He studies me. “You want to talk, or should I pretend I didn’t notice you staring at your phone like it might argue back?”
I huff a quiet laugh. “I didn’t screw anything up at work.”
“I wasn’t thinking about work,” he says. “I was thinking about Addie.”
Of course, he was. She’s his sister-in-law.
“We’re not together,” I tell him.
He nods once. “I heard. Did you two fight?”
“No. That’s the thing. We didn’t.”
He waits.
“I made a call,” I admit. “I thought it was the right one.”
“And she didn’t agree.”
“It was more that I made the call in the first place.”
Ryker arches an eyebrow. “That’s not the same thing.”
“I know. But she had gone quiet. I couldn’t get her to engage. I just wanted to do something to help…”
“That sounds like Addie.”
I nod. “I thought she needed me to take the lead.”
“Did she ask you to?”
“No.”
He exhales. “Luc, you’re good at solving problems. But the Dempsey family isn’t something you can solve. Trust me.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I do now,” I mumble after a moment.
“You’re not one to bulldoze people,” he says.
“But you do decide what’s best and move forward, sometimes before anyone else can catch up.
In many cases, that’s a good thing, and most people let you do it.
But Addie won’t.” He takes a sip of his beer.
“She’s not fragile,” he adds. “She didn’t walk away because she couldn’t handle it.
She walked away because she didn’t like how it felt for her. ”
“I was trying to protect her.”
“I believe that,” he says. “But you can’t do it without having her on board. She can be difficult to figure out, but she needs to feel trusted.”
I nod.
“If you want her back,” he adds, “it can’t be about proving you were right.”
“I know.”
“Good,” he says. “Because wanting someone isn’t the same as being ready for them. But I’m rooting for you, man,” he adds. “You two could be good together.”
Not long after that, he gets a call he has to take, clinks his beer with mine, and saunters off.
I finish my drink and return to the house.
The lights are off, and I don’t turn them on right away.
I can picture Addison’s apartment and what she might be doing right now with brutal clarity.
I can see where she stood when she looked at me, taking inventory of what I’d just done.
Only now do I understand that she wasn’t weighing my choice.
She was measuring the distance it created.
I sit on the edge of the couch. For the first time, I don’t frame our breakup as something that happened to me.
I see it as something she did for herself, and what rises isn’t anger or fear, but respect.
I may not agree with her choice or with her way of viewing our situation, but I can understand it.
I know why she sees things the way she does.
I lie back and stare at the ceiling. Addie didn’t stop trying with me because she’s weak. She left because she’s strong enough to manage on her own, and I made her feel like that was her only safe option.
I don’t reach for my phone. The urge is there, and I want to tell her all of this. Tell her I finally understand what she wanted from me, and that I’m determined to find a better way to tell her what I need from her, what I want for us and for our child. But I let all of that sit.
Like Ryker said, wanting her isn’t the same as being ready for her, and shifting my perspective isn’t the same as being invited back in. Even now, doing things differently may not fix what I’ve shifted. It may not be enough to bring her back toward me.
Exercising restraint may not seem like proof of growth to her.
It might be just the absence of another mistake.
Maybe she’s not going to be available to me, open to me the way I want her to be, no matter what I do.
But we’re still going to be parents together, so I have to determine what that means for the future and what’s going to be best for our child.