Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
ROBBIE
I follow Lissa down the hall toward the elevator, but every step feels like I’m fighting gravity, pushing against a tide. Her hands are wrapped around my arm, and she’s talking—she keeps talking—but her words wash over me without sinking in.
Maybe this is because I’m tired. I only snatched a few minutes’ sleep here and there last night, and even when I slept, part of my brain was always on alert in case Ames woke up.
But it’s also because I can’t stop thinking about Ames.
About the fire.
About him saying—pretty sure, at least—that he’s in love with me.
About how sure and bone-deep certain everything felt last night, and how that certainty eroded with the dawn. Why is it so much harder to be sure in the light?
“—the little lunch place on the corner since the cafeteria salads are probably awful, okay? Robbie? Are you listening? ”
I blink at her. “Yeah. Sure. Cafeteria’s fine.”
“That’s not—” She frowns as we step into the elevator. “You know what, you’re right. Cafeteria it is. You need a meal and then rest , mister.”
I grunt and jab the button for the third floor.
If Ames is in love with me, why’d he tell me to leave? Why’d he want to be with Auden? Why’d it take him nearly dying to tell me how he felt about me?
I back up on the last one almost immediately. I sure as fuck haven’t told him how I’ve been feeling, have I? And if he didn’t tell me… well, maybe it’s for some of the same reasons.
Not the holy-shit-am-I-bi reason, of course. But the holy-shit-am-I-going-to-risk-everything reasons still apply.
The cafeteria’s small but mostly empty at this hour. Lissa points me toward the tables while she goes to order our food. I stare out the wall of windows that overlooks the parking lot, but what I’m seeing in my mind isn’t out there.
Ames’s relief when he saw me this morning.
The way he held my hand and asked if I was okay, like he wasn’t the one who nearly died.
The way I couldn’t keep from running my finger over his biceps this morning, and the way his breath caught when I did.
“Here you go, honeybunch.” Lissa slides a turkey sandwich in front of me. “Eat, please. You look awful.”
I pick up the sandwich and obediently unwrap it, but my stomach’s churning so badly I can’t take a bite.
“I’m so relieved Ames is okay! Do you think I should text him some otter memes? I still don’t understand his fascination—they look like wet rats to me. But you said he likes them.” Lissa opens her salad and a tiny container of dressing.
It’s on the tip of my brain to tell her about winning Ames a silly stuffed otter at a fair when we were kids, about our “otter-truth” joke… but none of it will make sense to her, and I realize, with a rush of weariness, she probably doesn’t actually want to know.
This is the woman I’m marrying.
Shouldn’t she want to know? If she loves me?
Shouldn’t I want to tell her, if I love her?
What the fuck am I doing here?
“You must be relieved too, huh?” Lissa goes on. She spears a piece of lettuce on her fork and dips it in the dressing. “I wish you’d answered my call last night. I would’ve come and gotten you. Then you wouldn’t’ve had to spend the night in a chair.”
I open my mouth to take a bite of sandwich, mostly to push down the hot, ugly… something … that feels like it’s taking over my gut.
“And you didn’t tell me Ames was dating someone!”
“Pretty sure I did,” I murmur.
“Well, you didn’t tell me they’re so cute together. I love that sunflowers are both of their favorite flowers. It’s like… fate.”
The hot, ugly thing morphs and twists, and I set the sandwich down again, unbitten.
Does Lissa know what my favorite flower is?
Ames told Auden he loves sunflowers, but we both know his favorite is red tulips. Vivian plants them all around the Abigail every fall. Hell, I have tulip bulbs planted up and down the walkway in front of my house that’ll be sprouting any day now .
So why didn’t Ames tell him?
“Eat, Robbie,” Lissa chides like I’m five.
I shake my head and rewrap the sandwich. “Not hungry after all.”
She shakes her head. “You were up all night. You need energy?—”
“I know what I fucking need , okay?” It comes out sharper than I intended. “Sorry,” I add quickly. “Sorry. I know you’re trying to help, but I’m not in a good place. That’s why I didn’t call you last night. That’s why I specifically asked you not to come when you texted this morning.”
Lissa presses her lips together. “Excuse me for trying to be a supportive partner,” she says in an injured tone. “What’s going on with you?”
What’s going on is that my best friend almost died.
What’s going on is that I found out he’s in love with me… and I don’t know what to do with that.
What’s going on is that I suddenly can’t look at him without seeing the line of his jaw and the curve of his throat, without wondering what he fucking tastes like, and I feel like someone’s turned on a light I didn’t know was off.
What’s going on is that I’m supposed to be getting married in five months, and I don’t want to talk to my fiancée about any of this because every cell of my body wants to be back upstairs with Ames.
“I’m tired,” I say.
“It’s not tiredness.” She pauses, choosing her words. “You’re upset at me. About our argument. I was upset last night, too, when you left so suddenly. I… I said some things I shouldn’t’ve said because you hurt my feelings.”
It takes me a full five seconds to remember what the fuck she’s talking about—the bar, the band, the discussion with her parents I blew off. It feels like it happened to a different Robbie in a different lifetime.
“Do you even know what last night was like?” The question comes out before I can stop it. “Can you imagine how I felt, having to pull Ames out of that building?”
“Of course. You must’ve been worried?—”
“I didn’t think he was breathing, Lissa. I thought he was dead. I thought…” I shake my head. “Right now, all I want to do is make sure that Ames is okay. Then I need to go to the station and get to work.”
It sounds so good right now. Going to the station. Grounding myself in paperwork and routine. Solving problems I know how to solve.
Just when I think Lissa’s going to be angry about my “priorities,” her face goes soft with sympathy and reminds me why I fell for her in the first place.
“I understand. It’s okay.” She manages a small smile. “But just to say, I think you can leave Ames in Auden’s hands now. That’s probably what he wants, anyway. Auden seems like the caretaking type.”
My heart lurches painfully.
“Wouldn’t it be fun,” she says, smile growing, “if they ended up together long-term, and the four of us could all hang out? I’m getting ahead of myself, I know, but I’m thinking dinner parties, barbecues.
Our kids and Ames and Auden’s kids, growing up as friends.
That’d be a dream come true for you, right? ”
I try to picture it—a barbecue where Ames and Auden are together. With Auden as the father of Ames’s children, Lissa as the mother of mine.
A couple of weeks ago, I naively told Dr. Colburn that was my vision for the future. Now, the idea makes my stomach rebel with such violence, I’m really glad I didn’t touch the sandwich.
I shove away from the table, my chair scraping loudly against the linoleum.
“Robbie?” Lissa’s on her feet too. “What’s wrong?”
Everything . Ames isn’t supposed to be with Auden. He’s supposed to be…
Mine .
The thought hits me like a cartoon anvil falling from the sky, and my ass lands back in my chair with a plop .
He’s not mine in the casual way we’ve always belonged to each other. Not mine as my best friend who’s dating someone else.
He’s mine in a way that explains why I suddenly can’t stop noticing the way his lips look when he licks them. Can’t stop soaking in the sight of his muscular legs and arms, even when he’s in a freaking hospital bed.
Mine in a way that means I should be in that room with him.
Mine in a way that makes panic claw at my chest because I’m with Lissa, and Ames is with Auden, and it’s all wrong?—
“Honey, you’re trembling. Please let me drive you home.” Lissa squats beside my chair and grabs my hands. I feel like I’m looking at her from a long distance away.
“Lissa, I—” I hesitate. “I think we need to talk. I don’t know if I… if we… I don’t think we should get married.”
“What? No!” She looks taken aback, and I can’t blame her. “Robbie, honey, you’ve had an awful night. You’re not in your right mind. It was wrong of me to push you for an apology. To push you about anything . Maybe it was wrong for me to come here at all. You need rest.”
Lissa’s soft and contained and calm. So unlike Ames, who snaps and snarls and snarks… and would die for me in a heartbeat.
I open my mouth to speak again, feeling a crushing weight of guilt on my chest, but Lissa shakes her head. She’s staring at me like I’m breaking into pieces right before her eyes.
And she’s not wrong. It feels like a whole bunch of pieces of me fell away and burned up in the fire last night. All the pieces that hid who I really am and what I really want.
But I also recognize that I’m running on no sleep and pure adrenaline.
I’m not going to change my mind about this. But Lissa deserves to have an actual conversation about it. Not me alternately snapping and stammering at her because I left my heart and all my working brain cells upstairs.
“Okay. I appreciate the lunch,” I say mechanically. “But I should go.”
“Want me to drive you home?”
I shake my head. “Hugh texted that he and James will come by to drop off my truck when I’m ready.”
“Okay.” She hesitates. “Maybe we can talk Sunday? I’m supposed to leave for New York in a couple hours for that shopping trip with my mom, you remember? But it’s only two nights. Or I can postpone! I can come over, and we can hang out. Do… whatever you want.”
“Nah. You should go,” I tell her. “We’ll talk when you get back. ”
Lissa lets out a breath. “Okay.”