Chapter 12 Luca
“Iasked her out…” I confess. And then I quickly add, “And I slept with her.”
Dr. Smith blinks, completely thrown off by the sudden direction the conversation just took, especially considering we were talking about the weather two minutes ago.
“And how does that make you feel?” he asks.
Excited. Angry. Hopeful.
“I don’t know yet,” I admit.
Smith crosses one leg over the other and shifts the notepad in his lap. “Was it something you wanted to do?”
“Yes… No. I don’t know!” I run a hand through my hair, already exhausted. “By the time I realized what I was doing, it was too late. She’d already said yes.”
“I see…” he says, jotting something down on that damn paper. “And what are you planning to do now?”
“I was hoping you’d tell me, Doc.”
“Me?” He laughs, like I just asked a guy in a wheelchair to run a marathon. “I’ve been married for twenty years, Luca. We don’t really ‘date’ anymore.”
I glance around his office—perfectly curated, of course. Across from me sits a small coffee table with two carefully stacked books and a vase of fresh flowers centered just so.
“I acted like a complete asshole with her,” I say, leaning forward, elbows on my knees, nearly drained. “And no matter how bad things ended between us, that’s not who I am. I tried to apologize, but she walked away and…”
“‘Walked away,’” he repeats, thoughtful. “That’s an interesting choice of words. Why that one?”
Why did I have to hire the smartest shrink in all of Miami? I hate how efficient he is.
“I guess… she already walked away once,” I mumble, grabbing the books and the vase and nudging them slightly to the left, just off-center. I like to piss him off sometimes. It’s about power.
Smith’s eyes track the movement instantly.
His jaw tightens, a twitch at the corner of his mouth betraying him.
The silence stretches, heavy, like he’s debating whether to fix it.
Yeah, Doc. I don’t have a notepad like you to mess with your head, but I can still tip your perfect world with a fingertip.
“Can something really ‘walk away’ if it was never there to begin with?”
Oof. That one hurt. My smirk falters. “I guess not.”