Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Brooks
Dr. Walks looks sternly at me, raising one of his bushy eyebrows at the bucket of ice and caffeinated syrup in my hand when I walk through his door. “You can't bribe me, Brooks. You canceled on me, and I won't be distracted from the fact that you're five minutes late today.”
“Two minutes late.” I huff and hand him the coffee. “There was a line at the cafe.”
“I'm sure,” he hums, taking a sip. “The park on the East Side is shaping up.”
I nod. “It is. The playground equipment came a week early. I'm excited about it. Those neighborhoods need a nice place to spend a day.”
“How deep is your list now, Brooks?”
“Straight for the jugular, huh?” I sigh and sit down in my usual place in the armchair by the window.
“Would you prefer more small talk and pleasantries?”
I hate small talk. And pleasantries.
“No.” I sigh again. “I'm just… I don't know. It's fine, though.”
Dr. Walks scribbles something on his notebook and takes another sip. “Do you already know what your next venture will be?”
Stretching my leg out, I tip my head against the back of the chair to examine the scalloped pattern on the ceiling. “There's a kid across the country. He wants to be a boxer or a fighter or something like that. His manager has contacted me several times.”
“Legal or illegal?”
“What? The kid? He's an adult, if that's what you're asking.”
Dr. Walks smiles. “The fighting.”
“Oh, that. I suppose it's legal. I don't have any reason to believe otherwise.”
“Might want to check on that. When will you call this list what it really is?”
“A distraction?”
He takes another long drink while he waits for me to admit the truth.
“Atonement?”
“Yes,” he agrees. “It's both of those things. Sure. But what else?”
I sigh. Heavily. Then I stand up. “Guilt?”
Pacing gives the sudden restless energy crawling through my body a place to go, but Dr. Walks isn't phased by it.
“That, as well. Anything else?”
“You tell me, Doc.”
“It's better if you come to it on your own.”
I cut my eyes to him. “I'm paying you to help me come to it.”
He chuckles. “That's what I'm doing, Brooks. You're almost there.”
The list he's talking about will never end, and I will never make a dent in it.
I was a terrible person ten years ago. I know that.
I don't lie to myself about it. It's a fact, and I won't hide from it.
I did terrible things to horrible people.
Worse than they deserved in some cases. I kind of lost touch with myself and my limits after I let go of—
“Avoidance,” I say sharply when Laz’s name almost escapes.
Dr. Walks nods. “Avoidance.”
“I'm not avoiding anything,” I argue, thoroughly convinced that I believe what I'm saying. “I know my past. I'm just trying to do some good to even out the scales a little. That's all.”
The good doctor blinks at me and takes another sip from his bucket.
I sit back down in the chair, huffing and pulling on my earlobe.
He takes another drink and waits.
“I can do good things without it being about… something it isn't.”
“I would agree with you if that was true, at least in your case.”
I huff again and cross my ankle over my knee. “Is this because I missed an appointment?”
“No. But if you would like to talk about why you missed your last appointment, that's okay with me. We can circle back to this conversation.”
I look out the window with every ounce of my stubborn, childish petulance.
“How was your last rut, Brooks?”
“The same way they always are.”
“Untrue,” he says firmly. “You don't usually miss the appointment; you always schedule for the week after it lets up. Did something happen?”
I pull on my earlobe again and shrug. “I went to a rut house. I only needed one Omega. I remember most of it.”
“Was it a positive experience?”
An Alpha would never ask about my rut cycle. Not like this. Only a Beta would be so neutral about being this intrusive.
“They never are, you know that.” I look back out the window before continuing. “It's just a necessity.”
“Mmhmm.”
I could drag this out further if I wanted to, but I'm beginning to get irritated with him, and with myself, and I'm afraid it's starting to show. I like Dr. Walks. I don't want to start over with a new therapist if I lose my temper and he releases me from his care.
“I have a new rule. Maybe two.”
He nods.
“No brunettes. Only blondes. And I'll only fuck them face-to-face, so I can see...”
“Their faces?”
“Their tits. I need the constant visual reminder that they're female. Soft. Curvy.”
“That they're not—“
“Don't say it,” I rasp.
“Okay,” he says softly. “I won't. But you should.”
I can't. I really can't. Hearing him say it would have been bad enough, but saying it myself? I can't. Even thinking his name, conjuring up his face in my mind, is too painful.
“You're the only one who can heal yourself, Brooks. I can lead you down the path, but your feet have to walk it. I know it hurts, but healing has to. The first step is the hardest.”
I close my eyes.
“Lazarus.”