6. Ari
SIX
ARI
Iwaved goodbye to my last patient for the morning and decided to leave the west side of the island and return to Main Street where there would surely be a steady stream of patients to see like usual for the rest of the day.
Before I set off, I looked around for any sign of Warren or his car. He wasn’t here, as expected.
Ari
Where were you last night? I never heard you come home.
I typed the message to Warren and pressed send before putting my phone away. I drove off, heading to town, yet I couldn’t kick the bad feeling roiling in my gut. It wasn’t like Warren to go MIA. He was always reliable. Not only as a helper with the medical van, but as a friend too.
He’d always been like that. He’d always been there. Even long before…Evan’s death. But he’d been especially reliable since we’d moved to the island a couple months ago.
I wondered if there was a girl involved. Even so. Him disappearing without a trace was…not normal.
Or I was just going on a downward spiral again like I often did when people ghosted me.
I didn’t know if it was my experience being married to a soldier, or being a doctor, or if it was the Greek in me, but I could only think of bad things when I didn’t hear from someone.
I always thought of the worst-case scenario.
And right now I had about a hundred awful things that could have happened to him running through my head.
It was a cruel, brutal world out there. It wasn’t a stretch to think it could kill someone. It already had taken someone so precious and important from me. I couldn’t stand the thought of it taking another one.
I was so distracted by my concern for my friend that I didn’t even remember driving all the way back to the town center and taking my usual spot.
“Well, that’s not good,” I mumbled and tried Warren’s number again, but it went straight to voicemail. “I’m gonna kill him.”
If he isn’t dead already.
“Who are you going to kill? Make sure there are no witnesses,” someone said behind me, and I snapped around, jumping out of my own skin and clutching at my heart. “Shit. Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
It was none other than the handsome silver fox I hadn’t been able to get out of my mind. When I wasn’t busy being worried about his brother and my best friend.
“It’s okay. I was…away with the fairies, I guess,” I said.
He smiled.
God, why was he so fucking handsome? Even the tiniest hint of a smile made his face light up and made him look even more breathtaking than he was.
“Everything okay?” he asked, his brows lowering over his eyes, and I almost forgot how to breathe.
“Yeah.” I nodded like a bobblehead who had lost control of its bob but remembered myself and snapped the hell out of whatever had taken over me. “Actually, no. It’s Warren. He didn’t come home last night and he’s not answering his phone, so I’m a bit worried. Have you seen him? Or heard from him?”
Wyatt’s frown deepened even more, and he took a step forward. His strong, slightly citrusy scent assaulted my nostrils, and it awakened something primal inside me. Something that had fallen to slumber a long time ago.
He smelled of man. Boy, had I missed the smell—and touch—of a man.
“He’s not answering? Shit,” he grumbled, and it didn’t help my current state.
Wyatt whipped his phone out and started calling Warren too, and I forced myself to put a reasonable distance between us.
I needed it in order to breathe properly.
In order to function. Not that it was possible while Wyatt was around.
Even through my worried state it was impossible not to be affected by him.
Why did this man send me wild in a way no one had since Evan’s death?
He didn’t even look anything like Evan. At least that would explain my hunger for the man, but he was the polar opposite of my husband.
Where Evan had been blond, Wyatt had once been a brunet.
Where Evan had been on the short side, Wyatt was tall.
Evan had been an all-American boy, and Wyatt was more akin to an all-American boy’s dad.
“Pick up your damn phone. Your friend is worried about you!” he shouted on his device, and I snapped out of whatever spell I’d fallen under.
“Did he pick up?” I asked, and Wyatt glanced at me, nodding. “Is he okay?”
Wyatt huffed. “He’s just an ass is all,” he answered and hung up.
Relief washed over me like a hot shower that left me all weak and vulnerable in front of the attractive man.
“Did he say what happened?”
He shrugged. “He’s hungover apparently. Who knows whose bed he stumbled on.”
I chuckled. “Oh well. As long as he’s okay.”
“Are you? Okay, I mean?” he asked, his gaze boring deep into mine, which didn’t help how weak at the knees I felt.
I nodded. “Now that I know he’s safe, yeah. I am.”
“Does he do that a lot?” Wyatt asked.
I shook my head. “No. Never, actually. Which was why I was worried.”
“I don’t blame you with all the crap going on on the island.”
I let out a loud exhale at that. “Gee. That hadn’t even crossed my mind.”
Thank God for that because I would have suffered a heart attack if I’d thought for a second he’d fallen victim to the mayor’s machinations.
"Make sure you give him a good talking-to when he shows his face," Wyatt said, and I chuckled.
"Oh, don't worry. He'll get a Greek lecture that will have his tail between his legs for years to come."
Wyatt laughed. "I'd love to see that. And I'm pretty sure if our parents were alive, they wouldn't want to miss it either. He was always a wild child, Warren was."
I hadn't really witnessed that in my years as his friend, but I tucked the information away for later use—and probably bigger worries next time he pulled this stunt, if ever.
"I'll try and record it. Candid Camera style," I said.
"Oh God. Now that's a blast from the past. And I can't believe you even know what it was. What are you? Twenty-five?"
I gasped and put my arms on my hips.
"Excuse me? I go into all this effort to look my age—thirty-eight, by the way—and you have the cheek to compare me to a twenty-five-year-old?"
He narrowed his eyes in confusion. "It was a compliment. Or meant to be, anyway."
He sounded a little too wounded by my innocent joke, so I rushed to backtrack.
"Nah, I'm kidding. Thank you for the compliment. In all honesty, I hurl at the thought of twenty-five-year-old me. I was so dumb and yet I thought I knew everything."
"Well, you were studying medicine, so no one can blame you."
I shrugged with a chuckle. "I still roll my eyes at past-me."
Wyatt pressed his lips together, and his gaze moved down to my own lips for a moment so fleeting it could have been missed if I wasn't so keen on the guy and his every gesture.
"I dunno. There doesn't seem to be anything about you worthy of eye rolling," he said, a little quieter this time.
My cheeks went hot. Even hotter still when his gaze lingered on mine for a couple moments longer than socially acceptable, and a thought crossed my mind. A thought I hadn't even allowed to marinate in my head for fear of explosion.
Was Wyatt...queer?
Because the way he looked at me was on par with the way I surely looked at him.
As if he was able to read my mind, he took a step back, cleared his throat and scratched the back of his head.
"Th-thanks," I said to cover up the silence that had settled between us. "I'm sure a couple of photos from those years will change your mind."
"Maybe. Maybe." He chuckled and looked away at the passersby.
"What brings you by? Did you need a check-up? You can come on in." I pointed to the door.
Wyatt put his hands up then tucked them in his pockets with a warm smile that I could stare at for days on end. "I was actually on my way to the station," he said.
I snapped out of whatever haze had taken over me and stood a little straighter—and more professionally. "Is there an update? What's going on with that? If you don't mind me asking, that is."
He took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. "No. No update. They wanted to question me further." He mumbled the last part as if he was embarrassed.
As if he thought saying so would make me believe he'd done the crime they were accusing him of.
"I'm sure they're just fishing. Where is your lawyer? Don't go anywhere near that place without her."
Wyatt pursed his lips and nodded. "She's meeting me there."
He lowered his gaze for a second, then when he noticed movement, he looked at the line that had started to form outside the van.
"I shouldn't be keeping you," he said and took another step back, making my whole body seize at the thought of leaving him when he was feeling so vulnerable.
"How are you feeling? Do you need..." I started, and he stopped to look back at me, "someone to talk to? What you're going through can't be easy."
His lips parted ever so slightly as he considered my offer then closed with a determined clench and a huff.
"Thank you, but I'm okay. You've got people that genuinely need your help." He pointed at my patients. "You're doing a great thing for Mayberry Holm. These people really need you and what you're offering."
What about him? Did he need me too?
"I'm here if you change your mind. I might work with needles but I'm a great listener too."
He offered me a trace of a smile, one that didn't quite reach his stoic gaze, and backed away with a single, firm wave.
"I'm sure you are," he said and left me all alone to tend to the people in need of my help, yet the only one I wanted to help in that moment was the man with the haunted smile and bright blue eyes.
"Shit. So sorry, Ari," I heard Warren behind me, and I shook my head.
What was I doing thinking this way? I was a married man, for crying out loud.
A widower, sure, but…that hadn’t mattered all these years.
Why would that technicality matter now? I was a devoted man.
Besides, Wyatt was Warren's brother, and the last thing I needed was to do something irrational and so unlike me and fuck our friendship. Or fuck up their relationship.
Every which way I looked at it, it would be a disaster.
I bit my lip, tucking away every sinful thought of Wyatt with rage. Rage that pulsed inside me. And with said rage, I turned to face my best friend, forgetting his brother, if only for a moment.