“And he doesn’t,” she snapped, and I sat up straighter. “So you think long and hard about what you’re going to say to him when you see him. Because you’re going to see him. He’s taking some time to sort through how he feels. God save us, he’s probably doing it so he can be in the right frame of mind to deal withyou. So you give him that time, because you can bet he’s going to be back at work tomorrow. And then you’re going to be stubborn and try to talk to him, so you sit right there and you think, you thinkhardabout what you’re going to say, and what he needs to hear.”
“Cait, I don’t want to talk to you about?—”
“Then don’t,” she said with a glare. “I have a new novel I want to be reading right now anyway, not dealing with not one, but two instances of your romantic melodrama.”
“Youreaddramatic romance novels.”
“Yes, I don’t have to live through them,” she snapped. “And so help you if this becomes a thing. If this becomes a pattern, I swear I will quit after setting your cabin on fire.”
“That’s…extreme.”
“So is your ex-wife showing up to find you making out with the latest addition to your team…along with everyone else here seeing it. So talk to me, or don’t. But you think, Xander, you fucking think, got it?”
I glared at her. “Got it.”
“Good,” she said, snatching her book off her desk, turning her music back up and leaning back in her seat to read.
So…that was apparently my plan for the night.
COLIN
The coffeein the clinic smelled and tasted a little off, but it wasn’t awful. Not as good as the stuff they had at the main building, but I needed more time after having heard the roar of a motorcycle shortly after waking up on my makeshift cot on the floor.
She had stayed the night.
That…well, I suppose I couldn’t exactly act surprised. From the moment I realized who she was, I figured she was here for one reason only. Of course, there wasn’t much I could do about that. Xander was Xander and nothing I said or did was going to change that, or change anything when he had made up his mind.
All I could do was burn a little more of my morning and see what awaited me. I needed to be ready, of course, braced for what could have been. For as much as there was antagonism and anger between them, they’d got married for a reason. Maybe those reasons were still valid, but only time would tell. It was honestly better that I had taken the time to brace for that possibility. I had promised Xander I would not make a whole ordeal out of what we were doing, and that meant not showing the sting if he and Mona were going to work things out.
Still, I’d wasted enough time. I had promised everyone I was just going to be on my own for the night and would be back to business as usual come morning. It was still morning, but I knew my absence at breakfast would have been noticed. Which would just make everyone nervous and worry about me, and that would get them talking and probably looking for me. That counted as making a fuss, so it was time I sucked it up and went about my day.
After changing into the last set of spare clothes, I checked myself in the mirror. I looked like…well, like I’d only managed a handful of hours of broken sleep the night before. There wasn’t much I could do about that though, so I left the clinic, walking toward whatever awaited me.
It felt criminal to walk out into a bright morning that carried the wet earth smell after a dew-heavy dawn. Birds were singing, squirrels chased themselves in branches above a rabbit that watched me curiously. The whole thing felt like a Disney movie; meanwhile, I was bracing myself for heartache.
And wasn’t that the funniest thing? To find out I’d been catching feelings for a man who barely understood his own sexuality and was still going through an ugly divorce. A man I had told to just take things as they came, only to find out I wasn’t taking my own advice. I had fallen for the guy, and it had taken his ex-wife showing up for me to realize it.
“It’s always the last second, isn’t it?” I asked as I opened the back door and stepped through.
The smell of bacon still lingered in the air, and I found a fresh pot of coffee and a few of the team. Carter glanced my way, shooting me a wink and a small smile before throwing a crust at Maverick, who batted it away without looking up from the book he was reading. Reno was sitting on the counter, something he wouldn’t have done if Xander was around. Jake leaned besidehim, grinning widely at something he’d said that was making Reno roll his eyes.
“Morning, Doc,” Jake said brightly. “There’s leftovers in case you’re hungry.”
“A little food would do me some good,” I said as I plucked a couple of cold pieces of bacon off a covered plate. “But decent coffee sounds a lot better right now.”
“Just made a new pot,” Reno said, and I glanced over to see Jake lean close and say something I couldn’t catch. “Shut up.”
Jake snickered, and I watched them, seeing the way Reno’s face colored. When he met my eyes, the pink darkened. When I raised my brow at him, he rolled his eyes and shoved Jake away again. “He thinks he’s funny.”
“I’m kinda funny,” Jake said with a shrug. “I didn’t know you were so easily embarrassed.”
“Do I want to know?” I asked, not of them, but of Maverick and Carter.
Maverick looked up, over at the other two, and shook his head at me. “Not right now. You don’t want to know.”
“Noted and believed,” I said, eyeing the other two suspiciously. “Whatever it is you two are doing, remember I’m the one who still controls the size of the needles you get stuck with, alright?”
Reno glared at Jake, who actually looked nervous, and I wondered if they were talking about me…and Xander. If that was the case, I definitely didn’t want to know, and Jake was going to be on a shit list.