In five minutes, she’d be safely outside in the frigid air. Anything was better than the hospital at that moment. She’d finish her chart notes at home. Luckily, she didn’t have appointments that day. Love pulled her bag out of the locker and dropped her phone and files inside.
She didn’t stop stuffing her bag when she heard the door open and close behind her. Instinctively, she knew it was Drake. “Go away.”
“Love, we have to talk.”
She groaned when a traitorous tear escaped. “No, we don’t. I’m done talking today. I’m going home. Alone.”
“You can’t just run away.”
She turned around, glared at him. “Why not? I need some distance between us right now.”
Because she couldn’t tell him that the way he was willing to go up against her father, his boss, for her made her swoon inside. She slung her bag over her shoulder and headed toward the door.
“Wait,” he called.
When he caught up to her, she turned to him. “Just let me go, Drake. I have to go.”
“Why are you flipping out on me? What did I do?”
“You didn’t do anything, Drake. I’m irritated. And you know I hate to feel this way.”
“We’re in this together.”
She peered up at the ceiling. Last week, her life had been boring but she loved it. Today, her life was anything but boring and she was unraveling at a rapid pace. “I can’t do this right now.”
“Stop being emotional. I need you to talk to me, like you’re Love and I’m Drake.”
“Drake, please. I’m tired, and you’re damn right. I’m emotional.” As she talked, a different type of energy took over. Anger. “We are married. When I envisioned holy matrimony, I pictured a white dress, fresh flowers, soft music, my friends and family surrounding me, and my father walking me down the aisle. I wanted to remember the most important vows I’ll ever make and look back with fondness at my wedding pictures on my silver anniversary.”
It seemed odd to others, but after Derrick broke up with her, she’d wanted to abstain from sex until she found the man she was going to marry. She’d promised herself that the next time she made love to anyone, it would be her husband. Her goal was to replace bad sex memories with good ones, lasting ones.
“Not only did that not happen, my father basically said he didn’t give a damn that the guy he wants for me is the asshole of the century. My mother is running around planning wedding receptions.” She ticked off the reasons on her fingers. “And my best friend, my husband, is acting like we’re going to just get over the fact that we had sex and got married on a whim. As much as I’d like to believe that this will be a story we share with our real spouses someday in a fit of laughter, it’s unrealistic.”
“Love—”
“No, Drake. There is nothing you can say to make this better right now. Please back off. I want to be alone.”
“Okay,” he said simply.
That one word infuriated her even more. Pivoting on her heels, she stalked off and slammed the door behind her.
Twenty minutes later, she was in her home, climbing into bed. Closing her eyes, she took in the fresh linen smell. Her emotions were playing mean tricks on her and she couldn’t take it.
She had no idea what she was going to do. Drake had been her best friend forever. There was little they didn’t know about each other. But his presence was making it worse, with his kind eyes, and the way he cared about her. It was distracting, and she needed to get a grip.
Her father had hurt her. She’d purposefully withheld the real reason she’d broken up with Derrick. Instead, she’d chosen to downplay it as two people who’d grown apart and couldn’t take the weight of a long-distance relationship.
In reality, long distance suited her just fine. It was the infidelity that had made her blood boil. And the lies had sealed his fate. But instead of taking it like a man, he’d chosen to end it first with a short, harsh text message.
To have her father simply shrug it off like it didn’t matter devastated her. It shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did.
Her parents’ divorce had been absolutely the worst period of her life. Drake had spent countless nights holding her as she cried herself to sleep. Her father had moved to Michigan during her freshman year of high school, the same day her boyfriend had dumped her for not putting out. Drake had stolen a fifth of tequila from his father’s stash and shown up at her house to keep her company.
Smiling, she recalled her first foray into the world of tequila. They’d spent hours talking about nothing and taking shots, before she’d hurled on his brand-new sneakers. There would be many more nights of them being there for each other. When Drake received word that his mother had died, she’d been the only one who could console him.