Every Glance (Every Life #3) (15 page)

But, then again, I’ll probably never find out.

Shaking my head, I close my office door and walk down the hallway, silently vowing to put them in the dirty laundry tomorrow.

“Hey, handsome.” A voice calls out from the parking lot, just as I’m locking the front door behind me. I turn around, hoping to see Devyn, but it’s Kyler’s blonde hair that I see blowing in the breeze.

“Hey. How long have you been waiting out here? You should’ve called me.”

She skips up the sidewalk and throws her arms around my neck. “I haven’t been out here too long. I wanted to surprise you. I called for you today, but your nurse said you were with a patient. Then, she told me you weren’t on call tonight, so I thought I’d come by to see if you want to go get some dinner or I can bring something over to your house.”

“Uh, well, I still have to work in the morning, and I haven’t gotten much sleep this week, so I don’t know if I’ll be very good company.”

Take the hint. Take the hint.

“Well, in that case, I’ll bring dinner over,” she practically sings, finally releasing her hold of me. “Just go home and get your shower and relax. I’ll be there in a bit. M’kay?”

Note to self: She doesn’t take hints very well.

“Yeah. I’ll see you there.”

I’m not really happy about it, but I hurry home to shower anyway. Here’s hoping that I can claim extreme exhaustion right after we eat, so she’ll go home. I’m not in any mood to deal with her tonight. I still haven’t resolved my feelings about how she acted at the party, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t have the energy to deal with her babbling and seduction scene tonight. It was cute at first, but once she got a little more comfortable with me, it’s like she went straight from being nervous and timid to bold and downright ballsy. It can be a little off-putting.

Maybe I’m just being cranky and still feeling the sting of Devyn’s rejection. Kyler may act completely normal tonight, and we may have a nice time. I need to give her a chance, at least.

I hear the front door right after I turn the shower on, so as I stick my head under the steamy spray, I’m wondering what she picked up so fast. Must just be a drive-thru burger or something, which is just fine for tonight. I’m so tired that I could skip dinner and go straight to bed.

Leaning against the cool tile with my forearms, right below the showerhead, I rest my forehead on the back of one hand. The pulsating water relaxes my back as it streams from the top of my tense neck to the base of my spine. I’m reaching for the handle to make it hotter when I swear I hear a noise, so I pause with my hand suspended a few inches from the faucet.

When you’re used to living alone, another person in the house makes you notice every little sound, I guess. I bump the handle just a bit, and the water immediately gets just a little cooler than skin-melting temperature, but it feels so damn good that I let out a little groan.

“I bet I can make you moan louder than that.”

I spin around so fast that I nearly slip right out of the shower. Kyler is standing right behind me. Completely naked and coming for me.

“Whoa, whoa…what are you doing in here?” No matter how hard I try to evade her, there’s only so far I can go in the shower.

Her wet palms slide down my chest and she takes another step, pressing her cool breasts against my overheated skin. “Finishing what we started last week. Remember?”

“I do remember, but why don’t we get out of here and slow things down a little.”

She catches her bottom lip between her teeth and shakes her head. Her hands slide around my back, and she drags her nails lightly down my skin. My body is a traitor and reacts immediately, no matter how hard I try to fight it.

“See,” she says, reaching up to pull my head down to whisper in my ear, “you don’t want to slow down either.”

I try to hold everything back, my chest heaving under the strain, but I lose it all when she tugs my head down more to crush her lips against mine. I finally give in. One hand dives into her hair, and the other snakes around her back to pull her even closer.

It feels good to have a soft body pressed against mine and a smooth set of hands roaming and exploring my body. I can keep my eyes closed and just focus on the feeling of it, not who it is. It’s been a couple of months since the last time I got this close with a woman, so even though I really don’t want to go there with Kyler tonight, I’m too wound up to care.

Or at least I thought I was.

All of the sudden, I’m imagining Devyn here with me. The way her skin would taste. The way the gentle fragrance of her hair would fill the room. The way her lips would feel trailing down my neck.

“Stop. Stop.” I call out, grabbing Kyler’s shoulders and putting some distance between us. “I can’t do this right now. I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

Her eyes go wide, and she almost looks as if she’s going to cry. “You seriously don’t want to? We can move to your bedroom if you want.”

I swipe my hand across my eyes to catch a trail of water from the top of my head. “No. I don’t think we should do this right now. Not yet.”

The truth is that all bets were truly off the moment I started imagining her sister in her place, but there’s no way in hell I’d ever tell her that. But, if she doesn’t leave, I may have to consider it. Hey, whatever works to get her the hell out of my shower right now.

“You’re kidding, right? No one has ever turned me down before when I did this.”

Even better. This is her usual routine. Yeah, no thanks.

“Kyler, look, I like you. I really do. And I’ve been known to move things pretty fast with women before, but I just can’t do it right now. We’re just friends, and I barely know you. I don’t know if we’ll ever be more than friends. But I can guarantee you that, if I let this happen tonight, we won’t even be friends anymore. I’m not going to do that to you or myself. My head just isn’t in a good place right now, and I’m not going to take advantage of you and use you for sex. Let’s just get out of here and go eat our food before it gets cold, okay?”

She nods and steps out, drying off quickly before leaving me in peace. I just narrowly avoided complete disaster, and I have a feeling it’ll still come back to haunt me.

I wash off quickly and shut the water off, barely drying myself before stepping into my shorts. I’m tugging my shirt over my head just as I walk into my living room, expecting to see Kyler in the kitchen or on the couch as soon as my head pops through the collar. But she’s nowhere to be seen.

Peeking out the blinds, I check the driveway and realize she’s already gone. I hurt her feelings, I know, but as much as I’d like to spend a night in bed with a gorgeous woman, she’s not the one I have in mind. It wouldn’t be fair of me to do that to her, and it would ruin any chance I’d ever have with Devyn.

Not that I’ll ever have one.

And to make matters even worse, unless she took it with her when she left, Kyler never even picked anything up for dinner. She probably just wanted me to think she was, so she could sneak into the shower with me right after I got in.

I stagger into the kitchen, shaking my head at the utter nonsense of it all, and make myself a turkey sandwich and slice up an apple. I make myself eat every bite and wash it down with two glasses of tap water. Not much of a dinner, but sometimes, that’s as good as it gets.

After I rinse my plate and wipe off the counter, I grab my phone, turn all the lights off, and get into my bed. I set the alarm on my phone for five, so I can go for a run in the morning, and I
just
rest my phone on the nightstand when it chimes, signifying new text coming through.

Kyler:
‘So sorry about the shower thing tonight. It was stupid and I shouldn’t have thrown myself at you like that. I’d love to start over. Wanna go out on a real date this weekend?’

Do I really want to? I appreciate that she’s trying to slow it all down, like I said, but I’m not completely sure if I even want to go down this road with her. The least I can do is to man up and tell her that I don’t think we should date. And I’m not going to do that with a text.

Before I can answer, it chimes again.

Kyler:
‘I have to babysit Simon for a couple of hours tomorrow afternoon until his dad picks him up, so we can go out after that. Around six?’

No way in hell I’m giving up my last night off this week for her. I’d like to come home from work tomorrow and either hang out with Sawyer and Makenna or just stay home and glue myself to the TV. I need a night to turn my brain off.

Me:
‘Can’t tomorrow. Dinner Saturday? I’ll probably have to go into the hospital that afternoon but should be out of there by five. Meet you at Michael’s at six?’

I choose Michael’s because it’s quiet, but there will be enough people around that she won’t make a scene. I hope. I don’t think she’s going to like what I have to say, but it needs to be said. I don’t have the time or the energy for these games with her.

Kyler:
‘Perfect. See u then.’

Boy, I really got myself in deep this time. Leave it to me to start seeing Devyn Rion’s little sister and then working my way into her son’s life. I have to end this relationship—if you can even call it that—with Kyler very gently because I don’t want to screw up what I have with Simon. He needs me. Well, he needs
somebody
outside of the equation to talk to, and I appear to be the only candidate at the moment. If I really piss Kyler off, there’s no telling what she’ll say to Devyn, and I might not get to see Simon again.

The night is a restless one. I spend the entire time in a state of limbo, where I feel completely awake but I know I’m asleep at some points. My mind bounces around from Kyler to work to Simon to Devyn to Sawyer’s wedding to…you get the idea. I detest nights like these when my brain just refuses to shut down.

By the time my alarm goes off, I barely feel as if I’ve had more than a couple hours of sleep, even though I’m sure I slept more than that. But I force myself out of bed anyway, grumbling the entire time I’m getting dressed for my run, but I know I’ll have more energy for the day if I just do it.

I start out a little slow, but I eventually find my stride. I run around the entire neighborhood, checking on the progress of the new home constructions and watching the sun slowly peeking over the horizon. Watching the world wake up is fun for me. The birds start singing, and the ducks start swimming around the edges of the lake. I can even see the fish coming up to the surface, in search of their breakfast. Lights in all the houses turn on, one by one, and the occasional robe-clad person will shuffle out onto their porch in their slippers to get the just-delivered newspaper. I wonder what it would be like to wake up to a family every morning.

Growing up, mornings at my house weren’t anything special. My dad left before I got up, and my mom would be in her study, preparing lesson plans or grading before she left. I had to set my alarm and wake myself up every day. I’d pick my own clothes out and get dressed. I’d make my own breakfast—usually cold cereal or a package of instant oatmeal. And I’d walk down to the bus stop on my own.

My parents were huge proponents of independence. At a young age, I learned to take care of all of my basic needs, even doing my own dishes and laundry. My parents were there at some point in the evenings to check over my homework, and when it was finally up to their standards, they’d usually give me some extra work to do. In high school, I was doing college senior level biology homework, thanks to my mom.

I’m not complaining, though. I did test out of high school early, tested out of all of my freshman-year college courses, and breezed right through the rest of my pre-med degree by taking the maximum load every semester. Most of it was easy because it was stuff I’d been learning my entire life.

But I know that my upbringing was far from normal. I never got to run around with the neighborhood kids in the evenings and catch fireflies. My mom never made a pancake breakfast on Saturday mornings. Dad and I never played catch in the backyard. Hell, I don’t think I ever even owned a baseball or football.

I guess this is why I find my early morning runs so intriguing. Watching all of those families in their morning routine is foreign but comforting in way.

Finally making it back home, I look down at my watch. I ended up jogging six miles in about an hour. I’ve done it faster, but it’s a decent pace for me. Anything more than that, and I’d tire myself out too much.

After stretching the tightness out of my muscles and taking a quick shower, I grab a granola bar and jump in the car. I make it to the clinic exactly an hour before it opens, so I take my time going over today’s schedule and pulling my patient files, so Ella doesn’t have to.

“How long have you been here?” Ella shuffles into the office with her arms full.

I run out into the waiting room to take some of the load before she drops it all. “Almost an hour. Stan still at the hospital?”

“Yeah, he just called,” she says, taking the plastic tubs containing their lunch from my arms and stacking them in the refrigerator. “He’ll be here in about five minutes. Did you do anything fun last night?” She’s trying to act nonchalant about it, but I know she’s the one who told Kyler I wasn’t on call last night.

“Strangest thing happened.” I sit on the edge of Ella’s desk and look down at her. “Kyler showed up here last night, wanting to get dinner. Somehow, she knew that I was off last night.”

Ella just grins.

“Yeah, she told me it was you.”

“Well?” She raises her thin eyebrows. “What did you two do?”

“Long story short, I was too tired to go out, so she wanted to pick dinner up and meet me at my house. She got there just as I was getting in the shower, and next thing I knew, she was in the shower with me.”

Ella smacks her desk with a fist and leans in closer. “Are you serious? She’s good. You have to keep that one. So that must be why you look so tired, huh? She kept you up all night?” She waggles her eyebrows up and down.