Past Imperfect (22 page)

“Hi, I’m Jennifer Clark.” She extends her hand and we shake.

“Here’s the paperwork I filled out online.” I hand over my insurance info and the questionnaire regarding my history.

“Thank you. You can go on back. I’ll be right with you. It’s the last door on your right.” I simply nod and head down the hall to her office.

Once inside, I take a seat in the chair by the door. Then I get up and move to the sofa by the window. Then I move back to the chair. Finally, deciding the sofa is where I want to be, I drum my fingers on the wooden armrest. Just when I’m about to bolt, the woman enters, closing the door behind her.

Shit.

“How are things with you today?” she asks, taking the seat across from me.

The question catches me off guard. If things were okay I wouldn’t be sitting in a counselor’s office. I give her a weak smile and simply answer, “Okay.”

The room is quiet as her eyes roam over my questionnaire. I dart my eyes around the room, trying not to look at her expression, wondering if she’s thinking what a nut case I am based on my answers.

“So, Mabry, I see this is the first time you’ve been to see a counselor.”

“Yes.” My answer comes out quick as if she startled me. “Sorry, I’m a little nervous.”

“I can tell. We’ll start off easy.” She gives me a warm smile. “Why have you decided that now is the right time to seek counseling?”

“I have some things in my past that are effecting my present. I constantly push people away and I don’t want to anymore.”

“Why do you think you keep people at a distance?”

“I’m terrified of getting hurt,” I answer in a low voice.

“It’s interesting you use the word
“
terrified.” That’s a pretty intense word, more than scared or afraid,” she points out. “Is that why you’ve not had any long-lasting relationships?”

“I haven’t had any relationships except for my best friend, Sylvie, and even that I hold at a distance.” I feel a pang of guilt when I admit that. Sylvie has been a good friend to me and the fact that I haven’t let her completely in makes me feel ashamed.

“I see on your form, though, that you are in a relationship now. What’s his name?” The look in her eyes is caring.

“Brad.” I can’t help the smile that appears on my face. Just saying his name calms me down.

“Well, obviously, you didn’t push Brad away.”

“I tried to.”

“Why didn’t you succeed?” she asks.

“Brad’s different and I’m different with him. I wasn’t looking for anything serious, I never have, but it was always serious with him. From the moment we met, he made me feel things and I hadn’t felt anything in a long time. I caved in to those feelings and then craved them. At first, I tried to be with him, detach from it, and then go about my life.”

“Compartmentalizing your emotions, without them spilling over into the rest of your life, is a very difficult thing to do, especially for us women. We’re very emotional creatures.”

“I’ve always been able to do it before with other people,” I say.

“Well, you say Brad’s different.” She tosses my words back at me with a smile. “What is it about him that caused you to stop pushing?”

“He makes me truly happy. I’m not talking the superficial “happy,” like when you get a promotion at work or buy a fabulous pair of shoes. True happiness is when you feel contentment and joy deep in your soul, no matter what problems are swirling around outside of you. People underestimate that feeling. It’s such a simple short word, but it holds so much depth and power. When it’s been absent from your life for so long you forget just how precious a gift it really is.”

The rest of the session with Jennifer flew by. We discussed more about Brad and me, as well as my past encounters with men. I was surprised how much easier it got to talk to her once we started. Even though we didn’t touch on the subject of my parents or my self-harm, I feel the weight I’ve been carrying around start to ease up. For the first time since my mom’s death, I feel hopeful about my future. I finally believe it will be possible to have one with Brad.

I rush back to my place excited to let him know he can head on over. I’m in such a good mood I decide to have a little fun. I could tell earlier, when his hand ran up my thigh and by the look in his eyes, that he was wondering if I had a garter on under my dress. I position myself on the sofa, twisting and turning my body in order to get the garter down to the stilettos in the shot. As I type out a short text, I can feel the heat and tingles build just thinking about his sexy smile when he reads it.

Me: Hey sexy beast. I’m waiting 4 u.

Brad: B right there. I love u.

I’m a little surprised and disappointed that he didn’t respond with one of his cheesy or sexy comebacks. Brad was pretty pissed that his brother interrupted us. The dynamic between the two of them is interesting. Being an only child I didn’t know if it was typical sibling rivalry or not. In front of others, the brothers would joke and act like I assume brothers acted, but behind the scenes I had noticed contentious looks pass between them. Brad didn’t talk about his family very much. I knew the issues with his parents. But the only thing he ever told me about Peyton was that they have never been close. I hope things with his brother didn’t get out of hand after I left.

I was standing by the window in the conference room waiting for the meeting to start. As I listened to Matt, another first year-lawyer, tell me about some girl he met last night, I felt a vibration start in my chest and quickly spread through my entire body. Initially I ignored it. Maybe the coffee I was drinking went down the wrong way. Another vibration shot through me a second after the first one subsided. I looked at Matt to see if he noticed anything strange happening to me. Obviously he didn’t, because he continued to mindlessly talk. My eyes swung around the room, coming to an abrupt halt on an azure blue gaze.

Damn.

Things were pulsing and throbbing on me that hadn’t pulsed or throbbed in a long time and I was still glued to the eyes. Finally, I forced myself to take the rest of her in. The view just got better and better. All the parts were there and they were aligned in a spectacular fashion. I had to talk to her before the meeting.

“Good luck with that, Matt,” I said, not hearing anything that had come out of his mouth since she walked in.

I was halfway across the room when I was stopped by a hand attaching itself to my upper arm. “Hey Brad.”

“Hey Mia.”

“You want to grab a couple of seats before the meeting starts?” I’d known Mia for a year. She and I interned together at the firm last summer. She’s been trying to get into my pants ever since our first week. She was beautiful, but like with every other woman, nothing in me stirred enough to want to act on her interest.

“We’re probably going to be sitting for a good while, so I’ll wait until just before it starts.” I took a step toward my azure blue target, but Mia still had a firm grip on my arm.

“So did you hear about Robinson? He got caught cheating on the bar and …”

Her voice disappeared as I watched Peyton saunter up to azure blue with a big grin on his face.

Fuck.

What the hell is he doing? She was my vibration. Heat crawled across my skin as my chest tightened. What was wrong with me? I didn’t even know her name. All I knew was that she was the first female who ever elicited this much of a reaction out of me.

“Sorry, Mia.” I tugged my arm away from her claws. “I need to talk to Peyton before things start up.”

I made it over to azure blue and Peyton in three quick strides. Her eyes shifted from him to me before I reached them.

Slapping Peyton on the back a little harder than probably necessary, I said, “Mornin’, brother.” Azure blue gave me a slight smile.

After recovering from my slight assault, he looked at me annoyed.“Mornin’.”

My eyes were once again glued to hers as I asked Peyton, “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

“Sorry, I was still trying to recover from having the wind knocked out of me. Mabry Darnell, this is my “little” brother, Brad.”

Double entendre, motherfucker.

I flashed her
the smile
before I turned to him. “You might want to get that checked out. I mean, if that little tap knocked the air out you,” I looked back at Mabry, “you might be having trouble with oxygen flow, which causes your appendages to stop working and your stamina to be nonexistent.”

I flashed
the smile
and cocked an eyebrow in her direction
.
She laughed and then the most beautiful smile I had ever seen appeared across her plump lips. I swallowed hard.

“What the fuck are you talking about, Brad? My appendages and stamina are in top-notch condition,” Peyton said in a low voice.

“Mia is looking for you,” I told him as I stayed focused on Mabry.

“Oh really, well, if you’ll excuse me then. Mabry, I’ll catch up with you later,” he announced before walking away.

Mabry and I took each other in for a few more seconds.

“Hi,” I said with a grin.

“Hi,” she said returning my grin.

“I’m Brad.”

She narrowed her eyes at me and a slight giggle left her. “I know.”

“Yeah? How do you know my name?” I stood there, chest all puffed out, feeling pretty cocky that this gorgeous woman who makes every part of my body hum had obviously asked around about me, wanting to know my name.

“Um… your brother just introduced us like five seconds ago,” she said, a little sarcasm seeping into her tone.

Fuuuuck meeee!

Not my smoothest moment.

Over the next month, Mabry and I ended up working a lot of cases together. Our personalities and work styles complemented each other. She challenged me intellectually, pushing me to delve deeper into research, look at things from a different perspective before making decisions. I valued and cared about her opinion of not only my work, but of me. The two of us were in my office working late on the Peterson case. We were sitting on the floor between the sofa and coffee table eating the takeout we had ordered. My sleeves were rolled up to my elbows and her hair was piled up on top of her head. My tie and her shoes were off. Being with her was so natural as if we had been together for years. I’ve asked her out pretty much every day since our first meeting and she’s continuously turned me down, but I was tenacious and didn’t give up easily. Besides, I knew she liked me just as much as I liked her. There was no way the pull and connection between us could be one-sided. She was telling me about law school while she spread the containers of food out in front of us. I could watch her talk all day.

“…I had a 4.0 GPA and since I interned every summer during school, when I told Mr. Dukes I was coming back to Charleston he told me about his college buddy, your dad. He put in a good word for me and here I am.”

“That was the best decision my father has ever made,” I said grabbing a set of chopsticks. I glanced up at her and saw a light pink blush speckle her cheeks. “You’re a great lawyer, Mabry.” She shrugged her shoulders dismissively. Playfully, I poked her with one end of my chopsticks, causing her to look at me. “Hey, I mean it. You’re better than most of the junior associates here.”

“Thank you,” she said, giving me a shy smile.

“Aaaand…?”

Her beautiful eyes looked off to the side as she sucked in her lower lip, then they darted back to me. “Thank you
very much
?”

Shaking my head I said, “You’re supposed to say, ‘Thank you very much, Brad. That means the world coming from someone as brilliant, gorgeous and hot as you are.’”

“Sorry, I need practice. I’m not real good at ass kissing.”

“Well, I’d be more than happy to let you practice on my ass.” I threw a smirk and a wink at her.

A breath caught in her throat as she darted her eyes away again and nervously rummaged through the takeout bag. I loved tipping her off balance. She was so cute that way.

She huffed, blowing her bangs up and off her forehead. “They didn’t include any forks,” she said, slightly annoyed.

Swallowing a piece of my sesame chicken, I said, “Use the chopsticks.”