The Forever Factor by Melissa Brayden

Author:Melissa Brayden [Brayden, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2022-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Now

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the pitter-patter of large raindrops echoed. Bethany was on call that night for the practice. The three of them rotated. She’d already been woken three times that night by the answering service referring patients in need. She’d dutifully called all three and sent two to the emergency room. Sleep. It was quite the obstacle on a night like this one. At four a.m., she’d just abandoned the concept altogether and put on some coffee. Her right hand hurt, a common occurrence, exacerbated when she slept on it, and she had. She turned it over in her left and massaged the muscles, popped some ibuprofen, and did her best to put it out of her mind.

“You okay over there?” Thea asked later that day in the break room. “Not that you’re regularly an overly chatty Muppet, but you’re hyperbolically quiet.”

“I realize that.” She straightened, depositing the coffee creamer back into the cabinet where the office manager demanded it remain. “Damn rain.”

Thea nodded. “And nothing else?”

“I made out with Reid. Not sure how to rationalize that one.”

Thea’s mouth made the shape of a silent oh and she sat, realizing this talk might take more than lingering in the doorframe allowed.

“No, no, no. Nothing dramatic. We had drinks and it opened some doors.”

“Sexy doors. Sexy kissing doors.” Thea’s eyes went wide like she’d stumbled upon her pot of gold.

“Too sexy for their own good. Damn doors.” Bethany shook her head.

“Are you improvising all this?”

“Yep. My life is like a four-year-old telling a story, making it up as they go.”

“But maybe that’s okay. Are you embracing it, or running around like a crazy chicken woman?”

Bethany let her head drop back before raising it again. “Both. Even though I don’t know what that second one means. Am I really going for it again? This big, huge, ridiculous leap? Am I a chicken woman? And if I’m not, I probably need to get in front of what this is now, and not lead either of us down a path I can’t complete.”

Thea squinted. “Haven’t you already tried that?” She touched her chest. “I feel like we’ve tried that and gotten nowhere.”

“Don’t say smart things right now. Play dumb with me. Act like I have a choice.”

Thea stretched. “It wastes time. Let’s cut to the crisis like the chicken women we are. The love of your life is back. That first one is always a doozy, and yours was the dooziest. She’s kissing like an expert these days, looking just as good as back then, and you’re hooked.” She wiggled her shoulders, sinking into her chair for the haul. “Let’s get down to it. Why didn’t it work before?”

Bethany didn’t like remembering the wall tumbling down, which had been juvenile, or the unfortunate events after, which were not. But she had no other choice. “She was an ass. I was a brick wall. The rest was a runaway train.”

Thea squinted as if trying to see through mud. “Sounds simple enough.”

“I can only speak to my part.

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