Heart Conditions (The Breakup Doctor Series Book 3) Read online

  “I am going to help you, Rae Ann. We’ll do this together.”

  She angled a wary glance at me. “What do you mean?”

  In school and training it had been deeply ingrained in me to keep a certain remove between myself and patients, not to color their thought processes with my own input, and never, ever to get directly involved in their lives.

  But this wasn’t a theoretical scholastic exercise—this was real life. And I didn’t run a typical psychological practice anymore.

  “Go home and put on clothes and do your hair and makeup,” I said to her. “You think you don’t know how to talk to people? Fair enough. We’re going out together tonight, and I’m going to help you learn.”

  I hadn’t heard from Stu since Sasha had told me everything. The last time we’d talked—when he and Dad were out on the boat—he’d sounded troubled. And when my baby brother was upset, it raised a primal protective streak in me that made me want to slay his dragons.

  I didn’t know if there was anything I could say to reassure him right now. But I could try.

  I wasn’t meeting Rae Ann until later this evening, so as soon as my last client of the day left, I texted Stu: Got time for a drink? Mickey Mack’s?

  His reply came almost immediately: Gross. Hell, yeah. See you in 30.

  When we were kids, Mickey Mack’s was someplace he and I loved to go together. As soon as I got my driver’s license I’d drive us to the harbor-front shrimper dive bar anytime we had things to talk about that we didn’t want our parents to overhear, like planning a nighttime sneak-away with our high school friends, or TP’ing the neighbors.

  The place fascinated us then—splintering raw-wood picnic tables, peanut shells all over the floor, a bartender who looked like he might also moonlight as a hit man. Sitting in their battered wooden chairs, we felt dangerous and grown-up, the only kids in a group of rough-looking shrimpers off the boat after a week on the gulf, drinking up their paydays. It was a miracle we never got hurt—or contracted staph. The tumbledown shack couldn’t have passed any health inspections. Case in point: they allowed dogs. That was one reason I’d suggested the place—I knew we could sit with Jake out on the dockside deck. Though I doubted the staff would stand on ceremony if I did bring him inside. Jake had probably had a more recent bath than half the clientele.

  Stu was waiting for me out front when I pulled into the gravel lot, and as soon as he caught sight of Jake bounding out of the car, he dropped to his haunches and threw out his arms.

  “Jakie! The Jakemeister! My main man!” he gushed as Jake practically pulled my arm out of the socket yanking on the leash to greet him.

  “Jesus, Stu, I thought Sasha told you not to get him all riled up.” During the time I’d kept the dog when Ben and I were dating, Sasha and I had discovered to our amusement (and her mild revulsion at their openmouthed kisses) that Stu and Jake shared the love that dare not speak its name.

  “But that was a long time ago, and maybe Stu forgot!” he said, speaking directly to Jake in baby talk. “Maybe Stu missed his best buddy too much to be cool! Didn’t he? Didn’t he?”

  Jake basked in the attention, twisting his giant body this way and that in an apparent effort to become one with his soul mate.

  “Well, you make it harder on Ben when he has to reinforce discipline every time you see the dog,” I muttered.

  Stu’s eyebrows lifted from behind the corona of white fur now engulfing his face.

  “Are you two getting back together?”

  I gave a half shrug. “No. Maybe. I have no idea.”

  Stu gave Jake a final ear flap and then stood, wearing a sympathetic expression. “Sorry, sis,” he said. “I know you care about him.”

  Old Stu would never have picked up on my complicated feelings about Ben. He really was growing up.

  That was the other part of why I’d wanted to meet with him face-to-face—despite Sasha’s assurances, I needed to make sure for myself that Stu was truly ready for marriage and fatherhood.

  “Come on,” I said to my brother. “Let’s get a table.”

  There was no wait service at Mickey Mack’s, so I sat with Jake while Stu went in and ordered for us—I opted for just a bottled beer and a bag of chips, a snack I knew came in a factory-sealed cellophane bag rather than from the Mickey Mack kitchen. It seemed my days of blindly trusting that I wouldn’t get giardia had been left in my childhood. When my brother came back out, he carried two bottles of Heineken—about as micro a brew as could be hoped for at Mickey Mack’s—and a grimy laminated card with a number on it, shoved into a rusty metal stand. He set it all down and slid into the bench across from me.

  For the first time ever with my brother, I put on my therapist’s hat.

  “So…how are things going, Stuvie? How are you?”

  “Not bad,” he said, never looking up from massaging Jake’s head.

  “You know I know, right?” I clarified.

  The slightest wave of pink crept across my brother’s face and he glanced up at me. “Yeah. I figured Sash wouldn’t keep anything from you.”

  I didn’t point out that in fact she had—for days. I simply nodded, reaching across to play with the glass sugar container on the table. It was sticky, the sugar inside clumped and grayish, and I set it back on the weathered wood, wiping my hands on my jeans and grimacing.

  “You feeling okay about everything?” I probed. “I mean…it’s a lot. And it’s fast.”

  “I know it is. But I’m good with it.”

  “Dirty diapers. Spit-up. No more partying…I honestly never thought I’d see the day, bro.”

  “I know. Neither did I.”

  I narrowed my eyes as he fondled the ecstatic dog. “It’s a lot of responsibility—physical, emotional, financial. And it’s hard. And it’s not always satisfying—some studies show that people with kids are significantly less happy overall than people without. And it’s forever. No days off. No end date. No guarantees that your kid will turn out okay. Plus there’s your relationship—a lot of times kids can really throw off the dynamic between two people.”

  “I’m going to be a great dad. Sasha will be an amazing mom. And we’ll just work extra hard to make sure we don’t lose sight of each other.”

  “Well, that’s what a lot of couples think, until the reality hits and—”

  He stopped petting Jake and abruptly turned to face me. “You think I can’t handle this. That I’m going to jump ship.” He sounded bemused more than hurt, but shame plucked at me anyway.

  I shrugged guiltily. “It does fit your usual MO.”

  He stared at me for a moment, and then to my surprise nodded. “Fair enough. But Sasha’s not usual,” he said. “Sasha’s…well…” A smile crept over his face, his eyes taking on an expression I could only call besotted. “She’s Sasha. You know what I mean.”

  I smiled back. I did.

  “If you’d asked me with anyone else if I could see myself getting married, having a kid…I’d have said no way—you know that. No time soon. But this doesn’t even feel like the same thing. It’s like…it’s just the next part of us. It’s just right. And I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I know we’ll screw up and make mistakes. But we’ll hold on ’til we can fix things again. I’m not letting go.”

  My throat ached with tenderness, but Stu cut me off before I could embarrass us both with major waterworks in the middle of the tough shrimpers’ bar.

  “It’s Sasha who’s not sure about all this. About…about me, I think.” His smile melted away.

  “Oh, Stu,” I said. “She loves you. All the way. You have to know that.”

  “Yeah. I do. But I’m not sure she…I don’t know if this is what she wants. If I am.” His face crumpled like plastic in a fire, and I wanted to hug him. But we were Ogdens, and sloppy public displays of a
ffection were not our style.

  So it was rather strange when I found myself walking around the table to sit beside him and wrapped my arms around him, leaning my cheek against his shoulder. Stranger still when I felt Stu’s arm go around my back, and we just sat like that for a few quiet, utterly unprecedented moments, Jake’s nose wedged in between our bodies as though he couldn’t bear to be left out.

  The squeak of the bar’s rickety screen door finally broke the moment, and I looked up to see an overweight, sweaty man carrying an armful of food toward us.

  “I got chips,” he said around the lit cigarette in his lips, flinging a small bag of Doritos to the table without making any comment on our tight clinch. “Fisherman’s special”—Stu had a heaping platter—“and fish sticks.” He laid a second plate beside my chips, and turned to go back inside without asking whether we needed anything else.

  I let go of my brother and scooted a few inches away, staring at the plate in front of me. “I didn’t order the fish sticks.”

  “I didn’t know if Jake had eaten.”

  “Oh. I don’t know if he can have fried—”

  But Stu had already set the plate on the splintering wooden deck, and Jake surged toward it and was inhaling its contents before I even finished the sentence.

  “Whoops,” Stu said mildly. “It seems he can.”

  “Oh, no. Stu!” I chastised futilely.

  “He’ll be fine. Dogs eat cat poop and drink from toilets.” He picked at his fries.

  I couldn’t stand seeing my happy-go-lucky brother so glum. “Stuvie…” I wanted to reassure him, but I wouldn’t lie. “Sasha’s scared right now, but she wants to want this. She’s asked me to help her with that, and I am. We’re going to fix this, okay?”

  The worry in his eyes lightened ever so slightly. “Really?”

  “You two are going to laugh about this someday—you’ll tell your grandkids about it when they come to you for love advice.”

  Obviously my pep talk was working, because Stu started digging into his greasy sandwich with the lumberjack-like delicacy I was used to from him.

  “But I need you to stop treating her like she’s made of china.”

  He paused and glanced up. “What? I’m not—I’m just taking care of her. That’s the man’s job, taking care of his family.” As he thumped his chest with his left hand, a chunk of grouper tumbled from the sandwich in his right to the picnic table. Stu didn’t miss a beat, scooping it back up and shoveling it into his mouth, as I worked not to gag thinking about the pelican poop encrusted into the wood over the years.

  “That is a really lovely sentiment,” I said dryly. “From a caveman. But you’re freaking her out—she doesn’t feel like her anymore. Suddenly she thinks everything has changed between you guys.”

  Stu’s dark eyebrows knotted together. “Everything has changed.”

  I dropped my bag of Doritos back to the table before I’d even slitted the cellophane, and pointed a stern finger at him. “No! That’s what you have to stop showing her. Change is terrifying her—especially one this big. You can’t go from zero to a hundred that fast—let things happen gradually. Organically. Quit pushing her to say yes to your proposal. Don’t talk about becoming parents all the time. Don’t baby her—she knows what she can handle.”

  “I’m trying to be supportive. Let her know I’m totally on board. I thought that’s what I was supposed to do!”

  “Well, in this case it’s the wrong response. Treat her like the same old Sasha. Be irresponsible and childish. Keep her out all night on a work night. Manhandle her like a sex puppet.”

  Stu shook his head. “And you wonder why men don’t understand women.”

  “Right now Sasha needs to feel like she’s still the same person and that you two are still the same couple. That nothing significant has changed.” I reached for the chips and tore the cellophane, pulling out a single triangle and licking off the nacho cheese. “This change has to come gradually for Sasha or she’s going to panic.”

  Understanding was dawning slowly over Stu’s face. “Okay…I see what you’re saying now.”

  Over the crunch of the chip in my mouth I almost missed his next words:

  “It’s like boiling a frog—you just increase the heat so gradually he doesn’t even know he’s being cooked.”

  fourteen

  After I dropped Jake off that evening, a different passenger rode shotgun on the way home: Confusion filled the car as thoroughly on my way from Ben’s as Jake’s fluffy white butt had on the drive there.

  I’d still been chewing uneasily over Stu’s words—it’s like boiling a frog—as I pulled into Ben’s driveway, but my worries lifted as soon as I saw the front porch lights blazing. He was home, and the prospect of spending some time with him instantly cheered me.

  After grabbing us a couple of beers from the fridge, Ben filled Jake’s bowl and we stood chatting easily as we watched the dog Hoover up his kibble. Afterward he asked whether I’d like to join him and Jake for a quick walk. Which of course I did.

  I wasn’t imagining things: The connection between us as we strolled along the quiet residential street he lived on was so strong, so effortless and comfortable and good, how could it not be inevitable that we’d end up back together, once the speed bump of Perfect Pamela had been (kindly and gently, of course) disposed of?

  When we got back twenty minutes later and I finally announced that I had an appointment to get to, I didn’t imagine the disappointment I read on Ben’s face—he didn’t want me to go.

  If I’d been meeting anyone but a client I’d have canceled. But Rae Ann was counting on me, and you didn’t let a brokenhearted person down. After one last swishing of Jake’s fur on his neck and shoulders, I said good night to Ben and let myself out.

  My mind was a jumble as I drove. As cozy as things were getting with me and Ben lately, why hadn’t he said anything yet about what was going on between us?

  Was he still not sure?

  Was he waiting for me to say something?

  What I needed was to hash things out with Sasha, the way we always did together to analyze opaque male behavior. But we wouldn’t have a chance to talk privately, at least until later. First we had a mission to accomplish.

  Since I’d started my new practice, Sasha had been my resident expert in certain areas whenever I needed help with a client I wasn’t fully qualified to offer. These topics included fashion advice, hair and makeup consultations, and the exact legal statutes on stalking, vandalism, and breaking and entering. (We all play to our strengths.) She also happened to be fantastic at the social graces. Rae Ann needed a specific type of intervention—and I knew exactly who could offer it. Sasha was an absolute wizard at talking to men.

  I’d invited her tonight not just for her social-coaching skills, though, but because I well knew the Rule of Three: No man would approach a pair of women for fear of leaving the wingwoman hanging, and a gaggle of them was too intimidating. Walking up to a trio, though, wasn’t as daunting as walking into a pack, and separating one from the herd didn’t leave anyone out in the cold. This also seemed like a fortuitous opportunity to get things with Sasha on an easier, more normal footing, and not focus so exclusively on the pregnancy. Stu’s “boiled frog” comment was still bothering me.

  Chez Claude, downtown on Second, was a place Sasha and I had once spent a lot of time. The closest thing Fort Myers had to a singles bar, it was run by an aging expatriate Frenchman—the place was pronounced with a long O sound, “Clode’s,” and woe to any ugly Americans who pronounced it any other way (though Sasha and I had often sat at the bar, snickeringly referring to it—very, very quietly—as “Chezz Clawed”). The décor was a mix of classic European elegance and modern French pretension, with warm-toned faux-stuccoed walls artfully textured and revealing in places the “brick wall” behind it (whi
ch was actually artfully painted drywall). Red tablecloths dotted the dining area, each table sporting a vase (a “vahz,” as Claude called it) with a single perfect yellow rose, and accordion-heavy music played softly in the background. The menu, on a chalkboard on the wall, was of course in French. The bar area was vast—it took up more than half the space—and on any given weekend it would be packed wall-to-wall with singles on the prowl, as patrons in the adjacent dining area shouted to be heard over the din of their mating calls.

  But on weeknights it was usually a quiet little oasis in the middle of downtown, hopping for happy hour with the denizens of the many law offices in the area, but quickly settling down later in the evening. It was perfect for what I had in mind tonight—giving Rae Ann enough opportunity to talk to men without overwhelming her.

  After introductions, and my explanation to Rae Ann for Sasha’s presence, we settled in at the bar and ordered—sparkling water for Sasha, a glass of wine for me (with an apologetic glance to Sash, but I didn’t want Rae Ann to feel funny about drinking alone), and a bottle of Coors Lite—no mug—for Rae Ann.

  “No,” Sasha said as soon as my client had ordered.

  Rae Ann looked at her, bewildered. “What?”

  “Belay that a moment,” Sasha said to the bartender, who went to help another customer while she turned back to Rae Ann. “Men snap-judge a woman who drinks beer in one of three ways: She’s easy, she’s a ballbuster, or she’s a lesbian.”

  I might have taken some offense to that, but Rae Ann beat me to the punch.

  “That’s crazy!” she protested as the bartender—an exceptionally attractive dark-haired thirty-something with gray-blue bedroom eyes and perfect straight, white teeth—returned with a stem glass and a bottle and began to pour for me.

  “Excuse me,” Sasha said to him. “What’s your name?”

  He gave her a slow grin that would have quickened the pulse of a dead woman. “When Claude’s here it’s Étienne. But otherwise it’s Eddie.”