Bedside Manners (The Breakup Doctor Series Book 2) Page 3

  I’d spent most of my life trying to figure out what my passion was, my calling, and I’d finally found it: I could help people. But there were only so many hours in a day—and I still had to leave time for a life of my own, or I’d have nothing to offer anyone else.

  Too bad you can’t give seminars, Ben had said.

  It might be the answer I was looking for—a way to reach more people—to help them without burning myself out. But was that feasible? How could you group-counsel people who were going through something so private, and so particular to them?

  As always when I had something to work out in my mind, there was only one person I wanted to talk it over with.

  “What are you doing up?” Sasha answered when I called.

  “What are you doing up?” I countered. She sounded too perky for me to think I’d woken her.

  And then I froze. Ugh.

  “Oh, God. Did I call you in the middle of...” I couldn’t even say it. “…with Stu...?”

  “Sex, Brook. Sexual intercourse. I have it sometimes with your brother.” I heard Stu’s deeper laugh in the background.

  After a lifetime where we’d all three practically grown up together, I was almost used to my best friend and my brother being a couple. I was. But no matter how close I was to Sasha, regardless of the excruciatingly intimate nature of the conversations we’d had over the years about every tiny nuance of our respective sex lives, with Stu involved I preferred to pretend that they had a close, loving, but platonic relationship.

  At my awkward silence she finally let me off the hook. “But not at the moment. We got sucked into streaming Game of Thrones on Netflix and can’t stop. Why’d you call if you thought I’d be sleeping?”

  “I need to ask you something.” I told her about Ben’s casual suggestion, and how it was percolating in my mind. “So what do you think—can it work? Would anyone want to participate in something like that, or is it too weird to share that kind of suffering in a group?”

  “Well...” Sasha mulled while I took a deep sip of my wine, letting the warmth spread down my throat and into my chest. “That’s what alcoholics do.”

  I choked, the wine burning my esophagus. “What?”

  But she went on as if she had not, in fact, made me begin to reevaluate my drinking habits. “Alcoholics are suffering from a pain that’s really personal. And yet a lot of them find comfort in sharing their experiences with others who’ve had similar ones. Trust me on this one—I know.”

  She did. She’d attended a few meetings in her rabid dating days, because she thought it would be a good way to meet guys. For the bulk of Sasha’s dating life prior to my brother, she’d been a little unstable where dating was concerned. And by “unstable,” I mean borderline psychotic and occasionally criminal.

  “But it’s the same with any support group, right?” Sasha said.

  “That’s true,” I said thoughtfully. “Grief, divorced parents, overeaters, parents of special-needs kids—there are groups for all of that. So maybe not seminars, per se. What if I could offer something like those support groups, but for people who’ve been dumped?”

  Sasha made a loud explosion noise. “Mind? Blown,” she said. “I love it. Cut and print.”

  I laughed. “Well, it’s something to think about.” I heard Stu murmur in the background and realized I’d been monopolizing Sasha. “I’ll let you get back to your death orgy,” I said reluctantly.

  “No spoilers, Brook! Geez!”

  “Sash, everyone knows everybody dies in that show. I’ve never even seen it and I know that.”

  “You suck. Hey, Stu, turn it off—they all die,” Sasha said forlornly, and I giggled.

  “Sorry.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I’ll tell you about my night at an S and M bar, if that makes up for it.”

  “Well, of course it makes up for it,” she said. “Girls only, or can Stuvie hear?”

  This happened a lot lately—it was harder to have one-on-one girl talk with Sasha since she and Stu had gotten together. But I was the one who’d intruded on their night, after all—and I knew Stu would enjoy the story even more than Sasha would. “Put me on speaker,” I said.

  There ensued a good fifteen-minute conversation about my evening, with Sasha making the appropriate interjections of disbelief and incredulity and amusement, and Stu’s contribution being frequent guffaws or snorts in the background. They had always been my best audience. I left out Chip—Stu didn’t know about my winding up in jail with him, and I wanted to keep it that way—but by the end of my story I had them rolling with laughter over my smacking the prone Sticks and Stones patron’s bald white ass.

  “Oh, my God, Brookie!” Sasha sounded delighted. “Aren’t you glad you got out of your boring old practice?”

  If someone had told me six months ago, when I was contentedly ensconced in a nice, safe traditional counseling practice, that this would be the type of day I’d have in my new career as the Breakup Doctor, I probably would have been horrified. But the truth was, I was glad. I loved it. What I was doing now was still helping people, but in a far more proactive, immediate-gratification, hands-on way. Really hands-on, in tonight’s case.

  “Thanks for talking,” I told them. “I hope I didn’t ruin y’all’s evening.”

  “Are you kidding?” Stu called out. “My sister at an S and M bar is way better than medieval politicking.”

  I heard a smack. “She wasn’t there for pleasure, freak. It was work.”

  “That sounds even better. That’s what I’ll tell people.”

  She giggled. “Stu! You can’t say that.”

  “Maybe we should try some of that spanking therapy ourselves.”

  “In your dreams, buddy. Stu...” Sasha’s tone was a warning. “Stu! No!” I heard a scuffle, a roar from Stu, a snort from Sasha, and then a long silence.

  “All right, people, this feels a little voyeuristic.” I sighed. “Conversation over.”

  No one answered me, so I hung up before I heard things a sister should never hear.

  three

  A noise woke me early the next morning and I shot up in bed, still so woozy from my late night that I wasn’t immediately sure where I was, or who I was. I blinked around the room, reorienting myself as my gaze finally fell on the phone lit up and vibrating on my nightstand.

  I reached for it groggily. “H’lo?” I mumbled.

  “Morning, Doc. Hope I didn’t wake you up.”

  The low, gravelly, familiar voice crept across my skin like a porn star crawling across the covers. How had Chip Santana gotten my cell number?

  Oh, right—I’d had our old office number forwarded.

  “Chip,” I said flatly, last night coming back in a rush. “It’s”—I glanced at the clock—“seven thirty a.m. on a Sunday.”

  “Please don’t hang up,” he said quickly. “I want to explain.”

  “I think things were pretty self-explanatory.”

  “No! See...Geez, I knew you’d think that. Please—I just want to apologize.”

  I waited, but no apology was forthcoming. “Okay, Chip,” I said finally. “Goodbye.”

  “Wait! Listen, Doc—Brook,” he said. “I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t me who grabbed you.”

  I gritted my jaw. I’d thought we’d been doing some good work together when he was seeing me at my old practice. And when our building got razed for asbestos and my practice blew up along with it, I’d referred him to another therapist I knew had had great results with anger-management cases. But here he was, same old Chip, always blaming someone else.

  “Chip, I saw you,” I said wearily. “You were right behind me. At the S and M bar.” It was probably slightly hypocritical of me to toss out that last with judgment dripping from my tone.

 
To my surprise, he laughed, a scrape of sound against his throat. “Yeah, I know how that must have looked. That’s part of why I was so pissed off at my buddy for dragging me in there. And then when I saw him grope some lady, and you turned around and I realized it was you, I was so surprised I didn’t know what to do. I just went deer-in-the-headlights. And then you ran out before I could explain.”

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed, staring at the wall while I considered his words. Had there been another guy next to him? Well, of course—there’d been what seemed like hundreds of people crushing in around me and Cameron. Theoretically I suppose it could have been anyone who’d invaded my personal turf so egregiously.

  Was he telling me the truth?

  “I am so sorry, Doc,” he said. “For what it’s worth, I wanted to pound my buddy into the ground, but I kept thinking about you and how you helped me get hold of feelings like that, and I talked myself down.” All the amusement had dropped out of his voice, and he sounded sincere.

  I could at least give him the benefit of the doubt.

  “Okay, Chip. Apology accepted. I appreciate your calling to straighten it out.”

  “I didn’t want you to think...well, what I figured you were probably thinking.” He paused. “I was pretty shocked to see you at a place like that.”

  “For the record,” I added hastily, “I was there with a...a friend too. That’s not somewhere I hang out either.” It felt strange to be talking about this with Chip in bed, scantily clad, and I got up and pulled on a thick terry-cloth robe from my closet.

  “No, no, of course—I figured.”

  “Okay, well, I’m glad we cleared that up. Thanks for—”

  “Hey, I’m not at the bar anymore,” he blurted.

  For a second I thought he was still talking about Sticks and Stones, but then I realized what he was saying. “You mean you’re not bartending at the Floppy Jellyfish?”

  “I left the whole bar business, actually. It seemed like not the best fit for someone with my”—he chuckled—“triggers.”

  I remembered how many fights he’d gotten into at work—with customers, with coworkers, even with managers, until his boss told him he either went into anger-management therapy or he got fired. I felt a twinge of guilt. “You didn’t lose that job because our therapy ended, did you?” I asked as I lumbered into the kitchen to start coffee.

  “No. I took your referral and stayed in treatment. That’s actually part of why I finally quit the bar—I started wanting to do better, you know? And being there...it wasn’t helping my problems.”

  I stopped midway to reaching into the cabinet for coffee filters, leaning against the counter. Self-awareness and personal responsibility were new for Chip. “That’s really great, Chip,” I said sincerely. “I’m happy to hear that.”

  “I work at my dad’s car dealership now—the Toyota one on Cleveland; you know it?”

  “Of course. ‘The vehicle you want at the price you need.’”

  I heard a hitching blown-out breath and pictured Chip laughing through an exhale of smoke. “Yeah, that’s it. Betcha can’t see me selling cars.”

  “That’s true, actually. Are you?”

  “Nope. I’m helping out with paperwork after hours. Ask me why.”

  Despite my reservations, I was smiling now. “Why?”

  “I’m glad you asked.” He chuckled when I laughed, on cue. “I’m in school during the day. Finally finishing my chem degree.”

  This time he really had surprised me. “You are? That’s wonderful! Congratulations.” Part of me was jealous that I hadn’t been the right therapist to help Chip as much as Jim Turner, the man I’d referred him to, clearly had. But mostly I was glad for him. This Chip was a far cry from the raging career bartender whom I’d worried would become a bitter, unhappy burnout.

  “You really helped me, you know,” he said softly. “I know you don’t realize it, but you did a lot for me.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said, pushing off the counter and turning to fill the coffeepot from the filtered pitcher in the fridge. “It was Dr. Turner who—”

  “He was great too—don’t get me wrong. But I’ve been able to tell him so. You I never thanked for it. So I want to now. Thank you, Doc. For believing in me and sticking with me, even when I know you must not have liked me all that much.”

  “Now, that’s not true—” I began automatically.

  “No, you know what I mean. I wasn’t always the easiest guy to get along with.”

  “Well…thanks. It’s really great for a therapist to hear they made a difference.”

  “You did. I’ve changed. A lot.”

  “It sounds like it.”

  “Yeah. And anyway, as part of that, there’s something I...well, that I want to talk to you about.” For the first time he seemed to be at a loss for words. I heard a clinking sound, like a spoon being stirred in a mug, and I wondered if Chip was doing the same thing I was: standing at his kitchen counter in pajamas, having coffee. The image was disconcertingly intimate. “The thing is, Brook...Man. It’s harder to do this than I thought.”

  “Do what?”

  He blew out a long sigh. “I have this thing I really need to talk to you about—you specifically, not my other doc. But not on the phone. Could we meet somewhere?”

  The smell of coffee was starting to bloom into the kitchen as it brewed, echoing the renewed caution that blossomed in me at his words.

  “I really don’t think it’s a good idea to restart therapy after we—”

  “No, no, I don’t mean like an appointment. This is personal. I mean—that came out wrong. I can’t really explain this over the phone, Doc. Could I just buy you a cup of coffee somewhere and we can talk? Just for a few minutes? Your opinion means a lot to me. I can meet pretty much any time you have open.”

  Theoretically I had a slot open to see Chip; I’d had a client cancel for tomorrow afternoon for an unexpected business trip. But was this a good idea?

  I wasn’t agreeing to take him back on as a client, though; he was asking for a one-time meeting. This was simply follow-up with a former patient. The exit session I had for closure with all my terminating patients that Chip and I had never had. I could meet him out somewhere—a neutral public place, rather than having him come to my home office, so it wouldn’t suggest to him that we were resuming our professional relationship.

  “Well...all right,” I said finally. “Do you have class on Mondays?”

  There was a long pause while I heard the scrape of a lighter and a deep inhale before he said, “How’s sometime after, say, one o’clock?”

  “Perfect, actually—I have three o’clock open if that works.”

  We settled on the Hot Pot, a coffee shop midway between the FGCU campus and my house, before saying goodbye.

  Considering last evening, I felt surprisingly good about our conversation. The most rewarding part of being a therapist is seeing someone have that leap of understanding about the issues that brought them to therapy in the first place, the flash of insight that helps them make the changes they’ve been wanting or needing to make. I may not have been directly the cause of Chip’s apparent breakthrough, but according to him I’d helped. And that felt fantastic.

  He’d sounded so eager and proud to tell me of his achievements. I’ve changed. A lot. And it was endearing how nervous he was about asking to meet. There’s something I...well, that I want to talk to you about.

  As his words replayed through my head, I lowered the coffeepot I’d just finished pouring from, my heart thudding.

  Oh, my God. Now that he was a “better man,” had Chip come back to try to date me?

  four

  Chip was waiting in front of the Hot Pot the next day when I arrived, a few minutes late, for our three-o’clock meeting. I greeted him with a cautious sm
ile, trying to get a read on his intentions from his expression, his body language, but all he did was call out, “Hey, Doc!” with a big, open grin, and fell into step with me as we approached the door. To my surprise he reached past me and held it.

  Inside, the place was bustling, as the locally owned coffee, tea, and doughnut shop always was—one reason I’d suggested it. A crowd seemed like a better idea around Chip than somewhere more intimate.

  “Shall we order?” I asked, nodding toward the counter.

  “How about you tell me what you want and let me get it?” he said instead. Interesting. The old Chip wasn’t exactly chivalrous. “There’s a table over by the window,” he went on, “if you want to go hold it for us.”

  I asked for just a coffee and then sat where he’d indicated, checking my emails for a few minutes until he showed up at the table with a mug in one hand and a glass of iced tea in the other. He set them both down before taking the seat across from me.

  “So…things are going really well for you, seems like,” he said, leaning back. “I read your column. Hear you on the radio.”

  “Oh?” I didn’t want to encourage social chitchat that might give him the wrong idea.

  He smiled, sunlight revealing lines beside his eyes I hadn’t noticed before, lighting up his teal irises like a crystal-clear lagoon. “It’s really good to see you again, Doc.”

  “Thanks, Chip,” I said warily. “You too.” In the sense that, with few exceptions, I was always glad to see former patients. And I had to admit it was also good to see him in the sense that Chip Santana was purely good to look at: six-feet-plus of muscle and broad shoulders and edgy sex appeal. “You know I’m not actually a PhD, right?” I clarified. “I’m a licensed mental health counselor.” Saying that used to make me feel inadequate, but not anymore.