We both knew it was a lie, but I didn’t call him on it.
He reached for his shirt and jammed an arm inside. “I need to think about what I want to say first, so we should do it next time we’re together.”
He was slipping away, but I didn’t know how to stop it. My voice was as weak as I felt. “All right.”
I was all out of sorts as we both got dressed, and the awkwardness between us only grew more painful as the silence dragged on. Once again, all the questions I wanted to ask clogged my throat and nothing came out.
My heart hammered in my chest when the last of my clothes were back in place and there was nothing left to do but face him. He stared at me expectantly, unsure what to do, but I felt the same.
“I should probably go,” he said.
Say something, a voice in my head screamed at me.
He moved toward the front door and picked up the bag he’d left there.
“Wait.” Finally, I found my voice. “Tell me your name.”
His shoulders rose with a deep breath. “I think we broke enough rules tonight, don’t you?”
Oh, God. My hands tensed into fists, and my voice broke on the word. “Please.”
My plea visibly went through him, piercing through the hurt and reaching beneath. His throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “It’s Travis.”
And then he pulled open the door and walked out without saying another word.
SIXTEEN
The clinic had closed half an hour ago, but Dr. Johnston was still in exam room three with Morpheus and his owner. The black Labrador was going to finish his recovery at home after surgery because everything had gone smoothly, and I suspected the reason this was taking so long was because the doctor was giving Morpheus’s owner some pointed advice.
This was the dog’s third surgery to remove a foreign object from his stomach. Today, it’d been part of a belt, complete with metal grommets, and the doctor had to fish through several feet of intestine to find each one.
Morpheus was a sweet two-year-old, but he was high energy. If he didn’t start getting daily exercise and more attention from his dad, this was going to keep happening, and next time the outcome could be different.
My eyes flicked to the clock on the wall. The team from Grassmere Zoo would be here soon, and the doctor had mentioned she wanted to greet them when they arrived. Hopefully, she was wrapping up and I wouldn’t have to figure out whether to interrupt if our guests showed up early.
Cassidy stood beside me as we worked to finish cleaning up the surgical area. There was still a lot to do after we finished sterilizing tools and wiped everything down, and I was grateful she was interning again during her summer break from Vanderbilt.
“You okay?” she asked.
I slowed as I shut the door to the autoclave and pushed the button for it to start its cycle. “Yeah. Why?”
She shrugged. “I would have thought you’d be excited about tonight, but you seem kind of down.”
She was talking about the care team from the zoo coming in. I was excited, but it’d been a long, grueling day, and it wasn’t over either. Not to mention, what I’d done with E—Travis—my brain corrected, had been stealing my focus every waking minute. Guilt laced around me, making the burn from his kiss linger.
If there was an award for “Most Efficient Fuckup” I was sure I’d be declared the winner. I’d betrayed Clay’s trust, and then hurt Travis by saying that being with him was a mistake.
“I’m just tired,” I lied, which only made my crummy mood worse. She was my best friend, and I was supposed to be able to tell her anything. “Okay, so I’m tired because I couldn’t sleep last night. I screwed up.”
“What?” She stilled and concern flooded her eyes. “What happened?”
“I like Clay,” I admitted.
She looked confused, as if this were common knowledge. “Um, aren’t you sleeping with him?”
“Yeah, but we have that arrangement where we don’t do feelings. It’s just sex and it’s so perfect, because it’s what we both want. You know what happens to me when I have a boyfriend.”
She understood how I lost interest and wasn’t built to go the distance.
“So,” she said slowly, “you like your fuck buddy, and that’s a problem?”
I sighed. “It is, because I like him.”
She nodded, finally getting what I meant. “And that’s breaking the rules.”
Just one of the many rules I’ve broken.
“That’s not even the really big problem. Everything was going great,” my tone was glum, “and then I had to go and fuck it all up.”
Cassidy smoothed her hands down the front of her maroon scrubs. “What’d you do?”
I couldn’t contain it any longer. “I went behind his back and had sex with someone else.”