She doesn’t hold out her hand, just steps aside so I can walk through the door, past her. She smells like hotel shower sex and strawberries and incense and coffee. All of a sudden I am awake and hungry and horny and happy.
She shuts the door behind me. “Did you park in the parking lot here?”
“I did, yeah.”
“Why don’t I validate you now so we don’t forget.”
I pull the parking ticket out of my back pocket and hand it to her. “Validating me already and I haven’t even told you how I feel. You’re already the best therapist I’ve ever had.”
She smiles but doesn’t laugh as she goes to her desk to place stickers on the ticket. She’s leaning forward, and I can see cleavage and a white lace bra under that blouse. If I told her how I feel right at this very moment, I wonder if she would validate it. She’s wearing this delicate little gold necklace that’s so thin you can barely see it, and I don’t know why that’s so fucking sexy, but it really is.
“Do you know my client who just left?” I can tell by the way she asks that she means did Iris recognize you?
“No. She thought I was Aiden Turner. I didn’t want her to feel bad, so I went along with it.”
The most beautiful therapist in the fucking world walks over to give the parking ticket back to me. “I don’t know who Aiden Turner is.”
“He’s an Irish actor who also has dark wavy hair.”
“Didn’t want to make her feel bad, huh?” She grins.
“You judging me as a people pleaser?”
“Not yet. Have a seat.” She gestures toward the sofa, picks up a notebook and pen from her desk, and then sits in a chair across from me. Her shoes are open-toe and her toe nail polish is shiny red and I want to give her a fucking foot massage while singing to her. “Don’t worry. I won’t think you’re just trying to please me if you sit down because I asked you to.” She doesn’t look at me when she says this, but she’s smirking.
You have no idea what I’m willing to do to please you right here and now, Dr. Shepard.
I keep that thought in the old brain box and take a seat on the sofa.
“I’ll have you fill out some forms next time, if we decide to go ahead with these sessions. Is that okay?”
“Yeah. That would please me.”
“Great. So…” She sits back, crosses her legs, clicks her pen, and smiles warmly at me. “How are you doing, Dylan?”
How am I doing?
How do I feel?
What do I want?
How long have I been staring at her, and can she tell that I’m picturing her naked right now?
I need to say the right thing here…
“I’m wondering if I can take you to dinner tonight, Dr. Shepard.”
5
Scarlett
I need to think very carefully about how I respond here…
What do I want to say to him?
I want to say that he’s grown up really good these past three years. I don’t want him to know that I’ve seen every episode of That’s So Wizard! more than once. But I sort of want him to know that I found his performance as Ashton, Shane Miller’s younger brother, very endearing. I could tell he wasn’t a people-pleasing performer like a lot of actors on Disney shows can seem to be. I want him to know I think it’s so sweet that he didn’t want to hurt Iris’s feelings. And I want to tell him that he should never, ever shave because that dark scruff makes his stunning blue eyes pop and I want to feel it against my inner thighs.
I want to tell him that I am starving right now, in more ways than one, and I haven’t had this kind of physical response to anyone since that first time we met.
I want to Eat, Pray, Love all over this guy.
But most of all—I want to continue practicing therapy in the state of California. Which means not losing my license. Which means no dinner date for me.
“Dylan, I do remember meeting you at Erewhon a few years ago. I want you to know that I wasn’t sure if you were the same Dylan Brodie when you emailed me. And while it’s perfectly fine for me to treat you as a patient even though we met in public that one time—it’s not possible for us to have any kind of relationship outside of therapy. But thank you for asking.”
“Got it. Understood.” He takes a deep breath, staring right at me, before continuing. “So if we end this session right now, you’ll go out with me, that’s what you’re saying?”
I try so hard to stifle a giggle, but what’s the point? It would be like stifling a fart in outer space. Better to let a little nervous laughter out now, or it will release and ignite into something a lot more dangerous later. “I’m not dating right now.” Nope. Not specific enough. “And I’m still too old for you.”
“But I am over the age of twenty-five now.”
“Well, I’m thirty-three now, so I’ve adjusted my dating rules accordingly.”
“Surely those rules don’t apply to getting coffee and talking with someone. And then staying at that venue to order food because you get along so well with that person and neither of you wants to leave. And then maybe catching a movie right after because what the hell. And then who knows?”
God dammit, I want that. All of it. I want the who knows and everything leading up to it.
But I have to pick up hamster pellets on the way to getting Noah, help my parents pack to move, and then help my son write a report on the mold that grew on three different kinds of bread, pack a weekend bag for him because he’ll be staying with Adam tomorrow, and then—who knows?! Glass of wine and the first twenty minutes of Uncle Buck, if I’m lucky.
Time to get serious. “Dylan, I really can’t do any of those things with you. Ever. So if you’d like to talk about anything other than the possibility of a date, please go ahead and tell me how I can help you in therapy.”
I watch him process my response. He’s not going to continue bantering with me, and that’s good. It doesn’t look like he feels rejected, and that’s also good. He looks a little disappointed but also like he’s really heard what I’ve said, and that’s excellent.
“Okay.” He takes a deep breath, combs his fingers through his dark wavy hair, and rubs the tops of his thighs.
His hair is so sexy. Clean. Casually styled. His jeans probably cost two hundred dollars, and he looks really good in them. His leather shoes are gorgeous and big. I am only noting these details because it means he probably isn’t depressed if he’s put some effort into getting ready to leave the house today.
“I recently ended another relationship,” he says. “With the woman who played my love interest in a Broadway play that we starred in for two months. Well, the show ran for two months and we started dating when rehearsals started a month earlier. So we were together for three months. I say I ended it, but she was the one who wanted to end it.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
“If I’m being honest, I feel differently about it now than I did up until about ten minutes ago.” He doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t smile. Just looks me in the eye, as if I’m supposed to understand what he means.