The Edge of Reason, page 4
Part of me regrets interfering in that bet because all her perfect faux-innocence was thrown away to the first asshole who came along. Maybe it should have been one of the doctors since it couldn’t be me and because they would have at least made an effort.
Instead, this girl had string after string of horrific one-night stands. Losers who missed how amazing she is and only saw her pretty face and insanely fuckable body as something to take and toss aside after. Losers who took and took and took.
I was helpless. Not the man to claim and restore, but the unfortunate bastard to stand miserably by her side and be the shoulder for her tears. I’m still that guy.
“We’re all a little broken, freckles, but if we didn’t continue to tick and chime, then where would we be?”
“No. There is legit something wrong with me. You can’t be mad at me about my anti-men status. I know your kind is not all bad, but I seem to only pick the bad ones. Present company excluded.”
Right. Because I don’t count as a real man to her. She said so herself.
“I wouldn’t change you either way.”
She doesn’t reply. She doesn’t even emit a sound.
She doesn’t believe me because there is so much about herself she’d change and she can’t comprehend how everyone who looks upon her doesn’t think the same.
Margot has a riotous self-deprecation streak that feeds her perceived inadequacies and poor impulse control like the hungry beasts they are. I’d do anything for this vicious cycle to end.
It seemed to for a bit. When Julien came along, and she was happy. I mean, I was worried that something was up. The dude never took her out nor would he meet her friends. But he left not too long after they got together and she was fine after he left. Sure, she was sad and slightly weepy in a lovesick sort of way, but she didn’t resort back into her usual cycle of self-destruction.
And then the motherfucker had to come back and be married.
I would have killed him where he stood if his wife hadn’t been on his arm and Margot hadn’t looked so wrecked while trying to be brave. Instead, I did the only thing I could think of to hit him where I knew it would hurt an arrogant prick like him most.
I kissed her.
I kissed the hell out of her.
I grin thinking about that, still holding Margot against me as we stare out the window, not quite ready to leave or pull away. What was intended to be a screw you to her ex, quickly turned into a whole lot more.
Margot. This Margot right here in my arms. My Margot. Her taste. Her smell. Her gentle hum of pleasure at the way my mouth took hers. It was sexy and erotic. Sweet and spicy. It was familiar, like coming home, and yet so intoxicatingly forbidden.
It was fucking mind-blowing.
All I knew was that I didn’t want to stop kissing Margot. My dick was very much in agreement. But then my brain finally kicked in and screamed, THIS IS MARGOT! Your best friend. Back the hell up!
Now I just have to stop thinking about it.
Something I never even considered would become a difficulty when the deed happened. One kiss. That’s all it was. How is it even possible that one kiss can change the course of a man’s mind? I’ve kissed dozens of women and left it at that.
But… I’m looking at Margot. I’m thinking about Margot. I’m envisioning Margot. All of which in ways I’ve never done before. She’s become my Pandora’s box. The scary lethal weapon I would happily lick up and drink down like delicious poison intended to kill, as long as she punishes me with blissful death.
You can obviously see where I’ve gone with this. Because as I hold her here in my arms, my mind wanders to uncharted waters with her. I want to tie her up, blindfold her, and smack her pretty ass. I want her begging and submissive beneath me. I want to revel in her sounds of ecstasy at my touch. Jesus, just the idea of her wet for me gives me an instant hard-on, which is why I release her and take a step back.
Because Margot is forever that best friend. The one who cannot handle the concept of sex with me, let alone a relationship. Essentially, I’m fucked.
She’s a walking emotional disaster, and I’m barely hanging on. So…
“Time to go?”
“Time to go.”
We step out of the café, drinks in hand, and the moment we hit the sidewalk, it starts to rain. I’m not talking just any old rain either. I’m talking a freaking downpour, a deluge of water.
“Crap!” Margot shrieks as we make a break for it toward my building, which is only a couple of blocks away, but it doesn’t matter how fast we run because we’re instantly soaked. “My weather app showed no rain for today. It was all bright suns on the hourly.”
“It lied,” I yell back over the harsh sound of water slapping against concrete.
“It did. It’s a goddamn liar, and the rain is not only ruining my clothes and my hair, it’s ruining my milkshake. Screw this.” Margot slows her pace, taking a long pull of her drink as she does. “I’m already a mess. No sense in letting this melt into a puddle too.”
She has a point.
I slow down with her, pointing to an overhang in front of a shop. We rest against the glass of the window, watching the rain shower the city, and sip our drinks. We’re quiet, lost in our own introspection, when Margot wordlessly reaches her drink out to me. I take hers and give her mine in exchange. We do this every time we each hit the half-way point of our drinks–at least the non-alcoholic ones. Maybe it’s an intimate thing, sharing beverages and straws. But it’s just what we do and neither of us thinks too deeply on it.
“Mmm,” she hums, licking the excess chocolate from her lips. “Oreo with the peanut butter and caramel drizzle is freaking brilliant.”
“I know. That might be my new go-to.”
“I was digging the toffee. It went great with the coffee,” she giggles, and I roll my eyes.
“How long were you waiting to say that?”
“Since you ordered it.” I catch her smirking out of the corner of my eye. She’s absolutely drenched. So am I, but my t-shirt isn’t showing off what hers is. Lacy bra with pebbled nipples beneath and a smooth, taut stomach. The pale purple of her blouse is plastered to her like a second skin, and I’m doing absolutely everything in my power to keep my focus on the rain and not her. I take another sip of her too-sweet drink and wait on the impending jolt to my blood sugar instead.
“Figured as much,” I muse. “So what do–” Her phone rings from her purse, but she ignores it. “Not answering that?”
She shakes her head no, my straw still perched in her mouth as she sucks in another pull. “Nope. I just had brunch with the girls, so it’s not them. Which means it’s either work, my family, or Julien. Not interested in speaking to any of them.”
My eyebrows hit my hairline and I shift so my shoulder is leaning into the brick of the building we’re tucked against in order to face her better. “Julien? Why would he be calling you?”
Margot shrugs, not daring to meet my steady gaze. “Because he’s a twatwaffle. He’s called a few times, leaving old-school voicemails instead of texting like everyone else in the modern world does.”
“Awesome. What’s he saying in these archaic voicemails?”
“I don’t appreciate the harsh tone to your voice, Andrew.”
“Margot,” I warn.
She sighs, reaching up to brush her wet hair out of her face before she turns, mimicking my stance. Her eyes reluctantly meet mine. “He says he wants to explain. That he wants me to call him back or meet up with him so he can give me a tell-all because what happened between us is not what I think.”
“You’re not doing it, Margot,” I bark at her before I can stop my reaction.
“Slow your roll there, Doc. I’m not picking up, am I?”
“Nor are you meeting up with him.” She rolls her eyes, taking another sip of the drink. It’s evasive as hell and I know her well enough to know her blow-off tactics. “I mean it. The guy is just pissed because he thinks you’ve moved on with me. I know his type. He’s an, if I can’t have her, no one can, guy.”
She nods in agreement, her gaze skirting mine back toward the street. “I know. I already told you I’m done with men and that especially means Julien.”
I stare into her hard for a few more seconds, trying to read her, worried she’s feeding me lines I want to hear. The resolve behind her eyes tells me she means it though so I let it drop. “What do you want–” I start to ask again just as my phone rings.
Margot snickers. “If that’s Julien, let him know I’m busy sucking your dick and I’ll get back to him after I’ve swallowed.”
I hold in my groan at that mental picture. Pulling it out–my phone, of course–of my pocket, I’m instantly relieved it’s not destroyed by the rain and that naturally, it’s not Julien. But... “Shit,” I hiss under my breath before answering. Margot straightens, facing me fully with a concerned furrow to her brow. Our eyes lock as I say, “Hi, mom.” Margot grins brightly, waving her hand wildly in the air as if she wants me to tell my mother she says hi.
“Andrew,” my mother barks with her thick Southie accent. “I didn’t think I’d catch you.” I hold in my growl of annoyance at that. “Figured you’d be working.”
“Nope. I don’t work again until tomorrow night.”
“Great. Then you can come to the bar for Sunday dinner.”
“Mom, I have plans with Margot.”
It’s not an excuse, not really, I just don’t love driving all the way to South Boston to have dinner with my family. I love my mother and my stepfather, and I love my brothers. I really genuinely do. But even though I’m the eldest and I helped take care of them after my father abandoned us to run off with his mistress, they like to take digs at me for becoming a doctor instead of running the bar or helping out in the auto repair shop my stepfather owns. They view me as entitled and arrogant with a holier-than-thou attitude.
One I make sure I do not have with them.
“Oh, Margot. Wonderful. I haven’t seen her in ages. Bring her along.”
“Mom–”
“You haven’t been to see us in two months, Andrew,” she cuts me off. “Do your old mother a favor and come for dinner. I miss you. And I’m making corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes. Your favorite. I’ll see you both soon.” And then my mother hangs up on me.
I puff out a breath, tucking my phone back into my pocket.
“What’s up? Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, running a hand through my wet hair. “Wanna come with me to Southie for congestive heart failure corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes?”
Margot scoffs like I’m a fool for even questioning her. “Of course, I do. Are you kidding me? My blood pressure is far too normal, and my ankles haven’t swelled in ages.”
She grins looking insanely adorable and pretty all at the same time, and I wonder how long it will take for these thoughts to dissipate.
For our beautiful, happy normal to return to just that.
“I love your family. They’re so much more fun than mine. They drink and swear and curse poor little baby Jesus regularly. But,” she glances down at her sodden body, “I need a shower first.”
“Come with me then. You can shower at my place.”
Five
Margot
* * *
So, don’t judge me, okay? I have a drawer of stuff at Drew’s. It’s not like it’s in his room or anything. It’s in his office. Drew’s place is pretty close to the hospital, and sometimes, I’m just too exhausted to drag my ass to the T and schlep all the way home at insane hours. And, when you work those insane nurses’ hours, the T isn’t always running because this is Boston and our public transportation system is a legit mess.
Plus, I don’t have a car yet. I’ve been saving up.
Drew, on the other hand, has a very nice car, a parking spot to go with it at the hospital, and since our schedules are almost always identical, he lets me crash out at his place or shower there whenever I need.
We trash the last of our milkshakes and run through the rain the few blocks to his building. Marlborough Street is one of the prettiest in this city, in my opinion. It’s quieter than Beacon Street or Commonwealth and has really amazing brownstones and trees lining it. Drew owns the top two floors of one such brownstone. You’re likely asking how can an emergency room physician from Southie who should have a zillion loans afford such amazing digs in a city where real estate comes at a premium?
Interesting story that he’ll never tell you.
Andrew Albright won the lottery when he was in medical school.
No joke! It was one of those five hundred million jackpots that everyone and their ninety-year-old grandmothers enter, and Drew won a little more than twenty-five million dollars of it. After taxes and paying off his mom’s bar and helping out his brothers and paying off his loans, I have no idea how much he has left. We don’t talk money and I seriously don’t care what he has and what he doesn’t. But he bought this amazing condo and I’d bet he still has plenty to spare that he’s invested and rarely spends.
We climb the front steps of his building, and once we’re inside, we climb another set until we reach his front door. He unlocks it, and the second we step in, I shriek, wrapping my arms around my chest.
“It’s freezing in here.” Seriously, my nipples could cut glass they’re so hard. “What is wrong with you? This is bad for the environment.”
“Right,” he says drolly, rolling his eyes at me as he turns up the thermostat on his air conditioner. “Aren’t you the woman who slept here nearly every night last August because it was too hot for you in your air-conditioner-less apartment? Go shower, and I’ll do the same. Can you be ready in thirty?”
“Of course. I take way less time to primp than you do.”
“That’s because you’re naturally prettier than I am,” he calls out as he heads towards the stairs, up to his room.
There are three bedrooms upstairs–why he has this much space as a single man, I have no idea. Those rooms are freaking empty except for his master. As in, they don’t have a stitch of furniture in them.
I asked him about this once, and all he said was that he liked his space and eventually he’d get around to decorating the rooms when he had time. But the office, which moonlights as my room, is on the first floor and the first floor has a full bathroom, so we don’t have to worry about running into each other naked in his massive place.
I shower quickly, grateful for the heat of the water as it washes away the rain. I still haven’t checked my phone to see who called. I can’t make myself do it because if it was Julien, and if he did leave a voicemail, I’ll listen to it.
I always do.
I haven’t picked up his calls and I haven’t called him back, but I still listen. I’m just that sort of masochist. But I meant what I told Drew. I’m done with men and that especially means Julien.
That hasn’t stopped his calls though.
Forty minutes later, I’m wearing my spare pair of jeans and a tee that says, ‘Nurse because my Hogwarts letter never came.’ I even applied a little makeup and blew out my long dark curls into glossy straightness. I wouldn’t have bothered with the hair, especially with the outside humidity, but Drew was taking forever. Stupid overly responsible bastard was responding to work emails on his day off.
We zoom through the city streets in his flashy new-ish Audi SUV. The rain has slowed to a gentle trickle by the time we park behind his mother’s bar. This bar has been in her family forever, as in her grandfather started it when he came over from Ireland, but when Drew’s father ran off on the family when Drew was twelve, she had to mortgage it to make ends meet.
That is until Drew paid it off after he won all that money.
I know Drew gets along with his family only slightly better than I get along with mine. His is on a level of tolerating and mechanically loving because they’re biologically related to him. Mine, with the exception of my brother, hate me because I exist.
Both Drew and I are the eternal black sheep, only for different reasons. Maybe that’s why he and I get each other so well. I don’t know, but in my opinion, his family is a billion times better than mine.
Especially because every time I come here, they all yell, “Margot,” at once. It’s great, they always make me feel as if I’m one of their own. His brothers are a bunch of hoodlums in the best sense of the word. His mother is harsh and no-nonsense, and I dig that about her. His stepfather is very quiet in comparison to the rest, but no less enjoyable to be around.
The bar is your quintessential Boston Irish pub.
It’s dark with black painted walls adorned with Guinness posters, neon shamrocks, and Irish paraphernalia. The lighting is minimal in the form of recessed bulbs and a few sconces over the worn wood bar. The liquor shelves are lined heavily with whiskey, many of them Irish, leaving only a small section for other types of alcohol. Their beers on tap are numerous, but they have two spouts for Guinness. Or mother’s milk as Drew’s brother Aiden calls it.
“You made it,” Drew’s mother, Anna, says as she walks over to greet us. “I wasn’t sure if you would.”
Drew makes some sort of frustrated hiss in the back of his throat but forces a smile. He hugs his mother who is a legit foot and a half shorter than he is, with bright red hair–from a bottle at this point, though likely once natural–and a dour disposition. Every time I’ve seen her has been in this bar in her all-black work attire. She works this bar like a demon on PCP and I respect the hell out of her for it. But she’s hardened and takes a lot of that out on her eldest son who has decided he’d rather be a doctor than run the bar after her.
To say it’s a point of contention is an understatement.
“I told you we would,” is all Drew replies.
“Yes, but it’s not like you come out here all that often. I wouldn’t have been surprised if something else had come up for you. At least you brought my favorite girl.” She gleams at me. I give her a hug, and she pats my face like I’m nine. “Ah, Margot. As pretty as always. When will you wise up and marry my son?”
