Yours Cruelly (Paper Cuts #2), page 10
“All right. Let’s get you something for the pain in the meantime,” I say. “Any known allergies?”
“Just eggs,” his mother finally speaks.
“Ah, good. Fortunately there are no eggs in our pain meds or anesthesia,” I offer a lighthearted wink that goes unappreciated.
As I leave, I think more about the time I had to go through that horror. My parents had never left me alone before, but they’d decided I would be fine for a couple weeks with the Huttons watching over me. I was basically their bonus kid anyway.
And at first, everything had been fine.
More than fine—I was in heaven.
I got to live under the same roof as Stassi, tormenting her first thing every morning and last thing every night.
Not to mention, Mr. and Mrs. Hutton were the parents I’d always wanted—they let their kids do things for fun, not just with the aim of getting into a good college. They were relaxed, silly, and actually had lively conversation around the dinner table. Played cheesy board games, for crying out loud.
My parents moved around the house as if they were two planets in totally different orbits. If they ever accidentally went into each other’s orbit? Major explosion. And they were known to overreact—any little mistake I made became a major calamity whenever they heard about it. So more often than not, when I was in my own house, I was creeping around it, on eggshells.
But Mrs. Hutton had taken my little medical emergency in stride, putting me at ease with comforting words as she rubbed circles along my back, and Mr. Hutton cracked jokes as he drove me to the ER. Afterwards, they’d all sat around my hospital bed, just … being with me.
And they never left my side.
Even though I grew up with every privilege a kid could ever dream of, the Huttons made me feel more like a part of the family than my parents ever did.
I suppose I wasn’t very brotherly to Stassi, though.
Not then, and especially not now.
But she hasn’t been very kind to me, either. I haven’t seen her since she ditched me at Ted’s. She deleted the app, so I don’t have any way of getting in touch with her, unless I want to slip a note under her door or send her a Morse code message, knocking on the paper-thin wall that separates us. Not that it’ll do any good. Something tells me that as long as I live right next to her, she’s going to keep on finding ways to avoid me.
I’m not proud of myself, but last night, while home alone, I put my ear to the wall and listened. I knew that she was home and that her roommate was out because I saw them leave. I just wanted to know what Stassi was up to.
Which I think brings me one step closer to being a stalker.
After a minute of faintly listening to some angsty, acoustic playlist she was playing, I creeped myself out and stopped.
I’m a doctor, damn it.
People respect me.
I don’t stalk beautiful women who hate me—I save lives.
By the time lunch rolls around, I head to the locker room to grab my coat so I can get something other than cafeteria gruel. On my way, I pray I don’t run into Cherry. After last night’s shift, she all but tried to put her hand down my pants.
Ordinarily, I’d have been all over that.
Now the idea of being with anyone other than Stassi repulses me.
Maybe if I’d have specialized in psychiatrics, I’d understand all of this shit better, but alas, that was never my calling.
The second I slam my locker shut, I happen to catch Kendra, curled up in the corner, mindlessly munching on green apple slices while her nose is buried in a book—some bodice-ripper with a buxom blonde and a barely-clothed Fabio-looking guy on the cover.
“Good book?” I ask, remembering Stassi and her little reading challenge. She was always such a nerd, but damn if seeing a pretty girl reading isn’t my biggest turn on. My horny teenaged self would have all sorts of fantasies of us getting it on in the library. The computer lab. Doing experiments in the bio lab. I never knew anyone could make reading so fucking hot.
“Eh.” Kendra pops another apple slice in her mouth. “It helps to pass the time.”
I wonder if Stassi has finished Charlotte’s Web yet. Probably. And then she’ll move on to …
Huh. It dawns on me, what I need to do.
Instead of going out to the sub shop, I make my way to the parking garage. The shops of downtown Portland are pretty removed from the Maine Medical Center, so I have to park in the garage by the public market and walk a few blocks to the nearest book shop, A Likely Story. This indie shop is small and so crowded with books that I have to crab-walk sideways down the aisles in order to fit. It doesn’t bother carrying the latest books from the hottest bestsellers—it’s mostly classics and used books. I go to the P section and search out Pasternak.
Nothing. No Doctor Zhivago.
I meander to the counter. I’m the only person in the store, and the older gentleman sitting behind the desk, who must own the place, is reading a copy of Dante’s Inferno.
“What can I do you for?” he asks, licking his finger before turning to a new page.
“You don’t have Doctor Zhivago by chance, do you?”
He frowns. “Believe it or not, I don’t have every book ever written in this shoebox-sized store. Crazy, right?”
I’m fluent in sarcasm, but I’m short on time.
“Okay.” I force a smile. Twenty minutes ago, I could’ve given two shits about Pasternak. But now, much like the woman haunting my every thought, it’s become my mission. I’ll secure that damn book or die trying. “Do you know where the next nearest bookstore is that might have it?”
“Nope.” He flicks to another page.
“That’s great. Really helpful.”
I start to back away when he says, “I can order it. Have it shipped to you.”
I’ll have to forgo the instant gratification, but it’s an option.
“Yeah, sure. Let’s do that.” I reach for my wallet as he chicken-pecks at the keyboard of an old laptop.
The machine is thick, with a loud fan, and probably older than I am.
The man exhales, staring over his reading glasses at the results. “Paperback? Hardcover?”
“Hardcover.” I decide Stassi is the type to keep books once she’s read them. “Thanks.”
As I pull out my card to pay, he turns the computer screen toward me. “Take your pick.”
There are a number of hardcover editions. Most are under twenty bucks, but I scan down to the bottom one, which is, for some reason, $327.
It’s signed. First edition.
Stassi’s a book nerd. She’d probably get off on it. I point. “That’s the one.”
He looks over at it, impressed. “All right. Address?”
“201 Main Street, Apartment C, Sapphire Shores.”
After about a half hour, he finally gets that in. “Looks like it’ll arrive on the 2nd.”
“The 2nd?” That’s two weeks away. “Can you get it to me faster?”
He fixes me with a look. “You’re really desperate, aren’t you?”
“It’s a gift for a friend.” Not that I owe him an explanation.
“I can get it here in two days if you pay rush shipping,” he says as he adjusts his glasses, “but if you ask me, that book’s overrated.”
So I’ve heard. “Rush shipping is fine.”
“Okay, your dime.” He takes my credit card.
$327 plus twenty dollars shipping later, I have another excuse to talk to her, even if only to prove that while Doctor Zhivago might be overrated, this doctor isn’t.
13
Stassi
“You look like a hermit crab.” Mad plops down on the sofa next to me.
I’m sitting in the cocoon of my giant wearable velour blanket, trying to read my book and enjoy my freshly poured Diet Coke before the ice melts and waters it down. “Your point?”
“Don’t have one. Just making an observation,” she says with a shrug. “Also, you’ve worn that same outfit every day for a week.” She lifts her palms. “Just another observation.”
“I’m surprised you have time to notice all of that between you and Joe the Sex Machine going at it like rabbits …” My wearable blanket is the greatest thing ever. And the pajamas under it are triple-thick fleece. My slippers make my feet look like little pancakes. “Anyway, I’m not a crab. I’m adorable. Like a walking teddy bear.”
“If you say so.” She grabs the TV remote and turns on one of her favorite crappy reality dating shows. I try to ignore it, but eventually the hot couples looking for love grab my attention. Especially when they start making out with each other at random.
I squint at the screen as a couple streak across the screen in the dark, naked, jumping into a hot tub. “What is this?”
Her eyes are so glued to the screen that at first, I don’t think she heard me. Then she mumbles, “Match-a-Rama.”
“What’s the hook of this one?” Not that it matters. All of them are essentially the same.
“They can’t talk the entire time. They have to make their connections in other ways.”
I tilt my head. No wonder there’s no dialogue. Just a lot of tongue-wrestling and splashing around naked in hot tubs.
“Do people who go on these shows actually think they’ll find meaningful, lasting love?”
She shrugs. “It’s probably better than meeting people randomly on an app.”
Touché. Look what I’ve found on the app. Nothing but trouble.
“Where’s Joe tonight?” I ask.
“Business trip in San Diego. Some people have all the luck.” She picks a piece of eggplant off the pizza and licks it. “Ugh. I need real food. You think if I called China Wok, they’d deliver fast?”
I shake my head.
She gets up and grabs her phone anyway, disappearing into the kitchen to make the call. When she returns, she pokes at the pizza. “I ordered extra noodles for you.”
“Thanks. Why didn’t you go with him?”
“Joe? I wish! I couldn’t get off work, which is bullshit. No one’s buying or selling right in the dead of winter but my boss wants me there just in case …”
I smile. She works for a tyrant real estate agent down in Portland, posting listings and picking up his slack.
“So Joe asked you to go with him?” I ask “It’s that serious?”
She lifts her pizza off the plate, the melted cheese leaving a long string that she scoops up with a finger. “I don’t know. It’s better than nothing.”
Better than nothing? She’s the one who’s been sounding like she’s been having the best sex of her life, every night, so much so that I feel like I haven’t seen her in two weeks. And it’s better than nothing?
“Okay …”
“I mean, he’s cute and everything. Sort of. He has a comically big chin. But from the nose up, he’s a solid seven. Maybe an eight,” she says, blowing on the pizza. “Speaking of hot. What I want to know is, who’s the guy that moved in next door? Did you see him?”
I’m surprised she’s noticed. She’s been so obsessed with Joe.
“That’s the doctor. Doc Mansfield,” I say. “The one I matched with on the app. Remember?”
She blinks and tosses the pizza down, uneaten. “What? When were you going to tell me?”
I give her a look. “When have I had a chance?”
“Oh.” She smiles. “So wait … he’s the guy you knew when you were a kid? Your brothers were friends with him? You said he tormented you … ?”
“Uh-huh.” I look back at my book. I don’t want to talk about it.
“He moved in next door … why? Did he know you lived here? Is he stalking you?”
“No. I think it was just fate laughing at me.”
She rubs her hands together greedily. “Details!”
“Nope. There’s nothing to tell.”
“So … you didn’t wind up going out for drinks then.”
Oh, no. We did. And much, much more. But I’m certainly not telling her that. I lift my book higher and pretend to be engrossed in it, even though there’s drama breaking out on the television and everyone’s stripping down to wedge themselves into the hot tub.
“Sad,” Mad sighs, shaking her head. “I can’t believe he lives right next door. What are the chances? And you’re single. He’s single. You matched. It feels like a wasted opportunity.”
“Hmm,” I mumble. It doesn’t feel like that to me.
In fact, it feels like an opportunity I overindulged in.
But the man’s already occupied far too much mental real estate in my life.
I refuse to think about him anymore.
The episode ends on a cliffhanger, making it look like an orgy is about to ensue. It switches to the next one in the series, and a recap.
Mad runs for the stairs. “I’m gonna get my PJs on, too. Answer the door if my food comes.”
“Sure thing.”
When she’s gone, I reach over and take a taste of the pizza, little tendrils of fake cheese slipping down my chin.
There’s a knock at the door.
China Wok must be stepping it up. That or they’re slow tonight because this is a record.
Holding my finger between the pages of my book as a bookmark, I shuffle over in my pancake slippers, trying not to trip over the extra layers of fabric of the giant, zebra-striped wearable blanket hanging from my body.
“Your food’s here, Mad!” I shout as I reach for the door handle, yanking it open. “Did you pa—”
I freeze as I discover it’s not China Wok.
It’s Alec.
This is unfair. He looks amazing. His hair is just-showered wet, and I can smell his intoxicating aftershave from here. He’s wearing a peacoat and scarf, flurries of snow dusting his shoulders, like the male lead of a Hallmark Christmas movie.
He’s holding a blue box that at first I think is something from Tiffany’s—but then realize is just some folded scrubs.
“Uh …” I start, as I realize that I’m wearing the ugliest ensemble known to man. Actually, if I’d thought about it for months, I probably wouldn’t have been able to scrape together a more horrific outfit.
“Hey,” he says, and then his brow wrinkles and he starts to wipe at his chin. “You …”
Me … what does he mean, me? He’s trying to tell me something, but damned if I know what it is. Probably something along the lines of, You look utterly hideous.
Then I realize he’s gesturing to tell me I have something on my face. I feel there, and sure enough, I have dried pizza sauce crusted on my chin.
Lovely.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” I woodenly state the obvious.
“Yeah. I know. Sorry if I’m bothering you.”
The only bother is that I never expected him. Yes, we live next door to one another, but he’s never been so bold as to knock on my door. Why? And more importantly, why now?
“It’s fine … I just thought you were Chinese.” I fold my arms. “So … can I help you or … ?”
I sound like an idiot. I’ve clearly been stuffing my face with pizza, and now I’ve just moved onto Chinese takeout. He must think all I do on my days off is sit on the sofa, looking like a homeless person as I stuff my face with bad food.
“Just wanted to drop this off.” He hands the folded scrubs shirt at me.
Confused, I don’t make a move to take it. Why does he want to give me some ratty hospital scrubs? “I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s not the shirt—it’s what’s inside the shirt. I didn’t have time to wrap it. So …”
Wrap it? So it’s like a gift? Why is he giving me gifts? For some reason, that makes me even more suspicious, because a gift from Alec can only be something like exploding cigars or those fake packets of gum that shock your finger when you take a piece, but I accept it anyway. There’s something hard and heavy inside. “Thanks.”
Unfolding the scrub shirt, I find a beautiful, hardbound copy of Doctor Zhivago.
Now the pieces are falling into place. Points to him, for remembering. And there are no mousetraps in sight. I open it up, expecting it to be in Pig Latin, or something, but it’s not. It’s an actual, real gift.
“Oh … wow.” I trace my fingers along the timeworn pages.
When I look up, he’s rocking from toe to heel on his feet, his hands in his pocket, smiling. “Your D book. I figured you were ready to move on.”
I nudge aside the fabric of my wearable blanket and produce the book, wrapped around my other hand. Dangerous Liaisons. “You’re too late. I already did.”
He winces, mock hurt. “Ah. That’s quite a departure from a book about a humble pig.”
“Well, yes. Variety is the spice of life.” I crack open the spine of the book again and notice the signature scrawled on the title page, and my eyes bug out. “This is a signed first edition.”
He nods, proud of himself.
Okay, now I’m really confused. What’s his game? Why is he trying to charm me, of all people? How could he possibly benefit from getting into my good graces? I mean, he already got laid. If a conquest was what he was looking for, he can cross that off the ol’ bucket list. What else could I give him other than crappy free pizza?
And what could he give me, other than a heart broken worse than the first time he shattered it? He’s a bull and I’m the china shop. He’s pizza and I’m pineapple. We have no business being together, no matter what stupid ideas he has in his head.
I can’t feed into this, whatever this is.
I glance back into the apartment for a moment and see Mad quietly but wildly flailing her arms, gesturing and mouthing that I should let him in. I shake my head slightly, pull the door closed a bit more so that Alec won’t see her machinations, and clear my throat.
“Thank you for the gift. I have to go to bed. Goodnight,” I say stiffly.
His eyebrow lifts. “Before Chinese?”
“That’s for my roommate. Goodnight,” I repeat more forcefully.
