Chapter 26

Lara’s drive to work was filled with conflicting thoughts, ranging from ~Zavien and I are both modern, independent people, and we can have sex whenever and with whomever we choose~ to ~Fuck that guy—how dare he~.

Mostly, she chastised herself for being so stupid, for having deluded herself into seeing things that were clearly not there, for thinking her crush could have turned into something more, something bigger.

“I’m an idiot,” she grumbled to herself after parking in KGH’s garage.

If there was one thing she could always count on, though, it was that work would keep her mind busy for a while.

Hopefully, it would occupy her for the entire twelve hours of her shift so she wouldn’t have to wonder who Zavien was meeting, where they were meeting, what they were doing, and if they would go back to his apartment.

~Does his couch still smell like me? Did he change his bedsheets? Will they eat my leftovers? Will Pablo greet Zavien’s date like he greets me? Does Zavien tease and play with her the way he does with me?~

Okay, so maybe her mind could still find the time to wander into dangerous territory.

At this point, all Lara could hope for were work distractions.

***

What should have been a routine busy day had ended up being the opposite.

And with no surgeries on the docket for her—no doubt Dr. Baumgartner’s retaliation for her reassignment to Riverside—her thoughts had run wilder than ever. At the height of her Zavien-fueled mania, Lara had even stooped so low as to send out an SOS to Delia.

Now that Lara was sitting on her couch, mentally exhausted, the last thing she wanted was to rehash it all over again. But the call had been made, and once Delia was summoned, there was no unsummoning her.

“All right, bitch! I’ve got wine, ice cream, Chinese takeout, and bottled-up fury. Tell me what happened,” Delia announced as she let herself into Lara’s apartment.

Lara took the wine and takeout and left Delia to deal with the ice cream and fury. “Did you get stinky tofu?” she asked as she dug through the boxes.

“Yes. Who do you think I am?” Delia rolled her eyes before plopping down beside Lara. “Before you dig in, tell me what happened.”

Too late. Lara already had a big bite of tofu in her mouth.

“Dr. Lima asked me to assist her in surgery indefinitely,” Lara said—at least, that was what she had intended to say; how much Delia had understood, Lara wasn’t sure.

Delia stared at her blankly. “You did not call me all the way over here to tell me some boring hospital shit, did you?”

Lara swallowed. “It’s not boring! It’s very exciting,” she insisted. “Except that I’ll have to drive across to Riverside from now on.” She glared at her friend. “Also, you only live ten minutes away.” She lifted another heaping pile of food to her lips with her chopsticks.

Delia stopped her with a single, steely glance, and Lara, with a sigh, let the tofu fall back into the takeout box.

“Fine,” Lara said. “I kinda…did something stupid.”

“What kind of stupid?”

“The kind that had me hooking up with my neighbor—”

“Bitch, yes!” Delia shouted, grabbing the takeout and setting it on the coffee table. “Hot Neighbor Man? Finally! Wait, why was that stupid? You didn’t do that thing where you show him exactly how you want—”

“Okay, you know what? We don’t all have the time for trial and error,” Lara said in self-defense. “And he didn’t really mind that.”

Delia tilted her head, her brow arched in skepticism.

“Also, it wasn’t him,” Lara tacked on timidly.

“But you just said your neighbor.”

“Yes, I did.” Lara stared at the tofu. “~That~ neighbor is off growing forests or something.” Lara pouted, suddenly missing Travis.

“Okay, so—oh, no.”

“Oh, yes,” Lara said sadly.

“No. No, you didn’t.”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

Delia leaned back on the couch, her face frozen in shock. “Well,” she said after a long moment, “how was it?”

Lara sighed and joined her friend in slumping.

“That good, huh?”

Lara then recounted the details to her, starting from the beginning of her shitty day, through her rice and beans spilling onto the pavement, and all the way to the grand finale.

The three grand finales.

“Okay, none of this sounds SOS worthy to me,” Delia pointed out in between bites of her fried rice. “He sounds hot. And kinda sweet. Which is even hotter.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too,” Lara said with another defeated sigh. “Until I bumped into him on my way to work the next day.”

“Did he ignore you?” Delia grimaced.

Lara looked down at her lap. “No,” she gritted out. “He was heading out for a date.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, that’s awkward, but if it was just sex—oh, no.” Delia stared at her with wide eyes. “Please tell me you do not like this man for real.”

“I wouldn’t say I like him, exactly…” Lara avoided her friend’s gaze and pushed her food around.

“You slept with him—like, literally sleeping in his bed, with cuddling, snoring, and morning banter. You were genuinely upset that he was going out with someone after being with you, and not in the petty kind of way. So upset, in fact, that I brought you wine and takeout.

“And ice cream! That was one hell of a distress signal for not liking someone ‘exactly,’” Delia said, merely restating information that Lara already knew.

“You’re a real bitch, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know.” Delia beamed. “Let me pour you a big glass of wine. You need it.”

As she usually was, Delia was right; Lara did like him.

She liked him in a big way—with secret smiles and giddiness in her chest. Every time she stepped into the hallway, she hoped to see him, even if it meant walking away horrendously annoyed.

It was an unwelcome and unavoidable revelation, and there wasn’t much to do about it except get wine drunk and lick her wounds.

***

“Look, the elevator isn’t coming! Just stay,” Lara said with a pout.

Delia shook her head adamantly. “Nuh-uh!” She wagged a finger in Lara’s face and pressed the elevator call button for the fourth time.

“But Deliaaaa,” Lara whined, hugging Delia around the waist. “I’m sad and stupid. You can’t leave me.”

“Baby, you are going to be sad and stupid whether I fall asleep on your couch or in my bed,” Delia pointed out with a haughty sniff, the effectiveness of which was dampened by how wobbly on her legs she was.

Nothing disrupted the illusion of aloofness like swaying in the gentle breeze of air conditioning.

Finally, the elevator dinged, and Delia grinned at her good fortune. Lara, however, was left dumbfounded by her misfortune as the doors opened to reveal Zavien, once again dressed in his date-night best, returning home suspiciously late but miraculously alone.

He looked as surprised to see her as she felt at seeing him.

With all her feelings reawakening, she managed to stutter out, “Z—Zavien.”

“Smooth,” Delia whispered.

Zavien glanced between the two women, and when his eyes returned to Lara, they twinkled, sending a shiver down her spine. Before she could get caught up in memories of what it had been like to lie with him, he asked, “Are you drunk?” Amusement filled his tone.

“No,” Lara said, while at the same time, Delia answered, “Yes.”

Delia smiled at her before jumping into the elevator. She held the door just long enough to wave coyly before she disappeared.

“Need an escort back?” He lowered his mask despite being in the hall, and something about that brought a small smile to her face.

However, another glance at his date-night attire was all it took to wipe it away. She shrugged in response and spun around to make her way back to her apartment.

He stepped to her side, his eyes on her, making her feel…everything. “I haven’t seen you around,” he said.

“It’s been one day, Zavien, and I work.”

“Sure, sure…or…you’re avoiding me.”

Her face flushed. “Probably.” Lara was too exhausted and tipsy to mince words.

When they reached their respective doors, he muttered, “I understand.”

Unsure what else to say, she gave him a brief, “Good night,” and went into her apartment.

When he didn’t respond right away, she bit back a pout, but just before her door clicked shut, she heard, “Good night, Lara.”

As Lara leaned against the wall, her heart sank at the realization that Zavien’s “good night” felt more like a goodbye than she could bear.