“Your mom loves their cookies.”
We get in the elevator, and my dad presses the button for the third floor.
“Cafeteria it is,” I say.
We ride the elevator down, and I send Callie a quick message about the results and tell her we’ll call her after we eat in the cafeteria. She sends back a party popper emoji followed by the puking face emoji.
We wind our way through the cafeteria, go through the line, and get the food my parents have an affinity for since they’ve eaten here so much.
As we’re checking out and I’m fighting with my dad over who’s going to pay, my mom hits me in the arm. “Your girlfriend is here.”
“Excuse me?”
“Leighton. She’s right there.” She points across the room at a couple sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, both dressed in scrubs, laughing with one another. He says something else to her, and she reaches forward and touches the top of his hand, laughing again. “Oh honey, I guess it really is fake, huh? I thought you were just saying that.” She frowns.
My dad throws his hands in the air. “Woohoo, I won.”
He’s celebrating being able to pay because I’m too awestruck watching Leighton be so taken with a man who isn’t fucking me.
“I just want to go say hi. You won’t be mad, will you?” Mom whispers and heads in Leighton’s direction.
“Hold on, Dad, I forgot a knife,” I say.
To stab myself in the fucking eye.
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
Leighton
* * *
Elias is telling me a story about this weekend when he went on a mountain biking trip with his friends from medical school up in Wisconsin, and one thing after another went wrong. He’s been telling the story to anyone who would listen today.
“It was unbelievable. By the end, he was covered in mud, with bird guts splattered on him, and his shorts were shredded from his seat popping off.”
I lean back in my seat, covering my mouth before my chewed-up fries spray across the table at him.
“He’ll never live it down. That’s who he’s going to be now for eternity.” Elias hands me a napkin since tears are leaking from my eyes from laughing so hard.
Then our eyes lock for a moment too long, and there’s something in his that I’m sure doesn’t match mine.
“Will you go out with me?” he asks, and all the laughter turns to ash on my tongue.
Did I give him the wrong idea? When he asked me to lunch, I accepted because everyone was saying how funny his story was, and I wanted to hear it. I’ve worked with him quite a bit, and I’ve never thought he was interested in a relationship as more than friends and colleagues.
“Oh, um…”
“Well, that’s not a good sign.” He rubs his hand down his face.
“No. I mean…” I have no idea what to say. I have a boyfriend. Although it’s fake—at least, it’s supposed to be fake—if I could resolve my childhood traumas, I’d like it to be more. But it’s my best friend’s brother, and that brings up its own problems.
“You can just say no, Leighton.” His voice pulls me out of my head. My head that always seems to be on Hayes.
“Leighton!”
Elias and I both turn to look toward the person who called my name.
