Was she reading my mind?
“Hold on. Let me ask her.”
“Zo-Zo, do you want to sleep at Grandma and Grandpa’s tonight and do a princess baking thing and a princess tea party?”
“Yes!” she screams at the top of her lungs and starts running in circles around me.
I laugh. “I take it you heard that?”
“I did.” My mom laughs, too. “Great. We’ll be by to pick her up in a bit before the snow gets bad.”
“Thank you. She’s excited, and I appreciate it.”
“I’m glad. See you soon.”
She disconnects the call, and Zoey and I go upstairs to pack her overnight bag, including the perfect princess dress to go with whatever they’re baking and for the tea party. In the meantime, I text my brother and a few friends to see what—if any—their plans are for tonight. We all agree to meet up at The Hill, and the first real smile I’ve had all day cracks across my lips.
Maybe this is what I needed. Just a night out with the guys without all the stress.
My parents arrive a few minutes later, and I kiss Zoey goodbye as I remind her to behave for Grandma and Grandpa, though it’s an unnecessary caution. She’s always an angel for them, saving her rare meltdowns exclusively for me.
“Have fun with Uncle Alden and Uncle Bennett, Daddy,” she says, giving me an extra squeeze. “Be good with them.”
I bite back a smile at her parroting of my own instructions. “Yes, little sassy pants.”
My parents give me a wink, then twenty minutes later, I push through the door of The Hill, a bar not too far from the hospital but far enough that I’m not thinking of work. I spot mybrother and friends at a corner table, already deep into what appears to be a hell of a lot of food and a round of drinks.
“There he is!” Alden calls, rising to pull me into a back-thumping embrace. “The prodigal surgeon returns to the land of the living.”
“Barely,” I admit, settling into the empty chair they’ve saved for me. “It’s been a rough first couple of weeks home, but I’m glad we were able to make this work.”
“Here. Take this. You look like you need it,” Stone says, handing me a double shot of something clear.
I take a whiff. Tequila. Without thinking, I swallow it down in one large gulp.
“How’s Micha’s place?” Jack asks. He’s still in scrubs, which tells me he just got off work. He works in the ER across town at MGH.
“Good,” I answer as I blow out a harsh, tequila-tinted breath. “It’s great, and Zoey loves it.”
“And living with Skylar?” Mason questions. I don’t ask how he knows that. His younger siblings are Quinn and Crew, and I know they’re close with Skylar. As Skylar once said to me, there are small circles in our worlds.
I shrug indifferently, hoping I’m fooling them. “She’s great with Zoey.” Not a lie either.
No one knows about the kiss. To them, Skylar is simply Micha’s baby sister. They don’t know how we fight or how I look at her or even the thoughts that enter my mind. Life was somehow easier and harder back in LA. But it was predictable. Now, nothing is.
I throw my hand up in the air and catch the waitress’s attention so I can order myself a beer.
Bennett studies me from across the table. “That bad, huh?”
I deflect. “Meh. It’s fine. Tell me what’s up with you guys.”
For the next hour, conversation flows easily as we discusswhat Mason is doing during the off-season—he’s an NFL quarterback for the Boston Rebels—and then inevitably Jack, Bennett, Stone, Owen, Alden, and I morph into talk of hospitals and patients since we’re all doctors, despite our different specialties, though Stone does tell us how he’s buying a new sailing boat.
The Celtics play on the TVs over the bar, and I settle in, laughing and drinking and relaxing for the first time all week. Perhaps longer.
Bennett waits until the others are engrossed in a heated debate about the Rebels and their coaching situation since Mason’s father, Asher, is thinking of retiring, before sliding into the empty chair beside me.
“So,” he says without preamble, “I thought you should know, the women are anxious to set you up with someone and have already been conspiring on it.”
