She shrugs out of her blazer, revealing the silk beneath, and for a second, I forget how to thinkstraight.
After she makes her drink, she stops mid-sip and points at me. “Everything I say from here on out is hypothetical.”
I lean back, crossing my arms. “Hypothetically, go on.”
“Okay.” She starts pacing again. “Hypothetically, let’s say a person—we’ll call her… Piper. Wait, no. Let’s call her… Shmiper.”
“Subtle,” I cough into my beer.
“Shmiper,” Madison continues, ignoring me, “is engaged to an absolute, hypothetical asshole. He’s the kind of guy who wants her to give up her entire life—her talent, her career, hervoice—just so he can carry her around like a shiny new accessory on his business trips.”
I watch the way her eyes burn with a protective fire. I’ve seen her be the anchor for her mother, but this is different. This is the roar of a lioness.
“And hypothetically,” she goes on, her voice rising, “this guy is so manipulative that he’s convinced her that his dreams are hers. She’s dropping out of the biggest opportunity of her life because he can’t handle not being the center of her universe for five minutes.”
“Sounds like a real hypothetical prick.”
“Right?” She slams her glass down, turning to face me fully. The silk of her top dips low, and I have to force my eyes to stay on her face. “The wedding is a bad idea. I’ve had a bad feeling about him since the first time I met him. He smiles too much. His teeth are too white. He’s… he’s hollow. So what do I do?”
“Aren’t you the fixer? This one is more personal, Madi. You’re asking for personal advice,not a PR strategy.”
“I know,” she whispers, her bravado flickering. “You called me Madi.”
My beer stills halfway to my mouth. “Is that bad?”
“No,” she breathes, shaking her head and beginning to pace again. “I’m asking you, what do I do?”
I look at the way her hair is disheveled, the way she’s wearing those stupid slippers because she probably ran out of her apartment, and the way she carries the weight of everyone she loves until she’s nearly breaking.
“Okay,” I say. “You break his legs.”
Her mouth falls open. “What?”
“I mean, I can’t do it,” I say with a shrug. “I took an oath. But you can do it. I’ll stay here. I can fix his legs afterward.”
I think she’s actually considering the logistics.
“You’re a terrible doctor,” she gasps, leaning against the counter.
“I’m a great doctor. I’m just a questionable person.”
Her laughter softens. She sets her drink down and, with that effortless grace she pretends she doesn’t have, hops onto the counter.
The black fabric pulls tight across her thighs.
“I don’t know how to stop,” she says quietly. “The fixing. It’s like if I stop moving, everything just collapses.”
I rest my hand on her knee. “It won’t collapse, but you will if you don’t breathe every once in a while.”
I shift my weight, stepping into the space between her dangling legs. The granite counter is cold, but the heat radiating from Madison is enough to fog the windows.
“God,” she moans, rolling her neck. “I’m pretty sure my tension has tension.”
My hand slides from her knee to her thigh, the silk of her trousers soft against my palm, but the muscle beneath is as tight as a bowstring.
“Yeah?” I murmur, leaning in until I can smell the lime and tequila on her breath. “Let’s see what we can do about that.”
“Oh? Is that a medical opinion, Doc?”
