But Tara just turns back to Meredith as she asks whether Marcello has any brothers.Marcello? Really? How long can a man named Marcello last? I signal the waiter for a refill and chastise myself for being so petty. I’m sure Marcello is a perfectly lovely man and I want my sister to be happy—to find love. Someone that will choose her and not some job. Someone that will show up and fill the empty seat.
When the waiter makes his way back to the table with the bottle of red, I try to discreetly let him know to keep it coming. The wine is too smooth and Tara’s news is too much and Jeff’s seat is still glaringly unoccupied. And even through the warm haze that has suddenly settled around me, I can already see that this night is going to be shittier than the great sledding explosion of 2014.
Chapter Sixteen
Jeff
Lesson 17: Better late than never—sometimes.
When I finally arrive at the bar, it’s close to midnight. I’m wrecked—physically and mentally from the hyperfocused state I was in all night trying to make sure the patient could walk again. But when I talked to Meredith after getting her page three hours after she sent it, she’d hinted that something wasn’t right with Devon. So, I hauled ass over to the Public House in Fishtown, despite the fact that I can barely keep my eyes open.
It takes me a minute to spot Kevin in his crisp, baby-blue button-down, leaning against the bar looking out over the dance floor. The strobe lights and pounding music are doing nothing for my headache. When he turns and sees my approach, I think I see his lips turn down, but the lights flash off and then back on, and his normal warm smile is plastered on his face.
“Hey, man. Rough night?” he raises his voice over the music, signaling to the bartender to get me what he’s drinking.
“Rough doesn’t cover it. Did you get Cherisse’s voicemail?” I yell back.
Kevin hesitates. Then pulls his brows together and slips his phone from his pocket and checks the screen.
“Shit, Jeff. I didn’t even see it.” He doesn’t meet my gaze.
The bartender arrives with my beer and I tell Kevin not to worry about it. No harm, no foul, right? But the gnawing in my gut tells me that there’s harm—and the harm might be what Meredith was hinting at with Devon.
Before I can open my mouth to tell Kevin what happened, a woman covered in sweat pushes through the crowd toward where I stand at the bar. Normally, sweat makes people look like drenched rats, but on this woman it works. Her makeup glistens like she’s been professionally sprayed for a photo shoot. She’s gorgeous—and very familiar—and when she smiles up and high fives Kevin, I know immediately who she is. She’s an exact replica of her sister—except where Devon has chosen to keep her hair dark, her freckles uncovered, her eyes natural and bright—Tara has lightened her hair and made her eyes into something dark and sexy.
Tara squeezes in between Kev and me and asks the bartender for a glass of water while I locate Devon and Meredith on the dance floor. They are playing some sort of tag, spinning away from all the men who approach, trying to avoid their grinding crotches like a game of frogger.
“You must be Jeff,” Tara yells up at me.
I nod and hold out my hand to her while she sips her water through the straw.
“My sister is pissssed at you!” she says, taking my hand, biting the straw, and lifting her brows.
“What else is new?” I say back, but my stomach dips a little.
I look back at Devon. She doesn’t look pissed. She looks like she’s having the time of her life, pushing some guy in a silk shirt back to the group of guys he came from, while shimmying her ass to the beat. But the man isn’t getting the hint and I see her spin too fast to avoid him and wince. Her hand goes to her calf and I take a step toward them, ready to help her off the floor, but a manicured hand grabs my arm and stops me.
I follow the fingers and arm up to find Tara eyeing me over the rim of her water glass.
“You going to rescue the damsel in distress? That’ll just piss her off more,” she tells me.
“I’m just worried about her. I’m an orthopedic surgeon and she had a really bad Achilles rupture. She really shouldn’t be dancing just after she got her boot off. It’s my job to make sure she’s ok.” This makes perfect sense. “Also, I kind-of fucked up when I first met her, and I need to—I don’t know—show her I’m not a dick.”
“So, you’re gonna prove that to her by staring at her like a creepy stalker or rushing in and mansplaining her recovery?”
One side of my mouth pulls upward. Tara doesn’t mince words. But neither does Devon, so I’m not surprised.
“She told me by the way—about your ‘fuck-up’.” She uses air-quotes and tucks a blonde curl behind her ear. There are cuffs and piercings hugging the side of her lobe all the way up to her cartilage. “I think she’s more embarrassed than anything. Devon doesn’t talk about her sex life much. She’s annoyingly private. And she’s super cautious. So feeling something—well she has a way of morphing the entire spectrum of emotions into anger.”
I nod. I respect that she’s not one to kiss and tell. And the anger thing makes sense to me. Not everyone had a professional to teach them about emotional regulation. “Yeah, well sometimes it’s easier to just rage and yell. Rather than be vulnerable.”
She looks me over, narrows her eyes like she’s appraising an antique at an auction.
“I really wouldn’t go out there, though. She’s drunk and I can’t be held responsible for what she does to you.”
I laugh and wait for her to break a smile, but she just lifts a brow and waits.
“Thanks for the warning. I’ll take my chances,” I tell her with a grin and she lets me go.
