“Fine,” I sigh, my shoulders slumping. I should be better than this. I’ve never breached my ethical obligations as a therapist before. I’ve wanted to. When patients had disappeared and I wanted to know what had happened to them. Or when I’ve wanted to tell patients what to do because they keep making the same mistakes. Even when I’ve had patients I wish I could have been friends with because I enjoyed their company so much.
But I never have. No matter how much I wanted to.
And when I look back up, even knowing it’s a terrible decision, the smile on Ryan’s handsome face is so goddamn genuine that I can’t bring myself to regret it.
He doesn’t take me anywhere I would imagine for a date. There’s no ambience, no candles, nor sultry music. Just the delicious smell of homely food mixed with the amber of beer and the varied scents of too many people.
Ryan holds the door open, then places his warm hand on my lower back as he steers us toward the bar. “I figured we would go somewherefriendly,” he says, as if he is able to read my mind. “Don’t want to get you in trouble.”
The wink he shoots me sends an involuntary shiver through me.He doesn’t know. He can’t know.
“Good idea,” I say when the use of my tongue returns.
He pulls out a chair at the bar. Bottles of spirits line the counter across from us on staggered glass shelving in front of a mirror, giving the illusion of never-ending alcohol. I wish I could get drunk.
“What can I get you?” the bartender, a stocky man with a mustache, asks us while wiping the bar clean and placing a couple of coasters down.
Once we have perused the menus and placed our orders, he leaves us alone. I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to turn it into a therapy session, but I don’t want to share more of myself either.
“No need to look so scared,” Ryan says, breaking the silence.
“I’m not scared. I’m…”
“Sure, you are,” he says, raising an eyebrow as he stares at me. “I don’t blame you. Can’t be easy spending time with someone who makes you wet when you’re trying to pretend you only see him as a patient.”
“What?” I say with a scoff.
“You’re hiding behind being a therapist,” he says confidently, as if there’s no chance I wouldn’t be interested in him and all of his cocky attitude. “It’s like wearing a mask. But you’re not just a therapist. You’re a sister, a daughter, an aunt, and you’reyou. Whoever andwhateverthat is. Don’t boil it all down to your job, even if it is an important and valuable job.”
I bristle at the word ‘whatever.’ I’m sure he meant it to be whatever my interests are, but it felt like something else. It feels like he knows what I am. But he couldn’t. There’s no way.
“When did you start analyzing me?”
“Somewhere around the time I started to realize that you were the one for me.”
I stare down at my hands resting on my lap, unsure how the conversation went from a simple meal to him professing his feelings for me. Again. I should never have agreed to this.
“You can’t say that.”
“Fine. I’ll stop saying it,” he tells me while brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. Tingles erupt in the wake of his touch that I can’t ignore. “On one condition: you start considering it.”
“Do you think I haven’t considered it?” I retort without thinking. My mouth snaps shut, and my heart pounds at the admission—at the crack in my professional armor. Thankfully, our food comes out, saving us from further conversation. Further admissions of guilt.
We eat silently. But all I feel is his presence next to me. I want to lean into him. I want to let him be here for me. That voice softly encouraging me at all times. It’s gotten so much harder to ignore.
“You feel it, don’t you?” he asks when we finish, and I can’t help the whimper that escapes me. I can’t deny it, so I stay silent. “It’s not all in my head, is it? I’m not losing my mind, am I?”
“Is that what it feels like?” I ask, turning his question back to him rather than answering. Of course I feel it. And the longer it goes on, the harder it is to deny or chalk it up to transference.
“It feels like you were made for me, as I was for you. I’m sick of the games, Maya. I need you to see me. I need you to see past the masksIwear. You have to stop acting like you don’t feel every bit as drawn to me as I am to you.”
My breath hitches as his eyes bore into me. That’s the second time he has said ‘masks.’ Anxiety pools in my stomach and churns inside me. He steps down from his stool and spins my chair around before caging me against the bar with his arms.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I whisper. Even though it’s becoming harder and harder to ignore the voice that equates the two. The masked man with the golden eyes and my patient who opens up to me.
I shouldn’t be so drawn to Ryan. I shouldn’t want him so much. But I do. And I can’t explain it. How did I go twenty-nine years of life without ever really wanting someone to now craving two different men? Two men who give me different things and different parts of themselves.
Then the thought that I’ve been refusing to let myself consider pushes into my consciousness. The voice I’ve been shoving down becomes louder, more insistent, impossible to ignore.
