Page 11 of Flirting with 40

“How much longer?” Prisha asks.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” I shrug. “They want to hear from Ivy herself. She’s the victim, and until she can make a statement, it’s ‘my suspicions and overreactions’—their words, not mine—against his statements.”

“And so, what? You’re in limbo until then?” John asks.

“Basically. I’m waiting for the review board to reconvene in the next week or so, but I know nothing’s going to be decided until they hear from her. I’m sure that, at some point, I’ll have to do some dog and pony show to get the powers that be to accept me back into the program without prejudice.” I take a sip of my beer, acting as if it’s no big deal when they know it’s exactly the opposite. It’s my whole damn world. “But it is what it is.”

“How is she?” Leigh asks gently, and I meet each of their eyes, knowing I technically shouldn’t know the answer considering I’m not supposed to be anywhere near the hospital.

“Still in a coma. Still . . . hanging on. I’m not really allowed to check in on her, so that’s all I know.”

“The whole thing is fucked up.” John sighs. Each one of them has told me that they would have done the same thing had they been in my shoes. Would have let emotion get the better of them and protected their patient. That they would have acted how I did.

But they didn’t do it.

I did.

And I’m paying the price.

“I don’t regret it. I mean, I regret the suspension and the red tape I’m going to have to possibly cut through, but I don’t regret what I did when it comes to him . . . just don’t tell the board that.”

“Not a chance, brother,” John says.

“Not a chance,” Prisha reiterates.

CHAPTER THREE

Blakely

“I can do one better,” I say and take a bite of pizza before settling back against the couch.

“Nothing can be worse than walking into your very hot boss’s office with your skirt tucked into your panties. And panties is a loose term for the back-of-the-drawer ones I grabbed because I hadn’t done laundry. Nothing,” my best friend, Kelsie, says with a definitive nod as she empties her glass of wine and has no shame in refilling it with the bottle sitting on the coffee table between us.

“How about sitting in a bar, thinking the cute, sexy, young guy sitting next to you is flirting with you—”

“And the problem with that is what?”

“I’m far from finished, Kels.” I take a sip of my own wine, and the ridiculousness of my thinking he was actually flirting with me hits me once again. “The guy, Slade—”

“Slade?”

“Yes. Just go with it.”

“It’s kind of sexy. Tell me what he looked like.” I stare at her and shake my head. “What? I need the whole visual, and besides, you should humor me. It’ll be the most action I’ve gotten in months.”

I laugh and am so grateful that I have her in my life. “Tall. Dark hair. Super light and gorgeous eyes. Great smile. Well dressed. And his hands and arms were super sexy with the rolled-up dress shirt thing going.”

“A watch?” she asks. “Watches are sexy.”

“I think so. Yes. I think. It doesn’t matter,” I say, but her eyes tell me it does matter for her complete visual. “Sure, yes, he had a watch.”

“That visual just gave me the chills.” She claps.

“Yeah, well, I kind of unloaded on him when I thought he was hitting on me, and—”

“Why would you do such a thing?” she shrieks.

“Can you let me finish, please?” I ask, this stop-and-start conversation between us not unusual.