Suddenly One Summer

  He took his hand from her face and backed away a step.

  “We agreed this was just a casual thing,” she continued.

  “We did,” he said. “And if it is just that, I don’t see why there’s suddenly a problem.”

  She tried to play if off. “I’m not saying there’s a problem. But after what happened today, I just . . . want some space.”

  “Space.” He ran a hand over his jaw and then nodded. “Okay. Sure. I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone right now, but if that’s what you need, I’ll come back later. How about if I check on you in a couple hours?”

  She felt a lump in her throat. That was . . . a really sweet thing for him to offer. “That won’t be necessary, but thank you.”

  He pulled back, his eyes searching hers. “What the fuck is going on, Victoria?”

  She blinked, caught off guard by his sudden anger. “I told you what’s going on.”

  He stepped closer, his expression a mixture of confusion and something else she couldn’t read. “Everything was fine until tonight. But then you faint, and suddenly you’re shoving me out the door.” He paused. “Did I . . . do something wrong?”

  “No,” she said emphatically, feeling terrible he would even ask. “Not at all.”

  “Then help me understand what’s happening.” His expression softened. “Victoria, talk to me.”

  She looked down at the ground, needing a moment, and then met his gaze. “I don’t want to fight with you, Ford.”

  He stepped closer, his lips curved in an affectionate smile. “Shockingly, this time I actually don’t want to fight with you, either.”

  “But I do want you to go,” she said softly.

  He stopped, hearing that.

  She saw a brief flicker of emotion in his eyes, but then his expression turned stony. His voice was cool as he backed away from her.

  “You know what? Fine. I spent years living with someone who ran hot and cold. Someone who would be my best friend—my fucking hero—one day, and then the next morning he’d wake up hungover—or sometimes even still drunk—and tell me to get the hell out of his face, or backhand me for making too much noise while playing basketball on the driveway.”

  She took a step toward him. “Ford.”

  “Don’t.” He held up his hand. “You don’t want me around, Victoria? No problem. I’ll get the hell out of your way, no more questions asked.”

  Without so much as a second glance, he turned and walked out of her loft, slamming her front door behind him.

  When he was gone, Victoria put her hand on her stomach and inhaled slow and deep, just like the good doctor had taught her.

  Breathe, Slade.

  Just breathe.

  Twenty-eight

  THE FOLLOWING FRIDAY morning, Victoria caught herself once again staring out her office windows when Will came in with his update.

  She sat upright in her chair and put on a smile. “So? What’s the word?”

  The day’s mail had been delivered and, notably, once again there hadn’t been any paternity test results for Peter Sutter. Wanting to keep the momentum of the case going now that she had Sutter’s attention, she’d asked Will to call the lab and find out how much longer it would take them to process the results.

  “Get this: the lab says Sutter never showed up to take the paternity test,” Will said.

  “You’re kidding,” Victoria said.

  She was so going to light this guy up.

  “Thanks, Will.” After he left her office, Victoria reached for her phone and dialed Peter Sutter’s work number. “Well, Mr. Sutter, it appears we’re going to do this the hard way,” she said when he answered.

  “No, no—we’re good,” Peter said immediately. “I planned to call you today to explain. I’m going to the lab on my lunch break, I swear. It’s been a crazy week—Melanie got an abnormal result on her quad screen test, so we had to do an ultrasound, but that was still inconclusive, so then she had to have an amniocentesis . . . and luckily, everything’s okay with the baby. But with all the medical procedures and everything going on at home, I didn’t get a chance to get to the lab.”

  Either Victoria was losing her touch, or Peter Sutter was the best damn bullshit artist she’d ever encountered. Because, despite his extremely spotty track record, she actually believed the guy.

  Which was a shame, really. Given her mood, she’d rather been looking forward to biting someone’s head off.

  “Today, Mr. Sutter,” she said, in no uncertain terms. “It’s a cheek swab, not brain surgery. Get yourself to the lab or I’ll come down to that gym with a Q-tip and get it myself.”

  She hung up the phone, debated whether to call Nicole with the update, and then ultimately decided to wait until after lunch to see whether Sutter actually did go to the lab as promised.

  Then her mind drifted—as it had several other times this week—to the other Dixon. The one who’d stormed out of her place four days ago.

  You don’t want me around, Victoria? No problem. I’ll get the hell out of your way, no more questions asked.

  Feeling terrible about their argument, she’d texted Ford the morning after and apologized for the way things had ended. His reply, several hours later, had been short and not especially sweet.

  Don’t worry about it.

  She hadn’t seen him since, although she knew he was around. She could hear him through their shared wall at night, watching the news per his routine, while she lay in bed trying to pretend she was actually reading whatever the heck book she had open on her e-reader.

  She’d thought about knocking on his door to try to smooth over the awkwardness, but in the end she’d decided it was probably better to just let things go. He clearly had zero interest in talking to her, which she undoubtedly deserved. She had ended things out of the blue, after the man had carried her off a train and gone above and beyond to take care of her.

  You asked for this, girlfriend.

  Ah, good. She and her sassy subconscious were on speaking terms again. Seemingly miffed about the fight with Ford, the pesky voice had been giving her the cold shoulder all week.

  But for once, her sassy subconscious was right—she had asked for this. And she still wanted this, she just . . . hadn’t expected to feel so off her game afterward.

  Obviously, she simply needed to get back to her routine. She had no doubt that this lingering ennui or whatever would dissipate in a few days, so until then, she would keep marching ahead, doing her thing.

  So when Will walked into her office a few minutes later to let her know that her eleven thirty appointment had arrived—the very contentious, snide, and argumentative opposing counsel who’d once called her a “ballbuster” in open court—she smiled and mentally cracked her knuckles in anticipation.

  “Send him in.”

  * * *

  THAT EVENING, FORD nursed a beer at Estelle’s, a neighborhood dive bar. He sat at a high-top, staring up at the small TV above the bar that was playing Vanilla Sky and only half listening to Charlie and Tucker’s latest erudite debate—the animal they’d least like to encounter in the wild: shark, bear, or lion.

  “What kind of shark are we talking about?” Charlie asked.

  “Great white,” Tucker said.

  “How about the bear? Brown or grizzly?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Grizzly.”

  Charlie considered this. “I gotta say lion.”

  “You’d rather face a great white shark than a lion?” Tucker scoffed. “Fuck that. Man is helpless in the water against one of those things.”

  “Yeah, but of the three, sharks and bears don’t want to eat you,” Charlie countered. “A lion would.”

  Tucker waved this off. “Lions are lazy. And males don’t do the hunting, anyway. If he’s just eaten, I bet you could walk by while he’s chilling and he’d be all, ‘Sup, dude. Got some impala leftovers under that acacia tree if you want them.’”

  Ford shook his head, taking another sip of his beer.


  “Who said it had to be a male lion?” Charlie asked.

  “Um, I did. ’Cause if I meant female, I would’ve said ‘lioness.’”

  “What are you, fucking National Geographic? Who says ‘lioness’?” Charlie turned to Ford. “What about you? What animal would you least want to face off against in the wild: bear, lion, or shark?”

  “Crocodile.”

  “Crocodile. Another contender emerges.” Tucker flagged down the waitress. “I’ll get this round.” He looked at Ford’s beer, only half-empty, and grinned. “You pacing yourself? Got a hot date with my future wife after this?”

  Ford gave him a look. “Actually, your future wife and I aren’t seeing each other anymore.”

  Tucker’s mouth fell open. “What? When did this happen?”

  “Dude, she was just at your barbecue six days ago,” Charlie said. “How’d you manage to screw things up since then?”

  Tucker hit him in the arm. “Nice, Charles. Real sensitive.”

  Charlie glared back. “Like you know what to say, either.” He pointed to Ford. “Brooke always handles the sensitive stuff.”

  “True.” Tucker eyed Ford for a moment, then leaned over and whispered to Charlie, “Maybe we should text her. He looks a little . . . broody.”

  For chrissakes. “No one is texting Brooke,” Ford said. “For one thing, she’s out of town for work, and for another thing, I’m not broody.” Seeing Charlie’s and Tucker’s skeptical looks, he felt the need to continue. “Come on. I always knew it wasn’t going to be a long-term thing with Victoria. She said she needed space, so we agreed not to see each other anymore. It’s not a big deal.” Granted, that was the whitewashed version of last Monday’s events, but he saw no reason to share the details of Victoria’s panic attack—nor the argument afterward—with Charlie and Tucker.

  Besides, as he’d come to realize these last few days, it was probably a good thing that he and Victoria were no longer hooking up. Things between them had been starting to feel a little . . . real. And he didn’t want real. He’d just been caught off guard on Monday, not having expected her to end things so suddenly.

  But that was neither here nor there now.

  “So you’re cool with this?” Charlie asked.

  “Definitely cool,” Ford assured him.

  Tucker raised his beer glass. “Dude. You’re back.”

  Pfft. Ford raised his glass and grinned. “Who said I ever went away?”

  He finished his beer, joking around with Charlie and Tucker and having a good time. His friends found some women to talk to—of course they did—and just as Ford was debating whether to order a second drink, out of the corner of his eye he caught a flash of a long, chestnut-brown ponytail.

  Immediately, he turned . . . and saw that it was a woman in her mid-twenties. She caught him looking and walked over with a smile.

  “Sorry,” Ford told her. “I thought you were someone else.”

  “Oh.” Pretty, and with legs that went on for days in her short skirt, she pointed to his empty glass. “Well, how about I buy you a drink while you’re waiting for your someone else to show up?”

  Ford appreciated the gesture. And on a different night, perhaps he’d take her up on that offer. “Thanks. But I’m just hanging out with my friends tonight.”

  “Sure. No problem.” With a carefree shrug, she walked back to her group of girlfriends.

  A few minutes later, Tucker was at his side. He nodded at the brunette. “Huh. I thought you were in there.”

  “Nah, she was just asking me for the time. Said she has a boyfriend.” Ford made a big show of shrugging. “What can you do, right?”

  Tucker looked at him. Then he reached out and squeezed Ford’s shoulder, his voice turning uncharacteristically serious. “Hey. You win some, you lose some, right?”

  Ford smiled slightly. “Indeed you do, Tuck.”

  A moment passed, neither of them saying anything further. Nothing else to be said, really.

  Then Tucker cocked his head and grinned. “So can I talk to the brunette, then?”

  Ford chuckled. Some things, at least, never changed. “She’s all yours.”

  Twenty-nine

  ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON, for once, Victoria had plenty to say during her weekly session with the good doctor.

  She paced in his office while describing her panic attack, cross-examining him about the effectiveness of his supposed techniques and her alleged progress—both of which seemed highly debatable given recent events.

  “I can tell that you’re upset,” Dr. Metzel said calmly when she’d finished her rant.

  She snorted. A regular mind-reader, this one.

  He gestured. “Please. Have a seat.”

  After debating—she’d been on the fence about coming to this appointment at all—she sat down in the chair across from him.

  Yes, she was angry with Dr. Metzel because of her setback. And she needed to be angry with him—or with someone, at least. Because if she didn’t have her anger to focus on, she’d start thinking about the fact that these panic attacks weren’t going away as easily as she’d hoped, and that scared her.

  She’d never been cowed by anything in her life, and she’d be damned if she’d start now.

  “I understand your frustration,” he said. “But I do think you’re still making progress.”

  “Tell that to the seventy people who saw me faint on the train. Or to Ford, who had to carry me off, like I’m some damsel in distress. Do you realize how embarrassing that was?” She pointed to her chest, her emotions raw. “I do not need rescuing.”

  He studied her for a moment. “Why didn’t you just get off the train at an earlier stop? That would’ve solved your problem instantly.”

  “I told you, I didn’t want Ford to know about the panic attacks.”

  “Why not?”

  She exhaled. Always so many questions. “It doesn’t matter. Ford and I aren’t seeing each other anymore. I ended things Monday night.” She pointed. “Go ahead. I’ll wait while you write that down in your notebook.” Patient shows zero progress and continues to be a general pain in the ass.

  She pictured him stamping the top of her file with one word written in red ink: hopeless.

  But instead, Dr. Metzel held her gaze. “Why did you end things with Ford?”

  “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “I think you do. You didn’t have to tell me you weren’t seeing him anymore.”

  She paused at that. This whole week she’d been trying to cover up the fact that something was off. And, frankly, it was getting a little exhausting.

  Dr. Metzel slid his chair closer to hers and leaned forward earnestly, resting his arms on his knees. “I know you see me as the enemy here, Victoria. But believe it or not, I really do want to help you. And I think I can help you. If you’ll let me.”

  She shook her head, knowing that opening this door would mean saying things out loud that she didn’t even want to acknowledge to herself. “I can’t have these kinds of feelings for Ford.”

  “Why not?” Dr. Metzel pressed.

  She met his gaze. “Because I can’t need anyone that way.” She saw him waiting for her to continue. Fine. She’d go there, just this once. “You asked how I felt that day when I came home and found my mother unconscious. At first, while I was waiting for the ambulance, there was mostly shock and fear and a lot of promises that if she pulled through, I’d be strong enough for the both of us from that point forward.”

  You’re going to be fine, Mom. I’ll take care of you. Just please, please don’t leave me, okay?

  Victoria cleared her throat, needing a moment to fight back the prickling sensation in her eyes.

  “But when we got to the hospital, after I watched as they wheeled her off on a gurney, there wasn’t anything I could do except wait. And sitting there, all I kept thinking was that she’d wanted to leave me. My own mother. And that realization was so much worse than anything I’d felt when my father had left, because
she didn’t bother to say good-bye. Didn’t even leave me a note.”

  She met Dr. Metzel’s eyes. “You asked before if I was angry with her. I wasn’t angry—I felt betrayed. I was ten years old at the time, and she was all I had left. What the hell did she think would happen to me if she’d died? Did she even think about that?”

  “Did you ask her that?”

  “Sure, because that’s all she needed: more guilt. I couldn’t ask her; I was terrified that if I made a wrong move she’d relapse. So instead, I did what I promised I’d do if she pulled through: I sucked it up and stayed strong, for the both of us.” She set her hands in her lap. “I realize now, as an adult, that my mother’s suicide attempt had nothing to do with me—it was a product of her depression. And I also think that she deliberately chose to take those pills before I came home because, deep down, she wanted to be found. She wanted help.” Victoria’s voice turned quieter. “But I remember how it felt sitting in that hospital waiting room, all by myself. I remember the pain of being abandoned by someone I loved more than anything. Someone I thought would never leave me.

  “Every day, I see the hurt on people’s faces as their relationships fall apart. So I ask them what they need to be able to move on, and then I fight as hard as I can to get them those things. But what I never tell my clients is that I know what they’re going through. I know the rejection and the hurt and the fear that grips you by the throat when you realize that you’re going to have to get by on your own, but have no fucking clue how to do that.” She looked Dr. Metzel in the eyes. “So here’s my question for you, Doctor: knowing that kind of pain, and having lived through it once, why on earth would I ever allow someone to be able to hurt me that way again?”

  He seemed ready for the question. “Because not everyone leaves.”

  “Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce. That’s a lot of people who decide they want out of something that was supposed to last forever.”

  He continued on, speaking more passionately than she’d ever heard him. “Because you decide that the good moments are worth it, no matter what might happen down the road. Because you find someone who’s worth facing your deepest fears for, someone you’re willing to take a chance on.”