Page 38 of Not My Finest Hour

With the phone up to my ear, the bell chimes on the door, and I go through my usual routine of telling the patient I’ll be right with them. When I look up, Wesley is standing at the front counter.

“Wesley, what brings you in?”

He smiles when he sees me. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry again for how your weekend went. That restaurant was a bad choice.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I say, smiling back at him. “Although I do have a photo of you passed out in the bed, so if you ever step out of line, I can blackmail you with it.” A worried look crosses Wesley’s face. “I’m kidding, of course…about the blackmail part.” I give him a wink to keep things a little mysterious between us.

“I’ll make sure to be on my best behavior then.” He flashes me a grin. “I also came by because you forgot this in the car,” he says, holding up the Sasquatch tote he bought for me.

I take it from him and put it on my desk. “Thank you. That was nice of you to bring it in.”

“Dahlia, do you have the coffee ready yet?” Alexis says, interrupting our conversation. With her witch-like capabilities, she was somehow able to get to my desk without making a sound. I’m so far beneath her, she can’t even make eye contact with me, and instead would prefer to look at her phone. When I don’t answer, she finally looks up. “Wesley?” she asks, a thousand questions in her tone. “What are you doing here?”

“Since when did you start working here?” Wesley asks her, equally confused at seeing her here.

“Wait,” I say, pointing between the two of them. “You two know each other?”

Wesley nods. “Alexis and I used to date. We broke up about a year ago.”

I pause for a second, connecting the dots. Alexis must be the ex that Wesley was trying to forget on our date. I look to him for confirmation and his eyes say it all. I’m definitely correct with my assumption. And judging by how he’s looking at her now and how he acted on our date, the two of them may be broken up, but he’s clearly not over her.

“I’ve been at this office for almost seven months now. Are you a patient here?” Alexis asks.

“I’ve been a patient of Kim’s for a while, but only recently started seeing her again,” Wesley explains.

I notice that he left out the real reason for him coming to see Kim again—and that was to ask me out on a date. Perhaps he wants to forget the whole thing ever happened, or maybe he thinks she might get jealous.

“Do you have an appointment today?” she asks.

“No, I just stopped by to…” Wesley clearly doesn’t want to tell Alexis about us. Any brownie points he earned today by coming in here to apologize have quickly been erased by his inability to tell her the truth. I’m not going to help him out here. He can dig himself out of this one. “…to see if Kim was available to talk about something. Obviously, she’s busy, so I should probably get going.”

What a lame excuse.

“If you have a minute, I’d like to talk to you back in my office…where it’s private,” she says, glaring at me like I give a hoot what those two have to say to one another. As far as I’m concerned, they seem perfect for each another. They’re both conceited and pretentious people.

Wesley’s face brightens like this is the best news he’s going to hear all week. “I think that sounds great. We definitely have some things that should be discussed.”

The two of them head back to Alexis’ office, leaving me to actually finish the work I was trying to get done in the first place. Thirty minutes pass, then Alexis and Wesley are back at my desk, saying their goodbyes. Don’t these two have work to do?

“I’m so glad you stopped in today. It was great catching up, and I can’t wait to see you this weekend,” Alexis says in the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard from her. Since she’s only ever spoken to me with a disdainful tone, I had no idea she was capable of anything else.

“Our place then? Troy’s Boathouse?” Wesley asks.

Wait a minute.Theirplace is Troy’s Boathouse? The same place he took me for our first date? Was he trying to recreate his dates with Alexis the whole time he was seeing me? That’s just gross, and I can’t help the disgust that crosses my face. But the two of them are so absorbed in their own interaction they don’t see it.

Alexis nods and leans in for a kiss. “See you Saturday.”

All I can do is roll my eyes.

Once Wesley leaves, Alexis puts her icy demeanor back on and turns toward her office. “Dahlia, I’ll take that coffee now.”

Good to know she’s still a bitch and getting back together with Wesley hasn’t changed her.

That evening,I ask Lorelei and Chelsea if they’d like to go out to dinner with me, my treat. Nothing too fancy, because I can’t afford it. We settle on a Greek restaurant that’s not far from where I live. It’s the perfect casual atmosphere for our low-key outing tonight. After less-than-stellar outings at those fancy restaurants with Wesley, I’ve had my fill of finer establishments for a while.

“Thanks for buying dinner,” Chelsea says, biting into a gyro.

I pluck a few fries from our basket on the table and shove them in my mouth. “It’s my way of saying I’m sorry for missing out on ourTwilightwatch party.”

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