Page 123 of Hello Stranger

How much could he possibly care?

IT WAS STRANGEto see Dr. Addison again at the appointment. I’d almost forgotten about him. It hadn’t even been that long, but I guess getting infatuated with someone else made it seem longer.

As Dr. Addison strode toward me in the waiting room in his crisp white coat and tie, his hair back in that Ivy League style, I couldn’t help but notice how thatGQlook didn’t do it for me anymore. How utterly eroticized floppy hair and hipster glasses had become for me now.

Validating.

Dr. Addison, my once-fantasy-fiancé obsession, had become just another random guy.

Peanut’s checkup was good. The playlist that day was nonstop Louis Armstrong, and I noted that the vet tech had been right. Peanut really did like him.

Dr. Addison was being shadowed by a vet student that day, and he let her do most of the exam. By the end of the appointment, the student and Dr. Addison agreed: Peanut was just about the healthiest elderly dog either of them had ever seen.

“Must be all that pad Thai,” Dr. Addison said, with a little flirty undertone that the vet student didn’t notice.

“Thank you,” I said, grabbing the doc’s hand platonically and pumping it up and down. “You really saved him.”

“It was a group effort,” Dr. Addison said.

A memory of a shirtless Joe flopping me down on my bed and kissing my neck flashed through my head. Somehow I just couldn’t imaginethisguy—with his tight posture and his tie and his clicker pen in his Oxford cloth pocket—positively melting a woman in that way.

Case closed. I’d chosen well.

Time to end it.

“I’m so sorry,” I said to him then. “Do you have a minute to talk privately?”

Dr. Addison checked the clock. “I have seven,” he said.

Then, at my frown: “Minutes,” he clarified. “Before my next appointment.”

“Ah,” I said. “Great.”

He walked us out back to a little grassy yard for the animals.

I let Peanut off his leash, and he trotted off to sniff things. And then it was down to business.

I felt oddly nervous. I’d never dumped anyone before. I was generally the dumpee.

Although—canyou dump someone you’re not even dating?

“I so appreciate the time we’ve spent together,” I began, busting out the monologue I’d practiced in front of the mirror, but then going offscript before the end of the first sentence. “And I just wanted to clarify a little bit with you that whatever’s going on or might go on between us…”

Wow. I was terrible at this.

Dr. Addison took a step closer.

Then he reached forward and took one of my hands—quietly, but with encouragement.

I pushed ahead. “I know we’ve been moving toward spending more time together lately…” My heart surprised me by pounding against the inside of my breastbone. “But I just want to say, in the future, from this point on… I think it’s probably best for us to keep our relationship professional.”

That surprised him.

Dr. Addison let go of my hand and took a step back.

I couldn’t see his face fall, but I could definitely feel it.

“Professional?” he asked then, after a pause, sounding, really, like he had not seen that coming.

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