Page 29 of Attached At Heart
Christ.
I slid my phone back into my pocket, sighing as the lies I’d just told sunk deep in my gut. They undoubtedly thought this was sudden—any sane person would. But they’d be happy for me anyway. My siblings were well aware of how much Delaney meant to me. They knew that it had wrecked me when she’d gotten engaged to someone else. So as wild of a lie as this was, I’d known my family would believe it.
Which said something about how truly fucked I was.
I tried to pull my attention back to my charts. I’d never had a harder time concentrating at work than I did today. It didn’t even have to do with the fact that my pocket kept buzzing as mysiblings continued to plan the family dinner that would be an absolute terror to get through without slipping up.
No, even if my phone was dead silent, I still wouldn’t have been able to concentrate. Because I was fucked in so many ways besides lying to my family. It was entirely my fault, considering I’d been the one to propose to Delaney. And that proposition had led to the events of yesterday, the ones where I’d married my best friend and kissed her in a way that wasn’t the least bit friendly.
I shouldn’t have done that. I should have given her a chaste kiss that wouldn’t have given anything away, like how much I’d been dying for that—dying for her mouth on mine, her taste on my tongue, her breath hitching because of my touch.
Fuck, I’d wanted it, had been wanting it, and the reality of it, ofher, was beyond anything I ever could have imagined.
Justthinkingabout that kiss and what she’d tasted like made me hard to the point of goddamn pain, and I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do about it. I’d never touched myself while thinking about Delaney before because I respected her too fucking much. I put her in a box labeled“friend, best” in my head and didn’t go near it or dare to open it with any thoughts in mind except for appropriate ones.
But that was before I knew what her lips felt like. That was before we’d gotten married and kissed—things that didn’t belong in a box labeled “friend, best.” And now I was going wild, drowning in desire without any relief.
But I’d had to kiss her like that.
For one, it was the only opportunity I’d ever probably get to kiss Delaney Delacroix—scratch that, London.
Delaney London.
Oh my fucking God.
I dropped my head into my hands in the spare exam room and groaned. A goddamn name wasn’t supposed to put me intothis much of a spiral. My cock wasn’t supposed to twitch in my fucking pants from just the thought of her name. But it wasn’t just her name anymore; it wasourname. Delaney thought it was best to take my name—with the exception of remaining Dr. Delacroix at work—to make this seem as real as possible, and fuck, did it feel real. Too real. And that was what undeniably drove me wild. That and the memory of that kiss.
I shouldn’t have given it to her, but I didn’t want our one and only kiss to be something she wouldn’t remember or something I’d regret. Not to mention, she’d shown up at that courthouse looking so fucking despondent, like she wasn’t sure if she should be making me do this, like this was the best and only wedding she would ever have, and maybe thatdidmake her a little bit sad—even if she didn’t want to admit that to herself.
There’d been a wistfulness in her; I’d seen it when she looked down at her dress, one that she’d worn before and reminded her of an upbringing that she despised. And all I’d wanted to do was kiss those thoughts away. I couldn’t go back in time and make sure she wore the wedding dress of her dreams or had a ceremony that wasn’t rushed through in a courthouse. But I could kiss her like any girl deserved to be kissed on their wedding day. It was the least I could do.
And then, Delaney had done something that I still couldn’t wrap my head around.
She’d responded.
She’d groaned into my mouth, and that little sound was going to reverberate through my entire being for the rest of my fucking life.
I’d known for years that Delaney and I had chemistry—chemistry that she viewed as a compatible friendship. And having proof that maybe that chemistry was a little bit more than she expected was both satisfying and destructive to my sanity.
I dragged a hand down my face and forced myself to stop thinking about it. I needed to get through the rest of the workday without losing my shit, and then I needed to figure out how to spend the evening in the same vicinity as Delaney while pretending I wasn’t simultaneously elated and depressed about being her (fake) husband.
I hadn’t exactly done a great job last night; I’d spent so much time preparing for the wedding—ensuring I had the ring, the license, the balls to kiss her—that I hadn’t thought much about what would happen immediatelyafterthe wedding. The result had been to order our favorite combination of pizza that we’d relied on so many times as starving med students—pineapple and pepperoni—while sitting on the couch in our wedding clothes and binging the last season ofNew Girl. Which was, arguably, the worst one.
Not a stellar first night as a husband, fake or not.
Checking my watch, I stood and took a deep breath. I’d been lingering in here for too long after my last patient and was going to be late for my next one if I didn’t pull it together. So I tucked Delaney deep in the corner of my mind in a box labeled “wife, fake”and“friend, best”and strode into the hallway, maneuvering around the nurses and other physicians until I found where I was supposed to be next.
This was a new patient, but I’d met her dad on a number of occasions. It was one of those tricky things about being a doctor; you never really wanted to see someone you know end up in one of your exam rooms because that rarely meant something good for them.
But I was providing a second opinion today, and from what I knew, the first opinion was good news for the patient.
I heard the sound of a giggling toddler before the door was even open, and I smiled as I greeted Gracie Elez-Everett first, bending down to say hi before turning to her parents—her veryfamous, very high-profile parents, who were also some of Noah’s best friends from college.
“Hey, man,” Grayson said first, shaking my hand with a firm grip. “Thank you so much for fitting us into your schedule.”
“Yes, thank yousomuch,” his wife, Nessa, echoed. “We’re so grateful that you were able to meet with us.”
“It’s my pleasure,” I said honestly. I’d always liked these two. “I’m sure your schedule is a hell of a lot busier than mine.” I paused in thought, cocking my head at Grayson, who played in the NFL like Noah. “Have mini camps started for you yet? I know they haven’t for Noah, but I don’t know enough about it to know if they are all at the same time or how that works.”
