Chapter 19—Emma

We stood like little kids not knowing what to do as we waited for our bags. We’d left the plane like robots. Once in a while we would look at each other and smile. I didn’t know what to say to him. “Hey Sebastian, it was great but we’re back home now, so no more bumping and grinding. Okay?”

Kent and Paul made all the noise. They were like little kids that had taken too much candy. They got excited about every little thing.

Whereas Sophia was quiet. She’d spent most of her time sleeping on the flight. Then as we landed and needed to get off the plane, she used me as a balance so that she wouldn’t break her neck as she tried to walk in her three-inch heels.

She was apparently even more tired than I was. We should have had a little girly chat, but I assumed that she wasn’t in the mood for it. I knew that I wasn’t because I’d started to feel anxious about everything, including Sebastian. I would glance at him, but he would avoid my stare.

Finally we collected our bags and it was time to leave.

“Are we getting the same car?”

My question was directed at Sebastian, but his eyes darted to Mason. “Our car’s over there; we’ll drop you off.”

I was just about to reply when I saw that Mason was pointing to a man in jeans and a shirt. Presumably their driver. Before I could respond Sophia blurted out, “No. We’ll just get a taxi.”

“Oh?”

She avoided my stare, but the lump on my throat stuck because Sebastian just nodded at me. I stood frozen, watching the back of him as he walked away. I had expected him to say something. Anything, just to let me know that what had happened wasn’t just staying in Vegas. And that’s when he stopped and turned back to me.

Phew!

“Oh, Doc. Just send me a message when you want to book me in for my appointments.”

This time I didn’t even nod. I wanted to do a lot more than that. He didn’t wait for confirmation that I’d heard him as he walked away with the other guys.

“Emma, let’s go. I need a shower and to chill.”

I sighed. “I thought that you did that on the plane. You slept most of the journey.”

She giggled. “Yeah Mason wore me out. But now it’s back to reality and tomorrow morning I need to be at work. I’ve got a big stint on.”

She wasn’t the only one. I had to go to work and the worst part of it was that I’d broken the rules. I’d slept with a player. Not only once but all fucking weekend and all he could do was pretend that I didn’t exist.

“I’m coming,” I said half-heartedly. Perhaps she’d see that I was upset and maybe she wouldn’t want to go home alone after all. Not only did I feel like a chat, but a bit of cry, too.

***

As soon as we got to her place, Sophia invited me to come in. Just what the doctor had ordered. As I walked down her hallway I looked at my phone. There was a message from Sebastian and my heart skipped a beat. I thought for a minute that he would regret the way we had parted and want to say something more.

Don’t forget about my check-ups!

Seriously, the man had gone from someone who didn’t want to be examined to being obsessed in the space of minutes.

Men!

“Your brother drives me mad!” I screamed out as she passed me a glass of wine. It was a bit too early in the evening to be drinking, but the way I was feeling, I couldn’t even think about telling her to take away the glass. I needed to get rid of this feeling right now.

“Steady on!” She laughed as she watched me finish the glass in one go and then put it on the table.

“I’m not giving you another glass if you want to get drunk.”

“Sophia why is your brother such a prick?”

She shook her head and said, “About that. Do you mind if we don’t talk about it?”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged, which meant that she had something to say on the subject and it was something that I didn’t want to hear. She avoided eye contact, which meant that whatever it was that she was bottling up inside, it was a big deal.

“Can you quit with the dramatics already and just spit it out?” I lost patience as she stood up and moved away from me. I watched her pace up and down for a while and then I decided that I was on a mission. The only thing that I felt like doing was getting totally drunk, so I started refilling my glass.

“Okay, I know that you and Sebastian got it on. I just don’t want to know any more. Well, not from you and certainly not from him. He’s my brother and there are some things that I don’t want to know about him.”

“I’ll say”

“I’m serious Emma. Can you stop drinking for one minute and just hear me out?”

I shook my head. “Are you saying that you never dragged me to Vegas to hook up with your brother to make him feel better? And yourself, judging by the way that you and Mason were all over each other last night.”

I waved my hand in the air, feeling as if the wine was starting to take effect. It had been hours since I’d last eaten and Sophia’s statement had rocked me the wrong way and already I was regretting my words. I knew that she wasn’t like that and I was being a bitch. But I had to vent on someone and seeing as I couldn’t do it with Sebastian, she was the obvious choice.

“Hold on. You know that’s not true. I’ll get you something to eat and then we can talk.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to eat. I just want to be left alone.”

A tear escaped my eye as flashes of the way that he’d ignored me at the airport ran through my mind.

“You like him a lot don’t you?”

She said as she started to stroke my hair and hold me in her arms.

“Maybe a lot more than I’ve ever realized, and it didn’t hit home until now. I think that all this time I thought that he was the one with the schoolboy crush.”

She lifted my head up and said, “I shouldn’t have let you go to Vegas. I didn’t realize that you never knew that Sebastian felt the same way about you as you did about him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Emma, you may be beautiful and a doctor. But for such an intelligent woman, you’re kind of blind.”

She was talking in riddles and none of them made any sense to me.

“Emma you used to have men looking at you at college. Even trying to date you. The only person you wanted to hang around with was Sebastian. He liked playing chess and so did you. He loved reading Jane Austen and so did you. The pair of you acted as if you spoke some unknown language that no one understood apart from the two of you. I don’t know. Part of me thought that maybe he was the reason that you stayed away.”

I wipe a tear from my eye and said, “I never knew.”

She held onto me and sighed. “Now you do. What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing. It’s clear that Sebastian has been curious for years. Now he’s got what he wanted and I need to move on.”

She kept on stroking me and I felt like a fool. I had been so blind to think that one weekend in Vegas would permanently open up a door for Sebastian and me. If I’d listened to my senses I never would have opened it in the first place.

“I’m such a fool,” I sobbed into her arms.

“No, I’m such a bitch. I knew that this would end in tears and like a coward I didn’t want to talk about it. You’re my best friend and I’m not going to lose you again. Not even if you fell under the spell of my brother.”

I didn’t want this to come between them; it slowly started to dawn on me what she had been trying to tell me from the start. It wasn’t about whatever happened sexually between Sebastian and me. She didn’t want to get caught in the middle. I couldn’t blame her, and I didn’t want to put her in that position, but I had to cry right now. Get it out of my system and the only person I could do that with was my best friend.