Page 15 of Done with You

“I can pretend I’ve only just met you,” he said, in a last-ditch effort to get her to change her mind. “I mean, in theory, I have. Last night I met Luna Love.”

Something weird passed behind her eyes, but it was there and then it was gone. He couldn’t place the emotion she just felt, couldn’t even put a label on it, but the closest he could come to describing it was envy. Like she envied her alter ego. But why? Couldn’t she just be Luna Love if she wanted to? Act like Luna even when she wasn’t on stage? He didn’t get it.

Did this chick have split personalities? Would he meet a Russian mobster named Uri in a few minutes?

She shook her head. “We can’t.” Nibbling on her bottom lip like she had last night, she cast her gaze toward his file. “But I um …” That ice-cold wall she’d built around herself showed signs of a fissure. Her shoulders dropped away from her ears a little, and the color in her cheeks faded to a pretty pink. He suddenly saw glimpses of Luna from last night. “I like you, Aiden. And even though I can’t be your therapist because of the conflict of interest, perhaps … maybe we could go out again?”

A fresh, warm rush of frustration sprinted up his spine like someone behind him had just scraped the pointed, hot edge of a knife along his vertebrae. “What the actual fuck? Are you kidding me right now?”

He practically heard the walls around her get thicker and the bricks stack higher. That fissure sealed up fast, and the woman in front of him hardened to granite.

“So because I’ve seen all your tattoos and know what your pussy tastes like, you can’t keep me on as a client, but you’re asking me out? Isn’t that a conflict of interest and unethical?”

“I haven’t treated you, so no,” she enunciated through clenched teeth. He could see the regret in her eyes and ignored the flickers of guilt in his belly. He was too angry to care.

Huffing a laugh, he shook his head. “You’re a real piece of work, Dr. Young. Real piece of fucking work.”

He knew he was stretching. He knew he was just adding fuel to the fire, goading her. Pushing her buttons and pushing her away. It was what he did best. Make them angry, so they get angry back. Call him an asshole, because he is one. He had no doubts about that.

“But I’m going to have to pass. Thanks. You’ve read my file, so you know my shit. I’m not interested in dating someone who knows all my secrets, when apparently, she has a buttload of her own. Not exactly fair, you know.”

Her back straightened, and her gaze flew up to his. With each even breath, her nostrils flared, but it took several agonizing heartbeats for her to speak. “I will do my best to find you another therapist,” she bit out the words once more.

“Whatever.” He turned to go, the blaze of rage burning everything inside of him to the point where he thought he might start to breathe fire. His hand rested on the door handle. He could feel his career, everything he’d worked so hard for, slipping away and it hurt like a gunshot to the gut. He wanted her to feel a bit of his pain. To know what she was doing to him. “You weren’t good in bed anyway.” Then he left, making sure to slam the door behind him, so she couldn’t see the shame that he knew was all over his face, because how could it not be when it filled his entire soul.

Chapter Four

The full weight of Oona’s humiliation pressed down on her shoulders like two large birds of prey, waiting for her tattered heart to leave her chest so they could feed on it.

Her temples throbbed with an angry supply of blood as she stood behind her desk, staring at the closed door of her office. She had no idea how long she stood there, but it was a while.

By the time her breathing finally reached a point where she wasn’t going to see spots if she moved too quickly, Oona gathered her wits—or what remained of them—and slowly, methodically left her office.

She walked down the hall two doors, and didn’t bother knocking when she turned the handle. The space was identical to her own setup. A small waiting room with two chairs and a side table with magazines, as well as a door leading into the main office.

While her office had a big fern and a Buddha fountain, this office had a palm tree and small Easter Island Moai statue.

Voices on the other side of the door had her sitting down in one of the two empty chairs, and just as her butt hit the seat, the door opened. “All right, we’ll see you next week. Take care, Viola.”

“Thank you, Dr. McRobb,” the woman said, offering a small, embarrassed smile at Oona before quickly vacating the waiting room.

Dr. McRobb’s dark brown eyes lasered in on Oona and their brows shot up under the aquamarine shock of hair that tumbled over their forehead. “I didn’t think I had another appointment until one.”

“I messed up,” Oona said.

Dr. McRobb smiled, rolled their eyes, then tilted their head to indicate that Oona should step into their office. Dr. McRobb was nonbinary, which meant—at least in their case—that although they were assigned female at birth, they did not feel overly female or overly male. As they often said, “I just feel like a person.” So their preferred pronouns were they/them.

“What’s going on, Oons?” Dr. McRobb—or Teal—to their friends, asked. Because Oona and Teal were friends. Actually, Teal was Oona’s supervisor. Even though Oona had her PhD and could practice psychology, she still had a supervisor for a little longer, which she didn’t mind. She and Teal were friends more than anything. She went to Teal with her work issues, life issues, and now, in this case boy issues.

Teal turned on the electric kettle at their tea station, which was set up on top of a filing cabinet, and then sat down in the chair beside Oona, rather than the one behind their desk. “Spill.”

Oona tipped her head back against the chair and let out a sigh. “I slept with a client.”

“You what?!” Normally, Teal was the most even-toned person around. Not much ruffled their turquoise feathers, except this.

“It’s not like that,” she quickly said, taking in Teal’s petrified expression. “He wasn’t a client when I slept with him last night. We gave each other fake names. It turns out he was my new client.”

“The super broken cop with PTSD and anger issues?”

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