Page 31 of Sister of the Bride

“Is this…confusion?” Toby asks. He reaches for his flashlight thing, and I realize he thinks my brain is melting because I ran into a lamppost. But actually my brain is melting because my mom is selling our family home and our family business and basically putting me out on the street with no job and no place to live. And even though I tried to run off the pain and confusion of that, it’s still with me in a big way.

“No,” I say, working to hold back some of the tears. I take a deep, shuddering breath and manage to calm down a little bit. “Mom just told us that she and Nonna are selling the building and Marino’s so they can retire and I can finally live my dream, whatever the fuck that means.”

Toby’s jaw drops fully, which—thank you—is the proper reaction. Of course Toby gets it. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. They’re going to retire to Nantucket, and Polly is getting married and becoming a professional art history nerd, and I’m getting fired from running a spaghetti joint, and oh yeah, also I’ll be homeless.” I lean back on the sad excuse for a hospital pillow and stare at the neon lights flickering above my head.

“Jeez, Pip. That really sucks.”

It’s the exact right thing to say. I don’t want to hear about how it’ll all be fine, even though that’s rational. I don’t need rational right now. I need to sob like Vada and have someone commiserate. And the fact that Toby knows that makes my heart swell in my chest. It reminds me of how precious my friendship with Toby is and how much I don’t want to lose it. Especially not when I’m about to lose everything else.

Suddenly, beyond the curtain, I hear a gravelly voice talking about a CT scan, and Toby jumps off his stool. “Okay, I think you probably have a mild concussion but nothing serious. So why don’t we get out of here before someone takes your insurance information and charges you five hundred dollars for that Band-Aid on your head. Can you walk?”

I blink at him. “Wait, is this illegal?”

“I mean, not really? Sort of? It’s not like I gave you IV antibiotics or an X-ray. You literally sat on a bed and I put some alcohol and a Band-Aid on your cut, then determined that you’re probably not bleeding into your brain.”

My mouth drops open. “Wait,probably?”

Toby smiles and reaches for my hand to pull me off the bed. “Hey, I’m new, and this is free. You want me to perform a craniotomy?”

I shake my head. “I’ve seen enough medical shows to know that the answer isabsolutely not.”

The voice that was rambling about CT scans suddenly goes quiet, and we hear footsteps. I suspect this is the feared/dreaded Dr. Hollister, and while part of me is eager to find out whatGrey’s Anatomycharacter he most resembles, the other part—the part that knows my insurance falls into the “solidly meh” category—is happy to motor.

I stand up from the bed and am thrilled when I don’t feel a zap of pain in my noggin. That’s got to be a good sign regarding any potential brain bleeds. “I’m good, let’s go.”

Toby takes my hand and pulls me through the emergency department, and even though there’s a blond guy in a Wicked Pissah T-shirt barfing into a pink plastic bucket, and even though I just moments ago resolved to stop thinking about it, I smile a little at the spark that ignites where our palms meet.

Chapter14

Toby

Singing in the shower is fun until you get soap in your mouth. Then it’s a soap opera.

Pippin

How did you get into medical school?

The garden apartment of Toby’s parents’ Louisburg Square town house is a barely contained mess.

It wasn’t always this way, of course. When Toby and I were growing up, the space was mostly reserved for visiting grandparents or friends of the family, with shiny antiques, a heavy leather sectional, and an assortment of art that could have been valuable or left over from a hotel decor fire sale—I could honestly never tell. But upon Toby’s return to Boston for residency, Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan offered the space to him so he could save him money on rent and be close to the hospital.

And in return, he has turned the place into a nerd frat house.

Immediately inside the door is a pile of discarded shoes, T-shirts, and sweatshirts, the whole heap topped with the backpack he usually carries to the hospital (and I don’t even want toimaginewhat kind of germs live on that thing). There are scrub tops and pants discarded throughout the living room like light blue confetti, and there are half-full glasses of water left behind on nearly every surface. Part of me wonders if I need a hazmat suit just to walk in the door.

Once a disorganized slob, always a disorganized slob, apparently. This is just a larger version of what Toby’s room looked liked growing up, except back then it was an array of Dropkick Murphys T-shirts andCall of Dutyposters instead of scrubs. He also had a penchant for hiding junk food all over his bedroom like an overgrown Claudia Kishi. The only difference now is that he doesn’t have to hide it, as is evidenced by the family-size bag of Cool Ranch Doritos open on the kitchen island and the pile of fun-size Snickers bars. Apparently four years of undergrad, four years of med school, and one long-term live-in girlfriend couldn’t change any of his habits.

Bypassing at least four half-empty water glasses, Toby races into the kitchen and pulls down two fresh ones, filling them and passing one to me. Because this whole misadventure began with a run on the Esplanade, and yeah, I’m a little dehydrated after four miles and a header into a light pole.

After downing half my water, I look at Toby, still in his running shorts and a scrub top. I immediately flash back to the sight of him jogging down the Esplanade in all his shirtless glory and nearly choke on a mouthful of water.

“You okay?” he asks.

Yeah, just picturing you half naked. “When did you get into running?” I ask instead. “Because back in high school, you said you’d only run if a tsunami rose out of the Charles River and made it the quarter mile inland through Beacon Hill to your house.”

“And even then I probably would have just let the water take me, I know,” he says with a laugh that brings out his dimple. All of a sudden I want to reach up and run my finger over it like this is some kind of soft-core porn.

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