Page 3 of Falling for Ezra Thomas
By the time we reach the town house, I know I need to clarify things with Lorelai…only, they’re about as clear as mud for me. I should have been a man and ignored my sudden urge to kiss her. However, that checklist of things I happen to know about my friend has suddenly become more…enticing.
Beck parks and immediately opens his door, ready to get inside and end tonight.
“What am I doing?” I groan and scrub my hands over my face. I cannot entertain thoughts of getting involved with Lorelai. It’s a horrible idea, and one that I’m going to have to explain to my brother, my best friend, and to Lorelai without making all of them hate me in the process.
“You coming?” Beck screams and throws his arms in the air.
I push my door open and navigate the icy lot as best as I can. If I hadn’t up and kissed Lore, we could have slept on their sofas, but no. I had to act like an impulsive teenager and make out with her, then get caught and embarrass her to the point she didn’t even want to see me, let alone talk to me, before I left.
Halfway to the town house door, something occurs to me.
I didn’t just kiss her.
Ikissedher…and she kissed meback.
A lot.
And if Beck and Vivien hadn’t walked in on us, we mightstillbe kissing.
I run my hands through my hair, slip, and fall on my side.
“Are you okay?” Beck calls.
I raise one hand in a thumbs up and take a second to stare at the stars, but they’re blotted out by the snowflakes tumbling down all around me. I can’t help wondering what I’m doing with my life. I was so pulled to join the Army, I didn’t even talk to my parents about it. Not my twin, not even our pastor. I thought about it for a few weeks, prayed about it, then went down to the recruiting station and signed up.
Then I waited.
Time passed, and no time seemed like the right time to tell my family. Still, I can’t bring myself to regret my decision to join…until now. Right this second, staring up at the night sky studded with stars and snowflakes, I’m beginning to question everything I thought I wanted, everything I thought God was telling me to do, and there isn’t a single thing I can do about it.
Chapter Three
Lorelai
“You go that way,and I’ll go this way. Meet me around the back and hopefully we’ll corner it!” Panic prickles my skin from my head to my toes, but I override my instinct to run in the opposite direction and away from my psychotic patient. My assistant, Susan, slips on the highly polished floor and almost completes a perfect split before twisting herself in acrobatic fashion upright again. I, however, am not as lucky. I slip, fall, and bash both knees on the floor.
It’s official. I hate being a veterinarian. I love practicing medicine, but chasing someone’s pet squirrel around a two-story, 25,000 square foot specialty and emergency veterinary clinic is not my idea of a good time, especially when I’m missing another family gathering. I’d rather be there with people who love and care about me than stuck chasing a ferocious rodent who, I’m almost positive, has put a hit out on me.
On the other hand, if I’m not at the gathering, then I don’t have to have awkward and tense non-communication with EzraThomas, which is like waiting for someone to hit the red button after entering nuclear codes at the opening of World War III. No one wants to admit that what we did—a stolen kiss that never should have happened—has created a chasm in the peaceful existence we once had. We rocked a boat we shouldn’t have even been in, and it’s costing everyone their sanity.
I push off the floor and follow Susan.
“It got away. Go back! Go back!” Susan yells, waving me back, but I don’t see which direction the squirrel went, so I’m traveling blind. I look all around and cannot find our naughty patient. I turn once more and finally figure out where he is because he lands on my head, screeching like something from my nightmares. He digs his little claws into my scalp and won’t let go.
“Get it off! Get it off!” I scream, spinning in circles.
“Hold still!” Susan cries, dancing around me in a haphazard attempt to free me from the clutches of the most despicable vermin the world has ever seen. I’ll swear to anyone who asks, this creature has had it out for me from the second I opened its carrier.
“I got it!” Tony yells, then plunks a bucket over my head.
“I can’t see!” I try to stay upright, but I’ve got no prayer. I go down with Tony, the squirrel, the bucket, and what is left of my pride. My rear end slams on the floor while one leg goes one way and the other leg sprawls the other way, splitting my pants with a rip that echoes down the hallway.
The bucket falls off along with the squirrel—Mr. Nuts, because why not—and Susan and Tony leave me lying on the floor, half broken, with ripped scrub pants, hair flying everywhere, and possibly a broken rear end. I lift myself up while they go another round. I’m exhausted, haven’t had a day off in three weeks, and everything hurts. It isn’t supposed to be like this. I was meant tograduate, find a great residency, then work a few years alongside some great doctors before opening my own practice.
“Lorelai!” Susan’s scream meets me only a breath before Mr. Nuts soars through the air and latches onto my shoulder. I scream and flail, but it’s no use. He gets his little teeth dug so deep into my shoulder, Tony has to pry him off. With each tug, Mr. Nuts growls and I whimper, but he finally extricates those long teeth from my flesh.
“Lore, I’m sorry. I thought I had him with the bucket. I’m really sorry,” he says. The poor guy means it, too. If anyone knows how I feel every day, it’s the veterinary technicians and assistants. They keep late hours, too. Work holidays. Run on coffee and prayer right alongside me, but they handle it better. I’m falling apart, and I just can’t do it anymore.
“I know, Tony. It’s okay. I better go get this bite cleaned up and change my pants. At least we know he doesn’t have rabies.” I stumble down the hallway, holding my bleeding shoulder. My pants split up the back, thinking about Ezra Thomas the whole way to the doctors’ lounge. My heart breaks all over again, just like it does every day. Several times a day. All I can do is replay our last interaction. The last one that mattered, anyway.
