Page 130 of Hold Me Instead
“No. I’m not selling it.”
“And Chicago?”
Zachary looked around the living room, still petting Maple absentmindedly. “I don’t want to go back to Chicago. Nothing there for me.”
Jordan grinned. “First, I’ll just get this out of the way and say, as your friend, that’s awesome. You can crash here as long as you need while you figure shit out.”
Zachary laughed, bracing his arms on his knees. “Thanks, man.”
“You’ve clearly got a lot of shit to figure out.”
Zachary sighed. “Yeah, I know.”
“So the practice. You’re taking it on. Do you want to do it alone?”
Zachary shook his head. “No.”
“Do you want a random partner?”
“No.”
“Who do you want? Your dad?”
“God, no. No. He’s retiring anyway.” Zachary thought of Charlie, how they enjoyed discussing patients together. How smoothly things operated, how fluidly they moved about the office. How they had each other’s back. “I want Charlie. We work really well together, and she’s amazing for the practice. It needs her.”
“Those are all really great reasons,” Jordan said almost gently. “Doesn’t really address the ‘love’ element, does it?”
“Did you take counseling classes or something? You sound like my sister,” Zachary grumbled.
Jordan shrugged. “I get to hone my skills at both jobs. Talking through things with children and straightening out drunk adults. Thanks for giving me practice on both. So?”
Zachary could hardly process the jab, more focused on Charlie. And his swimming head. “She won’t work with me, after telling me how she feels.”
“How do you know for sure?”
Zachary pushed up to stand and paced. Maple perked for a moment, then placed her head on the floor between her paws, promptly falling asleep.
“What if we do this? What if we go for it, and it starts off really great, because it’s been really great so far? Then what if we don’t work out? What do we do then? At that point, we’re working together, and we know that is great. I don’t want to ruin that.”
“Uh.” Jordan shook his head. “Let me see if I follow—you want her, you want her to be part of the practice, but you’re worried what would happen if your relationship didn’t work.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t know,” Jordan said.
“I don’t know either!”
Jordan watched him pace. Then he repeated slowly, “You want her. And you want the practice. So, I think the person you need to ask is…”
Zachary finally stopped in front of him. “Her.”
Jordan nodded.
“It’s stupid, isn’t it? To sign into business together? Before, when she mentioned it, she said we would figure it out.”
Jordan shrugged. “Fuck, it’s risky as hell to go into business with anyone you care about. Look at Mel. She’s got her bar, hired her best friend as her manager, and they fight all the time. They somehow don’t let it affect anyone else though, they’ve made it work. You’ve gotta decide which risk is worth taking: being with her knowing your relationship could fall apart—maybe even the practice—or working with her without pursuing whatever it is you guys have going.”
“I can’t just ignore what we’ve got going.”
