Page 156 of When Wrecked Meets Ruined
“There is no us.”
“There’s still an us. There willalwaysbe an us.” He leaned back in his seat and looked up at the fairy lights entwined in the greens wrapped around the wooden rafters. “You can’t erase history.”
I took a sip of my beer, mulling over his words. I was half afraid to hear his answer but asked anyway. “Do you wish you could?”
“Sometimes, yeah, I do.”
I nodded as if I understood, but I didn’t. Did Ridge wish he could erasemefrom his history? Instead of dwelling, I asked the only question that mattered. “Are you happy, Ridge?”
He studied the bottle in his hand and took a long pull. “For the most part, yeah, I am.” His eyes locked on mine. “How about you? Are you happy?”
I forced a smile and nodded. “Yeah. I got my first choice of residency, and I’m looking forward to it.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
He was talking about my love life. “Ben asked me to marry him.” I watched his face for a sign that my words shocked or upset him, but his face remained impassive.
“But you shot him down.”
That was why Ridge hadn’t looked upset. He already knew. “Did Quinn tell you?”
He shook his head. “Nah. I stopped asking about you.” Ouch. That hurt. But then again, hadn’t I done the same? “You’re not wearing a ring,” he pointed out.
I looked down at my bare hand as if I needed a reminder.
“Why did you say no?”
Because he’s not you. Which was stupid. I loved Ben but not the way he deserved to be loved. Madly. Deeply. That soul-shattering way made you feel like you couldn’t live without each other. I missed him after we broke up, but I wasn’t heartbroken. “I guess I wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment. And now that I’ll be in Austin, the long-distance thing never would have worked.”
“How do these residencies work?” he asked.
I welcomed the subject change. It was safe territory. “I’m doing a three-year emergency medicine residency, and at the end of it, I’ll be an ER doctor.”
“So you apply for the residency like you apply to college or med school?”
“Yeah, kind of. It’s similar, I guess. You narrow it down to your top choices, and if they’re interested, they call you for an interview. Then, on Match Day in March, you find out which program you’re paired with, and I got my first choice.”
He thought about that for a moment. “First choice, huh? And how many programs did you apply to in Dallas?”
That sneak.Ridge’s questions had been designed to prove a point, and this had been his end game all along. I played it off. “Does it matter?”
He shrugged. “Not for me. But if I was in love with someone and knew their job and their life was in Dallas, I would have done anything it took to stayin Dallas. Then again,” he said, his gaze flitting over my face and landing on my mouth. “If I was Bob the Builder… I would have found a way to make you stay. Unless, of course, I knew you didn’twantto stay.”
I opened my mouth to defend Ben or myself, I wasn’t sure, but Ridge’s phone rang before I could. He checked the screen, hiding it from my view, and silenced the call.
I wondered if it was Carina on the phone. Where was she, and why wasn’t she here?
He pushed his hand through his hair and seemed almost surprised that there wasn’t as much of it as there used to be. His arm dropped to the back of the sofa, and he looked distracted or torn as if he was debating whether he should have taken the call instead of refusing it.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“I…” He let out a heavy breath. His phone started ringing again, and he cursed under his breath.
“You should probably answer that.”
He silenced his phone again. “I’ll call her back.”
Which confirmed my suspicions that itwasCarina. A blatant reminder that he had a girlfriend. Meanwhile, we were getting cozy on the couch while he was blowing her off. So wrong.
