Page 44 of Feels Like Love
“Mm-hmm.” He laughed. “I nearly killed him.”
I blinked a few times, my hands stilling. “So, the guy—the jealous boyfriend—just…got away with it?”
“Yeah.” He scoffed. “Pretty crazy, right?”
“Yes.” I brushed my fingers over his forehead, down his nose, over his lips. They parted, and my finger got stuck on his plump bottom lip momentarily. His breathing was shaky, and it seemed as if we were suspended in time. I didn’t know what we were doing, and I didn’t care. I just wanted to keep touching him, listening to his voice.
My phone buzzed on the couch next to me, but I ignored it.
“Shouldn’t you get that?” Bennett asked.
“It’s fine,” I said.
But when it vibrated again, Bennett glanced over his shoulder to look at the screen. As did I. I knew the moment he saw the LoveBirds alert flashing there. I had a new message. I should’ve been more excited, but I was too focused on the man before me.
“I should get to bed.” He stood, and I watched him as if in a daze. “I’d hate to stand in the way of true love.”
Why?Why now? And why that stupid app?
I laughed, though the sound was nervous to my ears. “True love. Right.”
But then it hit me. I was staring right at him. At this man I’d known my whole life. The past few weeks, it felt as if I were seeing him for the first time.
I stood, giving his arm a squeeze. “Good night, Bennett. Sleep well.”
He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Sweet dreams, Wren.”
I’d never realized the power of such a simple, sweet gesture. And I melted beneath his touch.
As I brushed my teeth, the LoveBirds app flashed with another new notification, mocking me. With a huff, I grabbed my phone and clicked over to the app. I had a new match. I couldn’t see the guy’s face. It was a black-and-white profile shot and he had on a baseball hat, so it was difficult to tell what he looked like.
I scanned his profile. Ben. Early thirties. Alondra Valley. Doctor.
He was a foodie and an animal lover.
I frowned. His profile didn’t give me much to go on, and I wanted to be mad at him for interrupting my moment with Bennett. Not that Ben had known, but still.
I plugged in my phone and climbed into bed. As I replayed the evening and the past weekend, I couldn’t help but wonder why a man like Bennett was single. He was perfect.
Okay. No one was perfect, but he was pretty dang close. He was responsible, patient, caring, loyal. He was nurturing. He’d make an amazing dad. And he was hot. Man, was he hot. His forearms alone deserved a billboard.
He literally ticked all the boxes, except for one. He was my brother’s best friend. He was off-limits.
I’d tried to push all those feelings from my mind, but the more time we spent together, the harder they were to ignore. I’d always crushed on Bennett, but that seemed simple now compared to how I was feeling. Because what I was experiencing felt a lot like love. Which was crazy, right?
Chapter Eleven
Iwoke up more refreshed than I had in a long time. As I drove to the clinic, I thought about last night with Wren. The way she’d touched me, listened to me. I’d never had a woman look at me the way she had—with reverence and affection. Adoration, even. But then her phone had buzzed with an alert from that damn dating app, and the spell had been broken.
I parked my car and headed inside the clinic. It was time to get back to reality. At the house, it was easy to get sucked into the fantasy that Wren and I were a couple, and the three of us were a family. But every time she got a notification from LoveBirds or talked about dating, my bubble burst. Yet, foolishly, I kept trying to re-erect it. Trying to pretend that she and River belonged to me just as much as my heart belonged to the two of them.
“Good morning, Dr. Nash,” Stacy said. She staffed the front desk and kept my practice organized and running smoothly.
“Good morning.” I grabbed the stack of mail from her desk and tried to ignore the women checking me out in the waiting room. “What do we have on the schedule for today?”
“A few checkups. A few sick visits. And one surgery.”
“Great. Anything else?” I asked, thinking it all sounded fairly standard.
