Page 22 of Love or Leave (Mapleton #4)

seventeen

C ara was at her lab, bleary-eyed from the hours she'd spent that morning in front of her computer. But she'd be lying if she said the only thing giving her a headache was the blue light. She knew the headache was actually from the nightmarish situation she'd created for herself.

She pushed away from her desk and spun in her chair. It was only eleven thirty, but she was ready for her lunch break.

"I'm breaking," she called over her shoulder at Dr. Tanaka.

Dr. Tanaka spun in her chair. "Like, mentally?"

Cara managed a weak laugh. "Yes," she said, taking out her lunch bag and reaching for the pill bottle she kept inside for emergencies.

"I know it's brutal right now," Dr. Tanaka said, "but we're getting there."

Cara snorted and shook her head before popping a pain relief tablet in her mouth and chasing it with a swig of cold coffee from her mug.

They'd been collecting thousands of pages of data for the last few months and this week, they finally took on analyzing it.

The mountain of work was a welcome relief after the events of the weekend.

She hadn't even hesitated to work through her golf lessons.

On Tuesday, she'd already had enough of searching through spreadsheets.

Wednesday had been torture. It was now Thursday, and she was done.

At least the endless lines of data had thoroughly distracted her from the deep emotions Antonio had brought about.

"We are," Dr. Tanaka said, more enthusiastically this time. "I can feel it."

Cara couldn't feel it. She was pretty sure they were no further along than they had been on Monday. She pulled a sandwich from her lunch bag and spun away from her computer. Dr. Tanaka did the same, grabbing her lunch as she went.

"We should get a table here," Dr. Tanaka said with a smile.

Cara nodded and took a bite, noting the time on the wall so she'd know when to expect the pain medicine to move its way through her system and numb her pulsating head.

"You okay?"

Cara shrugged. "Headache. I'll be fine in twenty minutes."

Dr. Tanaka nodded and took a bite of her leftovers, but didn't seem to buy it. "Thanks for covering for me last week," she said. "I'm sorry I made you miss golf."

"That's okay."

Dr. Tanaka took another bite. "How was the meteor shower?"

"Good."

"And Margaret? How was she?"

Cara finally let out a little laugh. Margaret was the president of the Royal Astrological Society, and to call her intense would be an understatement. She was in her seventies, retired, and took her position seriously.

"She was… Margaret," she said.

Dr. Tanaka laughed for a second, then settled into a smile, and finally got back to her assessing look as she ate.

"And Golf Guy?" she asked. "What's going on with him?"

Cara huffed a sigh and shrugged. "I asked him to come with me to the observatory, but he wanted to work on his short game instead."

"Mmm," she said, showing no surprise.

Cara probably shouldn't have been surprised, either.

"He asked me out to a hockey game."

Dr. Tanaka turned up her nose.

"I know," Cara said. "I told him I'd let him know, but I've been so busy that I didn't know if I had it in me to sit through a whole three-hour hockey game."

Dr. Tanaka’s eyes double in size. "Three hours? That's how long they play?"

Cara nodded.

"Barf. When's the game?"

"Tonight," she said, pulling her phone from her bag. "I actually haven't checked my messages in a while…"

Cara opened her messages and paused. She had a text from Antonio.

She hadn't heard from him since the weekend when they waved goodbye to each other and parted ways. As much as she wanted to talk to him and see him, she refused to initiate the communication. She knew that any interaction at all with him would just make things worse.

Why did she think she could have sex with him and sleep in his big spoon and not fall in love?

Why?!

"Everything okay?"

She looked up at Dr. Tanaka and winced. She'd told no one what happened, obviously, because they were lying to all their friends. The only person she could talk to about it was Antonio, and that wasn't going to happen.

Cara dropped her chin. "You know how I went to a bachelorette party last weekend?"

Dr. Tanaka slowly lowered her fork to her dish as her eyes widened. "Yes."

Cara sucked in a breath and braced herself. "While I was there, I slept with my brother's friend."

Dr. Tanaka fell back into her chair. "Oh my God," she said. "I thought you were going to tell me something bad happened."

"That's not bad?" Cara asked, her voice coming out all squeaky. "I'm pretty sure I fell in love with him."

Dr. Tanaka's eyes darted around. "What did your brother say?"

"He doesn't know."

"Oh," she said, looking down for a moment to collect her thoughts. "Are you going to… date him?"

Cara shook her head. "No. He's still in love with his wife."

Dr. Tanaka's eyes bulged.

"They're separated," she said. "It wasn't a cheating thing."

Dr. Tanaka settled back in her chair slightly, then let out a long whistle. "You should really lead with these updates on Monday mornings. Holding it in isn't good for your skin."

Cara bit into her sandwich. "I've been trying to forget it happened."

"But you can't?"

Cara shook her head and glanced back down at the screen in her hand. "He texted me, but I haven't read it," she said, staring at her phone. "I'm afraid to look."

"Maybe he likes you as much as you like him?"

Cara shrugged. "Would it matter? He's a walking red flag."

"How so?"

"He's still technically married. And he cheated on a girl before. He's very good at lying. He's ten years older than me. And Max doesn't trust him."

Dr. Tanaka nodded in agreement.

"If Max doesn't even trust his own friend, how could I?"

"Maybe you should read the text."

Cara scrunched her face, released it with a sigh, and unlocked her phone. She read the text out loud.

Antonio: Hey, just reaching out to see if we're okay.

A moment of silence passed between Cara and Dr. Tanaka.

"Reaching out?" Dr. Tanaka asked. "He said reaching out?"

Cara looked down, then back up. "Yup. Sounds like a work email."

"To see if we're okay?"

Cara nodded.

"What are you going to do?"

Cara shrugged. She literally had no clue.

Ignoring her feelings was impossible, but she knew she couldn't date Antonio.

Just then, her phone pinged with another text.

She looked down, expecting another message from Antonio. Maybe one that didn't sound so stiff and impersonal. But when she opened her phone, she saw it was from Jalen.

"Now golf guy just messaged."

Dr. Tanaka let out a low whistle. "When did your life get so exciting?"

Cara rolled her eyes. "He wants to know if I'm going to the game with him tonight."

Dr. Tanaka loaded her fork with pad thai and stuffed it into her mouth. "Are you?"

Cara flopped back in her chair. "What would you do?"

"Forget him," she said around a mouthful of food. "Forget both of them."

Cara raised an eyebrow. "But golf guy isn't bad. Right?"

Dr. Tanaka placed her lunch on her lap and gave Cara her full attention.

"You want to find your person, right?"

"Yeah…" she said trepidatiously, a little afraid of the intensity coming off Dr. Tanaka.

"And you know you're never going to be happy spending your life going to hockey games, or golfing, or everything else this guy is dragging you to, right?"

"Yeah, I guess," she said.

"So why waste your time?"

"Well, most guys like sports. You don't have to have everything in common with someone to make a relationship work, do you?"

If she had to find someone who was just like her, she’d be alone forever.

"No, but there are fewer things to fight about later."

Cara shrugged and opened the conversation with Jalen. At least his text sounded like a human wrote it to another human he cared about.

"I'm saying yes to the hockey game," Cara said with a shrug. "I have nothing better to do and I could use a night out. And this will give me one more chance to see if there's anything there before cutting things off."

She typed out a falsely enthusiastic response to Jalen.

Cara: I'm free and I'd love to go to the game with you tonight.

With a decisive nod, Cara hit send. There. Done.

"What are you going to do about brother's friend guy?"

Hmm… that was trickier.

Cara knew what she had to do. She had to forget about her feelings for Antonio and move on. Maturely. That way, they could still hang out as a group.

She was certain that eventually, as time went on, she'd realize that her feelings for him were nothing more than postcoital hormones. And when he reconciled with Fran, she would be happy for him.

She gathered her thoughts, then started typing.