Page 9 of The Single Dad Grump Next Door (Stuck Together In Mermaid Shores)

Chapter Nine: Alina

L ast night, it had been strange seeing Gabe Sterling like that—laughing, smiling, and totally unguarded. Even at Juilliard, when we weren’t actively at each other’s throats, he was cold and stoic around me at the best of times, like someone had sculpted him from stone and forgotten to add warmth. I knew I was the same way, though. Yet, somehow, Gabe always seemed to have more friends than me.

Whatever. The point is, his daughter obviously brings out the best in him. Also, apparently, only under the cover of night will he allow that good side to truly come out.

Now, this morning, I’m trying really hard not to pay so much attention to him. At the same time, however, I refuse to stay inside the house just because I saw him and Wren walking back down to the beach as soon as the sun rose from its slumber beneath the horizon.

From where I’m sitting on the beach, the sight of Gabe tossing Wren up into the air, then catching her as she shrieks with delight, almost doesn’t seem real. My hand tightens around the handle of my coffee mug, the ceramic warm even through the fabric of my sleeve. It’s chilly this morning, and yet Wren has managed to coax her dad out of bed. Does she even know how much power she holds over him compared to everyone else who has ever known him?

I should look away, but I can’t. It’s like seeing a rare eclipse. Or some other kind of fleeting, inexplicable phenomenon.

After a few minutes, Karina plops down beside me on the sand and interrupts my confusing whirl of thoughts.

“Don’t stare too hard,” she teases. “You might actually burn a hole through him.”

“Very funny,” I mutter, pulling my knees up and wrapping my free arm around them.

Karina nudges me with her elbow. “It’s okay to admit he’s not the devil incarnate, you know. He seems like a really good dad. Even villains have layers.”

I roll my eyes. “Layers of smugness, maybe.”

She laughs and takes a sip of her tea. “You can keep telling yourself that, but I think you’re just mad because he’s kind of nice now. It doesn’t fit your narrative.”

Nice? Gabe Sterling? The same man who once locked me out of a practice room during our final exams? The same guy who spread rumors about how the only reason I got a spot in the CSO is because of pure nepotism?

I shake my head and take a sip of coffee, determined not to let Karina get under my skin. Whatever my narrative is, I’m not willing to let it be changed. I know the truth.

“People don’t change that much.”

“Maybe not,” she admits. “But it’s not like you’ve actually tried to talk to him like anyone other than your enemy. School is over, Alina. Also, you don’t even know why he left the orchestra.”

I stiffen. I haven’t told her about everything I learned when Gabe walked in on me in the basement. Actually, I didn’t even tell her that happened in the first place. No matter how much I dislike him, blabbing about his deceased wife doesn’t feel like the right thing to do. It’s not my tragedy to share.

“I’m not interested in knowing anything about him,” I lie, staring out at the waves.

Karina hums noncommittally, like she doesn’t believe me, but mercifully drops the subject. She stays beside me, sipping her tea as Wren’s giggles are carried toward us on the breeze.

I can’t stop watching the two of them, though. Gabe sets Wren down in the sand and starts digging a shallow trench with her, their heads bent close together. He doesn’t even seem to realize Karina and I are out here, huddled together up on the dunes. For a man who’s supposedly so frosty, he’s annoyingly good at being a total sweetheart.

Annoying being the key word here.

***

Later that day, I find myself in the waiting room of an orthopedic specialist’s office, my hands folded tightly in my lap to keep from fidgeting.

The walls are painted a calming shade of green, and there’s a faint whiff of antiseptic in the air. A couple old magazines sit on the table beside me, but I can’t bring myself to pick one up.

Andy is the one who insisted I come here, and even made the appointment for me. His old school friend, Dr. Hansen, owns the clinic and agreed to squeeze me in sooner than a regular patient might be able to see him. Part of me wanted to snap at Andy for overstepping more than one boundary by going ahead and coordinating this without my consent, but I’m also secretly grateful that someone else went ahead and set it up for me.

It makes skipping this whole thing—and avoiding the potential bad news—a lot harder. Ignoring the favor would be unbearably impolite, especially since Andy and Karina have been so accommodating.

I glance around the room. A middle-aged man with a knee brace taps on his phone while, nearby, a teenage boy leans against his mother, his wrist encased in a fluorescent green cast. They look relaxed, like they’re here for something minor and temporary. I wonder if they feel lucky. Or maybe they don’t think about these things the way I do, as if their futures hang in the balance with every doctor’s visit.

“Alina Sokolov?” a nurse calls from the doorway.

I rise, flexing my hands instinctively, and follow her down a short hallway and into the examination room. Every step feels heavier than the last with the weight of uncertainty pressing down on my shoulders.

I’m directed to a padded chair, where the nurse takes my vitals and asks a string of questions about my pain. How long have I been experiencing it? Where exactly does it hurt? On a scale of one to ten, how bad is it?

“Six or seven, usually,” I answer. Then, almost as an afterthought, I add, “But sometimes it’s worse.”

The nurse nods, jotting down notes on her clipboard before stepping out. The sound of the door clicking shut echoes softly, and then I’m alone in the small room with nothing but my thoughts. I take a deep breath, my fingers curling into my palms as I try to shake off the growing unease.

Dr. Hansen arrives a few minutes later. He’s a tall, reasonably handsome man in his early thirties with kind eyes and a relaxed demeanor that instantly reminds me of Andy’s easygoing nature. He’s wearing a white coat over business casual attire, and the clipboard in his hand is filled with what I assume to be the final judgment on how doomed I truly am.

“Hi, Alina.” He greets me with a smile that’s probably meant to be reassuring. “I’m Dr. Hansen. Andy’s told me great things about you. I understand you’re a professional violinist?”

“Yes,” I reply, keeping my voice as steady as I can manage. “For the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.”

“Impressive,” he says. “It’s always a pleasure meeting someone with such a deep dedication to their craft.”

I nod, unsure how to respond. My dedication has felt more like a curse lately.

He pulls up a stool and sits across from me, clipboard in hand. “So, tell me about what’s going on with your hands.”

I hesitate, suddenly aware of how exposed I feel. Still, I force myself to answer.

“It started as occasional stiffness a few months ago, mostly after long rehearsals. But now it’s constant aching and throbbing. Sometimes the pain shoots up into my forearms.”

“And it’s both hands?”

“Yes. Though the left is worse.”

“The one that you use to press on the strings, yes? To form the chords?” He badly mimics holding an invisible violin.

I don’t bother correcting his posture or wording, choosing to simply nod.

Dr. Hansen hums thoughtfully and sets his clipboard aside. “Let’s take a closer look, then.”

As he gently manipulates my wrists, bending and rotating them, I wince more than once. He asks me to squeeze his fingers, to press my palms flat against his, and to trace small circles in the air. Each movement sends a fresh jolt of pain shooting through me. By the time he’s done, my hands are trembling, and I feel like I’ve just gone through a particularly grueling rehearsal.

He sits back, frowning slightly. “There’s definitely some inflammation here, particularly in the tendons. Based on what you’ve described, it sounds consistent with repetitive stress injuries, possibly tendinitis or early signs of carpal tunnel syndrome.”

The words land like punches. Tendinitis. Carpal tunnel. I know those terms, obviously. I’ve heard horror stories about them from colleagues. What seems like a relatively harmless type of injury can be totally destructive to someone who relies on their hands to be graceful and painless so they can be controlled with absolute precision.

“What does that mean for my career?” I ask. I know my voice is too quiet and that I should probably speak up, but the doctor is nice enough to read my lips and not ask me to repeat myself. Maybe he can tell that one nudge in the wrong direction will cause me to start weeping in this little office.

Dr. Hansen leans forward, his expression serious but kind. “It means you need to take this very seriously. Rest is nonnegotiable. Continuing to push through the pain could lead to long-term, possibly permanent, damage.”

I swallow hard, my mouth suddenly dry. “But will it heal? Eventually?”

“With proper treatment, most cases improve significantly,” he says. “But it’s crucial that we address this now. I’d recommend a combination of rest, physical therapy, and anti-inflammatory medications. I’ll also prescribe something stronger for the pain in the short term. Also, an MRI or ultrasound will give us a clearer picture of the extent of the damage. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that will require surgery, but I would like to get a closer look just in case.”

Surgery . Goodness.

“And if the damage is… bad?” I can barely get the question out.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he says gently. “We’ll take it one step at a time, okay?”

The words are meant to be comforting, but they do little to quell the panic rising in my chest. There’s no official diagnosis for me yet, but it doesn’t feel like a reprieve. It feels like a waiting game—one where the stakes literally couldn’t be higher for me.

Dr. Hansen scribbles out a prescription and hands it to me. “Start with this, and we’ll follow up in a couple weeks. In the meantime, no violin. I know that someone like you might find that extremely difficult, but it’s doctor’s orders.”

I nod mechanically, clutching the piece of paper as though it’s both a lifeline and a prison sentence. My hands feel useless and foreign, like they no longer belong to me. The thought of setting my violin aside for even a day, let alone weeks or months, is unbearable. Without it, who am I?

I take an Uber back to the cottage. The prescription rests in my lap, the words blurring as tears prick at my eyes.

I try to tell myself that I’ll be fine. That this is temporary. That I’ll recover and all of this will be nothing but a tiny blip in my career’s very long and successful history.

But deep down, I can’t ignore the gnawing fear that my worst nightmare might already be unfolding.

***

When I get home, the house is eerily quiet. Karina and Andy are out, probably scoping out yet another wedding venue. The absence of noise makes the place feel too big.

I collect my violin from where I left it in the living room and set the case on the kitchen table, eyeing it warily. I haven’t touched it since I made a mess of myself in front of Gabe downstairs. I haven’t dared to. Maybe I should’ve told Dr. Hansen that I tried to practice through the pain recently and I’m still paying for consequences, but I’m not sure that would’ve changed anything.

The silence doesn’t last long. A weird knocking-scraping sound at the back door startles me out of my reverie of misery.

When I open it, Gabe is standing there, partly stooped over in the bushes on my side of the patio, looking about as awkward as I feel.

“Hi,” he says, scratching the back of his neck and standing upright immediately. “Uh, sorry. Wren left her bucket here earlier. It was in your hedges.”

I glance down at the sand-encrusted plastic toy he’s holding and nod. “Right. Okay.”

He doesn’t move to leave, though. Instead, his eyes flick to my hands, which I realize too late are trembling slightly. “You okay?”

It’s such a simple question, but it makes my defenses shoot up like a fortress wall. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Gabe tilts his head, studying me like he used to study sheet music. It’s unnerving. “You just seem… I don’t know. Never mind.”

“You’re nosier than I remember,” I snap, regretting it instantly. I don’t know why I can’t seem to hold myself back from lashing out at him, but I’m painfully aware of how childish it makes me seem.

Instead of retaliating, he just sighs and rubs his temple. “Look, I know you’re going through a tough time, but you really should try taking it easy. For once. It sounds like pseudoscience, but stress really does hinder the healing process.”

I glare at him. “Right. Thanks for the advice.”

“Anytime,” he says, his tone infuriatingly calm as he blatantly ignores my sarcasm. “Best of luck, Ali.”

Something in his voice, something that could almost be mistaken for timid kindness, makes my throat tighten. I open my mouth to fire back a retort, but find that I have no more words to throw at him.

Gabe gives me a small, pitying smile before turning to leave.