3
TATE
“Vice” by Miranda Lambert
- -
That voice.
Even without hearing that stupid fuckin’ nickname come through the line, I would recognize that voice anywhere.
I push back from the restaurant table and give my dinner companion a wave of my hand to let her know I need a moment.
“Grease,” I respond, an involuntary smile lifting my lips as I step away, my voice sounding a lot stronger than it should after being knocked off-kilter by her.
“Been a long time, Tate.”
Moving through the busy restaurant, I step out into the rain-soaked Atlanta streets. “That it has, Quinn, that it has.”
“I’m sorry about your paw. He was a good man.”
“I appreciate that. I heard about your old man. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“In an effort to make this a little less awkward, save it, Tate. There isn’t a soul around who meant that a year ago and it hasn’t changed since. I made my peace with him and our lack of a lovin’ relationship before he passed so I don’t need your condolences.” Her sassy-as-hell temper sparks, and any trace of restraint or attempt at politeness that had previously been in her tone vanishes. “Why did you call the shop?”
I fiddle with some change in my dress pants pocket, look down Peachtree Street, and weigh my words. “Like I told the man I spoke with earlier, I need some work done on an old truck and was callin’ to make an appointment.”
She laughs, the sound bitter and vile, nothing like the Quinn I used to know. “Are you saying that you, Tatum Montgomery the Second, are actually driving something around that doesn’t still smell like the showroom floor?”
“It’s Paw’s old truck,” I tell her, ignoring her attempted insult.
I hear her breathing and some whispering in the background, but she doesn’t speak right away. I give her time, knowing that she has every right to turn my business away. Hell, she should turn my business away.
“Isn’t there someone wherever it is you landed that can take care of this for you?”
Wherever I landed. I deserve that, I know I do, but it doesn’t make the hurt in her voice sting any less.
“Doesn’t make much sense gettin’ his truck out here to Georgia only to turn around and drive it back. I don’t want those kind of miles on the old beast, and I’d be packin’ my bags to head out well before anyone here could finish the work that needs doin’.”
“Drive it back where? Head out where, Tate?” The sass is gone now, and, if I’m not mistaken, in its place is something that sounds a whole lot like fear.
Fuck me. I did that to her.
“To Pine Oak, Quinn,” I answer, calmly as I can.
“What?” she asks with a quiet gasp.
“Do you have time to work on it?” I ignore her question, hating what I hear in her voice. What my actions must have done to her to put that note of despair in her voice.
“Why would you come back here, Tate? Don’t ignore me. I know your grandparents’ old place is on the market now, so why would you even need to come back? If you can get all that done from a distance, I’m pretty dang sure you could get the truck done too.” She finally stops rambling, the panic in her tone overwhelming the hard-ass sharpness she had been trying for. After a moment of silence, she takes a deep breath. “There isn’t anything here for you anymore. You won’t find some hotshot medical practice in the middle of nowhere, Texas.”
There are so many things I want to say when she finishes speaking. She’s wrong—there is something in Pine Oak for me. Something I never should have let go to begin with, but I didn’t really have a choice. Not like she thinks I had. As much as I loved my paw, his death means that the last string that was held over my head is finally severed.
“Taking over Paw’s practice means a whole helluva lot more to me than ‘some hotshot’ place ever could. As for the rest, well, that’s a story for another day.”
“Goddammit,” she hisses, her voice sounding farther away, and I reckon she pulled the phone away from her face.
“What? Jesus, Q, you look like you’re gonna pass out,” another voice whispers through the line, muffled and only recognizable as female. I wonder if it’s her best friend, Leighton—sounds like it could be her, although older and more mature. Those two were thick as thieves when they were younger, and I reckon they’re still right close.
“Quinn?” I ask in concern.
When she finally speaks again, it’s in a rush of words, none of which are what I want to hear. “When you get back in town you can call the shop and talk to Barrett or Tank. Barrett would be best, but Tank will still get some kind of message to me. Figure out what you want done and how much you want to spend before you call and save them the trouble of pullin’ that outta you. I think it would be in everyone’s best interest if you dealt with them and they communicated your wishes to me. I’ll do this for you because I respected the hell outta your paw, but I can’t do this shit with you. Not now. Not again. Not ever.”
I see Ella, my dinner companion, wave at me curiously through the window, and I lift my chin in acknowledgment before giving her my back. “Quinn.” I sigh, not ready to let her off the phone but knowing she is too stubborn to listen to reason when she feels backed into a corner. I don’t even feel bad about doing it either, not when I know this is my key to getting close to her when I get back. I send a silent prayer of thanks to the gods that Davis Auto is the only game in town, any other potential body shops too fearful of the strong competition the Davis family represents to try their hand at the business. If there was any other shop within a twenty-mile radius of Pine Oak, I know I’d be shit out of luck.
“You have the shop number. I’ll let the guys know you’ll be in touch. I know this is an entirely foreign concept to you, but this, Tate, is what good-bye sounds like.”
Before I can open my mouth and demand her silence so I can say everything I need to say, the call is disconnected and the dial tone is echoing back in my ringing ear.
I pocket my phone and try to ease some of the tension out of my shoulders, replaying the phone call in my mind, hearing her voice, and feeling my body start to come alive for the first time in a long damn while from that alone. I’d stopped believing that I would ever see her again, let alone hear her voice, but now that I have, my body is humming with the reminder of what that husky sound can do to it.
- -
Back then, when I left her for good, I knew I was doing the right thing. It was something I had begrudgingly accepted as each lonely year passed that I longed for her. I would never have gone back, leaving her free to be lost to me forever when another man realized how perfect she is too. Hell, for all I know, that man’s already in her life. That was the one update I refused to let my friend Mark, who still lives back in Pine Oak, fill me in on. Ignorance is bliss, and all that.
It took me a while to accept that possibility when I gave in and left her. There were so many days that I wanted to fight the resistance keeping me back and give up everything for her—but it would have been selfish of me to do so knowing it would affect so many others. So I did the only thing I could: I learned to accept the life I was living. I have some good friends in Alpharetta, the town just outside of Atlanta where I live. The position I have in the labor and delivery department at Northside Hospital in Atlanta is challenging and rewarding, just what I always wanted. I date casually, the type of women like the one waiting inside for me to return—even if what I share with Ella isn’t special, it’s practical. Functional. Satisfying, more or less. Bottom line, I don’t do relationships. I feed my body’s needs when the loneliness threatens to become too overwhelming, and that’s it.
From the outside looking in, I have everything the younger me thought I wanted at this point in my life. I’ve become the man my parents pushed me to be—a doctor in a top-of-the-line hospital, far away from the private small-town practice I always pictured myself owning. I’m every bit the rich and successful man I appear to be. I could buy the damn world if I felt like I wanted to take it for a spin.
A dry laugh escapes me as I study my reflection in the window. I embody completely the “starch” Quinn and I used to poke fun of. The high-society image that my parents pressed upon me since my boyhood has taken over, when all I ever wanted was nothing more than to pull on some old jeans and get my hands dirty. I’ve become everything I always resented in my parents growing up, and I might as well be a world away from the only place—and person—that ever made me feel at home.
I wonder how I ever let it get this fucking far. I reckon I was denying my mind a trip down this path for so long, I didn’t even realize how bad things had become. Only difference this time is that I don’t have anything standing in my way. My mind is focused on all the things I can fight for now that the worst thing that could happen is rejection. All that’s left here in Georgia is a few loose ends to tidy up before I pack up the last eight-plus years and head back to Texas. Like my job.
And Ella.
My eyes roll involuntarily as I think of the situation with Ella and how out of control it’s gotten. We aren’t even dating. Hell, we were never dating. It was purely two busy people blowing off steam. Two doctors who used each other’s bodies instead of going home alone. She said she didn’t want anything more and I said I would never want anything more. She caught me each time when I had been letting that lingering loneliness choke me and it worked.
Until it didn’t.
Even if I wasn’t going back to Pine Oak—finally—this conversation would be happening. I probably would have put it off a few weeks, but once I knew I was going back to Texas an overwhelming sense of urgency hit. The reason I never wanted a relationship since I settled in Georgia was because if I couldn’t have it with the one woman I wanted, I didn’t want it with anyone, and now that woman is finally on the horizon, waiting for me to return—even if she doesn’t know it yet. So I tried to end things with Ella—and then I tried again, and again. The woman just won’t take no for an answer. She asked me to dinner tonight, and I begrudgingly agreed on the condition that we at last both come to the same page on our relationship, and where it would finish. Right here, right now, tonight.
But so far, there’s been a whole lot of talking on my part and a hell of a lot of eye-fucking on Ella’s part.
That’s going to end. Now.
With a clear mind and a new fuel of determination rushing through my body, I head back into the restaurant.
“Sorry about that,” I tell Ella when I reach our table, picking my napkin off the seat before settling back into the chair across from her, placing it back in my lap. “You ordered wine?” I ask, looking at the two full glasses on the table and the bottle with the expensive French label chilling in a bucket to my right.
“I figured we could relax a little. It’s been a long week.” She reaches across the table, her small hand about to close around one of mine, but I pull back before she can get purchase.
“I’m on call, Ella,” I mumble, pushing the glass closest to me away and picking up my water.
She shrugs, pulling her arm back and winking before taking a delicate sip of her own wine. “Well, you’ll have to cut me off after two, Tatum. Anything more than that and I won’t be any good for you tonight.”
“Stop, Ella. You know damn well I didn’t come out tonight as some sort of prelude to fuckin’. I’m only here for another month before my resignation is effective, but even without me movin’ back to Texas, whatever you think is goin’ on here isn’t. We’ve talked about this.”
Something flashes in her eyes, but it’s gone a moment later. Her perfect mask falls back in place. “Oh, Tatum, I understand. Goodness, your accent sure does come back when you’re heated. Anyway, I had hoped dinner might lead to a little good-bye fun, but you’re right, I’m sorry. You can’t blame a girl for trying though, Tatum. I mean, look at you.”
I feel one of my brows arch at her continued attempts at flirting, but I ignore it in the hope that she will take a hint. “I’d prefer the remainder of my time here to pass without any more weirdness between us. I’m not goin’ to deal with you playin’ the role of a jealous girlfriend when you know damn well the time we spent together don’t equal a relationship, especially when I made it clear I don’t do commitment. We’re colleagues and that’s all.”
She clears her throat. “Of course. I’m sorry. I thought it was just fun and games.”
The waiter steps up to the table and sets our plates down and I wave him off with a smile and a nod before addressing Ella again. “Let’s finish up our meal and I’ll take you home. I appreciate your understandin’, Ella, and I apologize if I did something to make you believe this was somethin’ it isn’t.”
She picks up her fork, digging into her salad with a smile. “Nonsense. Let’s put it behind us. Water under the bridge and all that. Tell me about this place you’re moving to.” She holds my gaze as she chews, and I relax now that she clearly understands the line I’ve drawn in the sand and seems willing to abide by it.
I cut my steak, take a bite, and savor the perfectly cooked meat before telling her all about Pine Oak, not even attempting to hide the excitement in my voice. Ella smiles and nods in all the right places, engaging in the conversation with rapt interest.
In another life—one in which I never knew Quinn Davis existed—Ella is probably the type of woman I would have ended up with. The daughter of two very affluent parents, southern and genteel, beautiful and always perfectly put together no matter where she’s going, and intellectually smart and driven.
The perfect woman for a lot of men.
But not for this man.
I live in a world where Quinn Davis very much exists, erasing any possibility of any other perfect woman existing for me, ever.
My perfect woman is the daughter of a bastard, beautiful, an unpredictable sexy mess no matter where she ends up, and so brilliant and driven that she could race her jacked-up truck in laps around the Ella Fosters of the world.
I’ll grovel until my knees have no skin left on them. If I get back and find another man in my place, I’ll fight for her regardless. If she forgot how to love me, I’ll remind her. Whatever it takes.
No more regrets.
I give Ella a platonic smile over my water glass and signal the waiter for the check. It’s time to end this farce I’m stuck living and take back my life—and the woman who has always held my goddamn heart.