Love Lessons

“Look, can’t you get out of this? You could tell Karen that I’ve asked you to join my family for dinner. I’m sure she would understand.”

Catherine lifted an eyebrow. “You think she would understand if I told her I’d changed my mind about joining them because I received a last-minute invitation from someone else?”

“Not just anyone else,” he said defensively. “You and I are—well, you know.”

“We’re sleeping together. That doesn’t change my obligation to my friend.”

He didn’t like that. His shoulders stiffened. “That’s all this is between us? All it means to you?”

“I don’t know what it is, exactly. We’ve had a good time together, but we’ve never discussed anything more. We haven’t even known each other all that long, really.”

“I thought we had progressed beyond counting the days since we met,” he said stiffly.

“Mike, we haven’t even been able to share our regular lives with each other. Your sisters don’t approve of me for you, and you were bored half-senseless by my friends. It’s entirely too soon for us to start defining a relationship.”

“I’m sure Dr. Bill has much more in common with your friends.”

Catherine’s rare temper began to simmer. “Don’t even go there.”

“I can’t help noticing that you’ve started hedging about our relationship since I told you I was thinking about dropping out of college again.”

The simmer became a slow boil. “You are really starting to make me angry. I accepted this invitation days before I knew you were even considering not returning to school. You haven’t even mentioned Thanksgiving until today. So you have absolutely no right to be annoyed that I’ve made other plans.”

“You’re correct, of course. I have no rights at all where you’re concerned.”

“Look, we’ve had a very nice weekend together. Let’s not spoil it with a quarrel now.”

“No, we wouldn’t want to spoil anything, would we? Especially since we’re only sleeping together.”

She almost flinched. Instead, she lifted her chin and said, “Maybe we’re both just tired. Or maybe you’re under stress because you’re having trouble deciding what you want to do with your life. But you have no reason to take that stress out on me.”

“You know, maybe I should just take my tired, indecisive, stressed-out self out of your apartment before this turns ugly.”

As far as she was concerned, it had already turned ugly. “Maybe you should go for tonight,” she agreed. “We can talk again when we’ve both cooled off.”

“Right.” He turned on one heel to stalk toward the door. Throwing one last look back at her, he said, “Give my regards to all your doctor friends.”

“I’ll be sure and do that.”

But he wasn’t quite finished. “Is Dr. Bill picking you up here? Maybe I should be here when he arrives, just to say hello.”

One eyebrow rising, she responded in a chilly tone, “I don’t think there’s any chance of you running into him. That would involve you being somewhere on time for a change.”

He spun on one heel and let himself out, leaving Catherine to indulge in a very rare bout of angry tears, followed by a restless night wondering how a perfect weekend could descend into such a stupid, bitter argument.

Mike shoved a forkful of turkey and dressing into his mouth and tried very hard to be thankful for it. No doubt about it, his mom was a great cook.

He wondered if Catherine was enjoying the meal Karen had prepared for her and Dr. Bill.

His family surrounded him. His parents, four sisters, two brothers-in-law, four children and two boyfriends. So it made no sense at all that what he seemed to be feeling was lonely.

His mother and sisters chattered like magpies while the kids babbled and the men concentrated primarily on the food. If anyone had noticed that Mike was more subdued than usual, no one had commented as of yet.

Trust Laurie to bring up the one subject guaranteed to make his mood even darker. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring your professor friend today. I thought you and she were pretty much joined at the hip lately.”

“I told him he was welcome to bring a guest,” Alice said when he didn’t immediately respond. “I assume his friend had plans with her own family.”

“Something like that,” Mike muttered, jabbing his fork into a candied sweet potato.