I flicked my hand at the door. “Consider it an early Christmas gift. Go home. Send that useless girl away too.”
Arlene laughed and sat down, swinging her leg. “And leave you alone without an assistant? I don’t think so.”
“I’m better off on my own than with the likes of her.”
She huffed, not put out at all by my temper. “Shut up, Dylan, and drink your coffee.”
“It’s shit.”
“It’s exactly the way you like it.”
I wanted to growl at her—it wasn’t. Alex hadn’t made it. She hadn’t handed it to me with one of her warm smiles. It didn’t have a sprinkling of su
gar snuck into it. I knew Alex did that, and I liked how it tasted. But I couldn’t get the amount right no matter how many times I tried with the sugar I had hidden in my top drawer—that was how I liked my coffee. I couldn’t tell Arlene that, though. Instead, I glowered and sipped the brew.
“Have you slept at all since coming back?” she queried.
“I’m fine,” I snapped.
“You keep telling yourself that.”
“Drop it.”
I had barely slept since returning to Toronto. Instead, I wandered my condo, finding the noise of the city too much to process and my bed too big and cold. My thoughts drifted to Alex constantly. I wondered what she was doing. If she was okay. I worried about Noelle and if she was still upset. If she still wore her slippers every day. If Seth still hated me for leaving. I worried about their future.
I missed them all, and I wondered if they missed me.
“Did you keep the appointment I made for you with the doctor?”
I snorted. “Fat lot of good it did me, but yes. I don’t know why I’m paying so much for private care. I need to find a new one.”
“Oh?”
“He did a bunch of tests and said I was fine.” I rubbed my chest. “It’s still aching.”
She pursed her lips. “He had nothing to offer?”
I grunted. “A bunch of BS that sometimes physical symptoms have more to do with stress in our lives and emotions we’re not dealing with, rather than being ill.”
Sarcasm laced her voice. “You’re right—a total quack. You need to find someone to perform unnecessary open-heart surgery instead of good, common sense.”
I glowered at her.
“I can’t find my gray sweatshirt—the one you gave me last year with those hideous sleep pants,” I blurted out, wanting to change the subject.
She blinked at me. “I don’t have it, Dylan. When was the last time you saw it?”
I couldn’t remember, or figure out why it was so important. I had even torn apart my place last night looking for it. I shrugged.
“Did you take it to Nova Scotia with you?”
The sudden memory of tugging my shirt over Alex’s head after our steamy shower hit me. She had my shirt.
My breath caught.
Had she tossed it? Was she wearing it? Did she think of me?
I had kept what happened between Alex and me to myself, so I couldn’t tell Arlene any of that. But now I knew where my sweatshirt was.