The Bet (Winslow Brothers 1)

My phone vibrates in my pocket, and after a quick glance at the still-closed door to the office, I take it out and tap on the screen to wake it up.

A message from Belle sits front and center on the screen, but before I can open it, another one layers itself on top.

Clicking on the stack of them both, I open her message thread and scan quickly.

Belle: Why the hell are you so busy all the time? Isn’t working for yourself supposed to provide flexibility?

Belle: I want to get a drink. Come with me.

I wish I could ignore her, but I know my sister better than that. The more I don’t answer, the more she’ll text, and my phone will be doing a perpetual dance of vibration until it’s time to go to sleep.

Me: I can’t tonight. I’m busy. Sorry. Ask Kate to escape New Jersey. She probably needs the night out.

Belle: You know she can’t just do shit spur-of-the-moment! She’s got the hellions and Todd. I need you!

Me: I’m sorry. No can do tonight. But we’ll do something soon, I promise.

Belle: What are you too busy doing to hang out with me? Rerecording a new outgoing message on your answering machine? LAME.

Me: Working. When it’s your business, there’s no one to fill in for you.

Sure, that’s a lie at the moment, but that doesn’t make it not the truth. And the last thing I have time for right now is a game of twenty million questions about why I’m at therapy at all.

Yeah, no thanks. I’m enough of a head case already without bringing my sister into it.

The office door creaks open, and a man walks out, smiling civilly at me as he passes and heads out the main door. Several seconds later, Dr. Winters appears in the open space and cranes her head toward me.

“Hey, Sophie. You ready?”

I nod avidly, tucking the paper deeper into my palm and my phone back into my bag, slinging my purse onto my shoulder and jumping up to walk inside.

Dr. Winters closes the door to her office behind me, and I sit down in my spot on the supple, tan leather couch across from her chair and place my purse on the seat next to me.

Jude’s number, however, stays in my hand like a ticking time bomb. The truth is, I’m hoping that by holding on to it, I don’t lose the nerve to tell the truth when it comes time for Dr. Winters to question it. Because, knowing her like I do, she’ll definitely notice.

Dr. Winters strolls over to her seat and sits down again, taking a sip of water from one of those giant jugs on the table beside her. You know the ones…they tell you how well you’re doing throughout the day, so you don’t lose motivation to drink.

Barely alive.

Skin doesn’t look like the undead.

A little more and you’ll have to pee.

YEP, GOTTA PEE.

Hey, look at you, hydrating and shit.

Or whatever it is they really say.

The sight of it makes me smile a little. Every once in a while, it’s nice to see that therapists are humans too. And needing a reminder to drink water—a resource vital to our survival—is the most Homo sapiens freaking thing I can think of.

“All right,” she breathes, finally settling in her chair again and fixing the lay of her shirt. “How are we this week? What’s going on? Anything really pressing that you want to talk about?”

I shake my head immediately, like a little scaredy-cat. She narrows her eyes slightly but doesn’t press me on it either. Unequivocally, harshness isn’t her style. Honesty and culpability, yes. But she’s never tried to rush me.

“Okay. What about dating? Have you tried putting yourself out there again yet? Gone through the motions again?”

Immediately, I glance down at the paper in my hands and swallow thickly, and Dr. Winters, the smart woman that she is, lets the silence load itself.

It takes several more seconds to get up the nerve, but I finally start into the truth—or at least, half of it.

I don’t know what it is, but I’m still unwilling to admit aloud that I let a man sneak out on me once and then went searching to find him again. It sounds painfully pathetic in my own head. I can’t even imagine how it would sound to my actual ears.

“Yes. I-I went on another date, sort of, I guess. I had a work event, very recreational in nature.”

She raises her eyebrows, and I laugh. Yeah, that doesn’t even sound remotely real.

“Okay, I was at a nightclub. Technically, though, it was a work event of sorts.”

She nods, jerking her chin out as though to say, Go on.

I take several deep breaths and chew on my lip, staring down at the number in my hands. Jude’s face comes to mind—flirty and carefree and so dang happy as he left me lying in my bed Saturday morning. He was so assured that just having fun together is the best idea in the world, but I’m…completely and utterly lost. Spiraling, really, in a vortex of feelings I can’t even begin to sort out on my own.