The Breakup Doctor by Phoebe Fox Read Free Book Online Page B

and I needed to clear the air.
    â€œCan we talk for a few minutes? About us?”
    â€œCome here,” Kendall said. He leaned forward and snagged one end of the damp towel, pulling me toward him on the sofa until I stood touching his knees. He gave a tug on the towel, but I didn’t move.
    â€œNo, seriously,” I said. “I just want to talk.”
    He pulled again on the towel, but I met him with just as much resistance. He started to grin, yanking harder, and I felt a reluctant smile creep across my face too. Our tug-of-war continued, more playfully now, until I abruptly dropped my end of the towel and Kendall smacked himself in the face with his own arm. I couldn’t help laughing.
    â€œOw! Minx.” He looped his arm around my knees and swept them out from beneath me, sending me landing hard on his lap. His arms came around me and he pulled me to him for a kiss.
    I lost myself in it for just a moment, the softness of his mouth, the warmth, the closeness with him that made something relax in my belly. I was overthinking. Not for the first time (not for the hundredth, if I were honest), I cursed Michael. He’d left me suspicious and mistrustful. Closed off to someone who’d never given me any reason to doubt him. Who, in fact, wanted to move our relationship forward. My heart swelled at the thought.
    I reached up a hand and touched Kendall’s cheek. “I think I’m ready to talk about moving in together.”
    â€œOkay,” he agreed. “But I’m going to use sign language.” He ran his hands down my sides, and lower, and it felt so good to have his touch on me, his gaze on me, to have a little bit of time with him when he wasn’t rushed or exhausted.
    â€œI miss you,” I said softly, resting my forehead against his, looking directly at him.
    â€œI’m right here.” Kendall reached over to turn the TV off—although I couldn’t miss his hitting the record button on the DVR first. And then, finally, he turned his attention completely on me, and talking didn’t seem so important after all.

six

    Â Â 
    February is when southwest Florida flaunts everything it’s got. It brings out the heavy artillery: bougainvillea so richly, luridly magenta it hurts your eyes; lush purple jacaranda blooms that war with the explosive red-orange of poinciana; yellow tabebuia playing a subtle counterpoint to all the blowsy color of the show-offs. Orange blossoms send their sweet perfume drifting into every secret crevice, and the sky is a blue so clear and vivid it makes your heart beat faster just to look at it.
    I wasn’t surprised to see Stu’s Jeep sitting in my parents’ driveway as Sasha and I pulled in that Sunday afternoon. My family—which had unofficially included Sasha since we’d met in third grade—had had Sunday dinner together for as long as I could remember, and when tourists and snowbirds clogged local traffic and crowded the beaches during season, we’d gotten into the habit of coming early enough to swim in my parents’ blissfully uncrowded canal-front swimming pool.
    Stu was rummaging around in the back of the vehicle when I pulled my car in next to his. He looked up and gave an upward jerk of his head in acknowledgment, then slammed his rear door shut and walked over to open mine for me, staring right past me and making a show of ogling Sasha’s chest as she reached into the back for her beach bag. “Ladies...good to see you. Sash, hope you don’t have the girls bound too tightly in that teeny-weeny bikini.”
    â€œNope, letting them breathe, Stuvie. Thought I might grant them their freedom later on if we had the pool to ourselves. Whoops, too bad.”
    â€œPretend I’m not even here...”
    Stu and Sasha had had a relationship of mutual harmless sexual harassment practically ever since they met, when an eight-year-old Sasha gleefully pantsed the six-year-old Stu as he