Page 71 of Clinically Awkward

My brother and I didn’t have that kind of relationship. We weren’t siblings who called each other for advice or had heart-to-hearts over wine. Julien tolerated me. I enjoyed annoying him. It was a perfectly functional love-hate dynamic that had worked for twenty-eight years.

But Quinton didn’t know that.

Quinton thought Julien was going to murder him.

Which—okay, fine—Julien might murder him. But it wouldn’t be because of some overprotective big brother nonsense. It would be because Quinton interrupted his perfectly organized schedule with unnecessary emotional drama.

Focus, Vivian.

I gripped the steering wheel tighter and glared at the silver sedan in front of me that had been going exactly the speed limit for the past three miles.

“Move,” I muttered. “Move, move, move!”

The sedan slowed down for no reason. There was no stop sign. No red light. No pedestrian crossing. Just a perfectly clear road and this asshole deciding that 6:47 AM was the perfect time to test my patience.

I honked.

The sedan didn’t move.

I honked again.

Still nothing.

“Oh, you want to play this game?” I said, my voice rising. “Fine. Let’s play.”

I switched lanes, accelerated, and pulled up alongside the sedan. The driver, a middle-aged man in a polo shirt, glanced over at me with the kind of bland, unbothered expression that made me want to ram my Honda Civic straight into his rear axle.

Instead, I smiled. Sweetly.

Then I flipped him off and sped past.

Mature, Vivian. Very mature.

But I didn’t have time for maturity. I had approximately forty-three minutes to get to the clinic, find Quinton, and convince him that telling Julien was a terrible idea. Not because Julien would care. But because Quinton would spiral, Julien would be annoyed, and I would be stuck in the middle of a completely unnecessary emotional explosion that could’ve been avoided if everyone just kept their damn mouths shut.

My phone buzzed.

I glanced down.

Fitz: Unblocking me won’t change the fact that Quinton’s going to confess.

Fitz: But it will allow me to provide live commentary.

Fitz: Which I think we can both agree is the real tragedy here.

I groaned and tossed my phone into the passenger seat.

Forty-one minutes.

I could do this. I had to do this. Because if Quinton walked into Julien’s office and confessed, my brother was going to look at him with that flat, unimpressed expression he reserved for people who wasted his time, and say something like, “Is this really necessary?” or “I don’t care who you’re sleeping with, Quinton. I care about the schedule.”

And Quinton—sweet, overthinking, catastrophizing Quinton—would interpret that as rage. Which would lead to panic. Which would lead to him avoiding me. Which would lead to me losing the one person who made me laugh so hard I cried and who looked at me like I was the most interesting person in the room.

Nope. Not happening.

Not today.

I pulled into the clinic parking lot at 7:04 AM, my heart pounding and my hands shaking from a combination of sleep deprivation and caffeine. And there—right there—was Julien’s car. Parked in his usual spot and the driver’s side door open as the man himself stepped out with his tablet, his coffee, and that expression of mild irritation he wore like a second skin.