Page 273 of The Doctors Will See You Now

As if on cue, my mother turned to me with a hostile frown.

Okay, maybe I’m not keeping it on the inside.

A tiny fragment of our previous phone conversation struck me like lightning.

Me: Well…I guess you were right about being an inside source.

Harlow: I don’t lie.

She doesn’t lie? SHE DOESN’T LIE? Was she serious?

Me: …

What? I don’t yell via text message or even out loud. Just in my head, usually.

Harlow: Okay, so I lie *sometimes*. But, whatever. It’s a gossip column. What do you expect?

Me: Oh, I don’t know. Some kind of truth in reporting…

Harlow: It’s a GOSSIP column.

I started to type again when another message popped up from her.

Harlow: Can you stop messaging me now? I’m trying to watch Kinky Boots.

I scoffed, and my mom outright seethed in my direction. Bared teeth and a silent snarl, Nicole Shepard was five seconds away from tanning my thirty-five-year-old ass. Shit.

Me: You don’t want to watch Kinky Boots. You want to avoid me and the consequences of your actions. The “freedom” of anonymity sure makes being out in the open even worse, huh?

Harlow: Stop. Messaging. Me.

Fine. She didn’t want to talk via text? That was just fine.

“Oh, what the fuck? Are you serious right now?” Harlow shouted as she came out of the stall to find me leaning against the bathroom counter during intermission.

I wouldn’t say it was my finest hour, but it felt like I’d been waiting for answers for forever, and I didn’t feel like waiting anymore.

I’d lucked out, managing to clear out the other women and lock the door. I was actually surprised how willing they were to believe I was surprising my girlfriend with a wanted bathroom quickie.

If you’re ever in this situation, please do a better job of looking out for your fellow female friends’ safety.

No random man should be let into the women’s restroom under the pretense of surprising his girlfriend with sex. Or for any fucking reason, for that matter.

“You didn’t want to text,” I told her, crossing my arms over my chest and putting one ankle over the other.

“And you read that as please stalk me like a pervert in the women’s bathroom?” She shouted a bark of laughter. “Christ, this is going to make one hell of a column. Let me know how the police interrogation goes.”

Well aware of the boundaries I was pushing—more like trampling all over—I was careful to keep physical distance between us, shifting even farther away when she moved to the sink to wash her hands and keeping mine clearly to myself.

“You don’t think I deserve some kind of closure?”

“Closure? What the hell do you need closure for? I was your patient, and then you had a couple of gossip rag columns written about you. Isn’t that like a normal Tuesday for you, Dr. Erotic?”

I clenched my teeth and rolled my jaw, taking a moment to smother the building fire in my chest. She was trying to irritate me. Pushing all my buttons on purpose. I didn’t know exactly what reaction she was looking for, but whatever it was, I didn’t want her to have the satisfaction of getting it.

“Come on, Harlow,” I teased. “Isn’t Kinky Boots teaching you anything about friendship?”

She rolled her eyes and turned the tap to make the water hotter. Always a doctor, I surreptitiously checked out the healing gash on her forehead. It looked good, like she’d been taking care of it. Of course, I’d done a hell of a job on the sutures, so really, I was just admiring my work.