Read Online Heart Conditions (The Breakup Doctor Series Book 3) by Phoebe Fox - Free Book Online Page B

continued to neatly sidestep every call and text I left for her. Intercepting her at her place wouldn’t have done any good—she and Stu had lived together, for all intents and purposes, practically since they’d started dating, and this wasn’t something I could talk about with her in front of him.
    That meant I had to get creative.
    The one thing Sasha cannot resist (besides, up until the recent development of said baby brother, a completely unsuitable man) is a cry for help. So after work the next day I baited a Sasha trap.
    “Hey,” I said to her voicemail on the umpteenth time she ignored my call. “I slept with Michael.” And I hung up.
    Her return call took exactly thirty-seven seconds.
    “What the hell did you do?!”
    “Hey, Sash,” I said despondently.
    “What happened? Why did you do it? Are you okay? Did that bastard hurt you again?”
    I was lounging on the sofa in my living room, contentedly filing my nails, Jake stretched out on the floor beside me. But I produced a few sniffles and a shaky sigh. “I don’t know what to do, Sash…I’m a mess.”
    “I’m on my way over.”
    I almost felt guilty about how easy it was.

      
    I was waiting for her in the living room when she got there, an open bottle of wine on the cocktail table, two glasses already poured beside it.
    “Okay,” she said, barely stopping to drop her purse and keys on my entry table. “What do we need here—damage control, pep talk, or confidence building?”
    I pushed one of the glasses into her hand and came clean: “None of the above. I didn’t sleep with Michael—but I had to do something to make you stop avoiding me.”
    Sash’s concerned expression melted into relief and then, just as quickly, anger. She set her glass down on my coffee table so hard I thought she’d snap the stem. “Seriously? What are we, twelve?”
    “You tell me,” I countered. “You’ve been playing ‘dodge-call’ with me for three days.”
    “I’ve been busy.”
    “You’ve been cagey. What’s going on, Sasha?”
    Her face shuttered in a way I’d never seen; Sasha was always an open book—to me and anyone else.
    “Is it Stu?” I pressed.
    “No, it’s not Stu.”
    “Sash.” I folded my arms and gave her my best “quit bullshitting me” expression. I ought to have mastered it, having been on the receiving end of my mom’s for thirty-plus years.
    “It’s not, Brook,” she insisted. When I just kept my stare fixed on her, she sighed. “Your brother and I are fine. We’re great, actually. In fact your call interrupted a really nice blowie I was giving him, and—”
    My hands shot up to my ears. “Lalalalala! Okay! Geez, I was just asking.”
    Sasha gave a dry laugh, but there wasn’t much humor in it.
    I frowned. “So what is it that’s bugging you? Work?”
    “You know, a smart therapist I know taught me that when there are things people don’t want to talk about, they deflect the attention onto someone else.”
    “No fair therapizing me.”
    “Then quit stalling. What happened with Michael? Did you have sex with him?”
    “Hell, no! He wanted to talk, and I…Like you said, I needed the closure.”
    “Did you wear the outfit we bought you?”
    “Oh…I totally forgot.”
    “Brook! I put a lot of effort into that.” She looked so put-out I had to laugh.
    “I know—I’m sorry. I’ll wear it. I just…I hadn’t planned to see him. It was sort of an impulse, and I just…went. I left from work, though,” I added, “so I looked nice.”
    She tipped her head slightly, offering me a skeptical look. “Okay,” she said, sinking onto the sofa beside me. “Tell me everything.”
    So I did, from the peace plant being delivered all the way through our hours-long conversation. Sasha listened, rapt, until I finally wound down.
    “So he moved to Seattle after he left you?”
    I nodded. “He said he had to get as far away from the memories as he could. But he hated it. Hated himself.”
    “Rightly so.”
    “He