And then, there was me.
Belle Monroe.
President of the Single Forever Club, and newly removed from my position of Hot Doctor Jordan’s Favorite Fuck Buddy.
“I guess you just couldn’t help yourself,” I commented after a moment, meeting his gaze. “Had to get in one last round before you locked yourself down, huh?”
Jordan’s neck turned red, and he cleared his throat, looking away from me ashamed. The motherfucker had called me at almost midnight last night. And normally, I wouldn’t care.
But normally, he wouldn’t be dumping me the very next morning before I even had the chance to make a cup of espresso.
I made a mental note, jotting this down as just another prime example of why the three-date rule is essential.
Jordan stood, grabbing his white coat off the arm of the couch. “I am sorry, Belle. You know I care about you.”
I held up a hand, cutting him off before he could say another word. “Don’t.”
“Why does it make you so uncomfortable to hear that? We’ve been…” He paused, waving a hand between us. “Doing whatever this is for over a year now.”
“This was a fun arrangement, one that mutually benefitted both parties.”
Jordan heaved a sigh at that, looking out my floor-to-ceiling windows at the Chicago skyline being dusted with the morning sun. “Well, I guess it shouldn’t hurt too bad to lose me, then.”
My cold heart defrosted a bit at his words, and I met his disappointed gaze like a dog with her tail between her legs.
But I didn’t have anything to say.
I’d shut out the possibility of anything resembling love a long, long time ago. Love, I’d learned, was a trap. It was a glitter-covered black hole that would swallow you up and spit you out and leave you shipwrecked and alone time and time again. The only way to avoid that kind of heartache was to not participate at all, to cut all strings before emotions had the chance to form.
That was how you kept yourself safe.
And no one could change my mind about that — not even hot, sensitive, caring Doctor Jordan.
Jordan watched me for a long moment, waiting, like he wondered if his words had struck some chord with me. He watched me like maybe this was the day I would confess all my feelings.
But I just sat silent.
Resignation found his features, and he nodded, something of a smirk on his lips as he leaned down long enough to press them to my forehead. “Goodbye, Belle,” he whispered.
And when he was gone, I threw a pillow — a throw pillow, funny enough — at the door he’d walked through.
A growl ripped from my throat, and I ran my hands back through my long, strawberry blonde locks, tucking them behind my ears and grasping the back of my neck. I let my eyes close and attempted the stupid breathing technique Gemma had taught me for work-related stress situations, but after about sixty seconds, my annoyance grew to an unavoidable boiling point.
I jumped up from the couch, not even bothering to get dressed before I was in the elevator and on the way down to Gemma’s.
Gemma was my best friend in the world, my life-keeper both at work and outside of it, too. Our mutual hate for algebra had brought us together in high school, and the mountains of shit we’d had to climb over together had bonded us for life. We’d been through more hell together than most married couples, including the death of her asshole cheating husband, and the metaphorical death of the man I always thought would be my husband — but that’s a story for another time.
If anyone in this world was my soul mate — it was that girl.
She only lived a few floors below me in a skyrise downtown, a blessing I had been grateful for after her husband passed away. At first, I worried she’d move even farther out of town or, worse, stay in the three-bedroom suburbia hellhole of a house she’d lived in with Carlo.
But thankfully, she’d loved my idea of living in the same building. It’ll be just like college, I’d told her, and that’s exactly how it had been.
Having her just a few floors down meant I could bombard her every morning before work, or on any given evening when I wanted someone to watch trashy TV with or to go out on the town with. I was always there for her, and she was always there for me — only a few dings of an elevator separated us.
Of course, now, when I barged into my best friend’s place, she wasn’t the only one there.
Zach looked up from his tablet with a smirk when I blew through the front door of Gemma’s condo, one that looked similar to mine, though hers was smaller, had less windows, and was peppered with little specks of proof that a man lived here with her, too. She’d let me decorate her new space when she moved in, which you would think would have been a given, since I was an interior designer, her best friend, and her boss. But Gemma was a list-making, highlighting, organizing, clean-until-the-knuckles-bleed kind of gal, and it was both a feat and a high honor getting her to give up control to me.
“Ah, good morning, Belle,” Zach said when the door shut behind me, looking back to his tablet. “Coffee’s hot.”
“Where’s Gemma?”
“Shower,” he said, lifting a brow when I didn’t immediately move for the coffee pot like usual. “Everything okay?”
“No,” I said on a huff, flopping down at the kitchen island in the bar stool next to his.
I liked Zach. I had since the moment I met him. He was sexy in the ex-football
