I found the words. “You are family.” I probably didn’t say it in the perfect way, but that was the best I could articulate. She wasn’t my wife, but she was such an intricate part of my life. She wasn’t different from Dex or Ryan. She was…a part of me.
She didn’t smile at the comment, but her eyes deepened into a look I’d never seen before, like my words affected her on a whole different level that she didn’t even understand. When she recovered from what I said, she spoke. “You should pick. You did great today.”
“But I wouldn’t have done it without you,” I said. “This is all because of you.”We went to a casual burger place, which was just fine with me.
Dad scrutinized the menu as if he had no idea what to order.
Dex walked in a moment later, falling into the chair at the head of the table, his beer already waiting for him. “Cold beer waiting…nice.” He grabbed it and took a drink before he looked at Dad. “Poor guy, looks like he’s trying to do calculus and solve a Rubik’s Cube at the same time.”
Dad gave a slight grin as he continued to scan the menu. “When are you going back, son?”
“Sick of me already?” Dex grinned before he took another drink.
Dad’s grin slowly faded before he set the menu back on the table. “Never.”
“We had no idea you were coming,” Mom said. “This is such a nice surprise.”
“A surprise?” Dex asked. “A bigger surprise than Derek having a lady? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her eyes narrowed, half serious, half kidding. “Maybe I would if you called once in a while…”
Dex turned to me and cringed. “Shit. Mom guilt.”
“And dad guilt,” Dad said. “I text you all the time. Never get anything back.”
Dex dropped his gaze for a moment and sighed, like he actually did feel bad. “I’ll be better. I’m usually in surgery for like ten hours, and I don’t check my phone until afterward. Then my brain is so fried that I just shower and pass out.”
My mom and dad never stayed mad at us for more than five minutes. It was impossible.
Emerson turned to him. “So, you’re in medicine?”
Dex nodded. “Residency. I’ve done four years of medical school, and I have another three to go.”
Emerson nodded slightly, like she was doing the math in her head to figure out that he would probably be the youngest surgeon in the world by the time he was done.
My brother was far more brilliant than I was, but I got most of the attention because I was the oldest. But once my siblings passed me, people would realize I was nothing special. Dex was not only brilliant, but he inherited social intelligence from our mother, traits I wasn’t fortunate enough to receive. Sometimes he made jokes I didn’t follow, but being around him taught me how to loosen up.
“What kind of surgeon do you want to be?” Emerson asked.
“A heart surgeon.” Dex leaned back in the chair and regarded her, innately charismatic in a way I wasn’t. “But I want to know more about you. My brother didn’t mention you, which is interesting because he’s clearly got it baaaaad.”
“Dex.” I didn’t care if my brother gave me shit, but not too much shit.
“Just saying…” Dex said with a shrug. “You’ve got to be pretty special to put up with this guy. Come on, I know how much work he is. I took him to a comedy show for his birthday one year, and he didn’t laugh once…because he didn’t understand any of it.”
Emerson didn’t seem offended by anything he said, and she even smiled. “I worked as an editor at Derek’s publisher, Astra Books. I was with a different publisher in the city, but once I saw the opening for the position, I took it…because I’ve been a fan of his books for a really long time and I thought it would be the best job ever to be his editor.”
Dex grinned. “Wow, that’s a cute story.”
“It wasn’t that cute,” she said with a laugh. “Because Derek wouldn’t give me the time of day.” She turned to give me a look of accusation, but with playfulness. “He missed all of his deadlines, and I had to harass him to write the book…and he was a peach.”
Dex barked out a loud laugh, like he could picture the scene right in front of his eyes. “Oh, Derek…”
“Fast-forward,” Emerson said. “And I started to help him write the book, just switch the gears in his head. It was really hard for him to go from building rockets to being creative, so I helped him with that successfully. Then your mother hired me to be his personal assistant, and he was a peach about that too.”
I sighed quietly, a slight smile moving onto my lips even though I didn’t look back on that time with fondness. “Thank you for sticking with me, baby.” If she’d left, I would never have been happy. I never would have found a woman who could complete me the way she did.