Say You'll Remember Me(49)

“No, that’s just the transfer limit. I’m making a point.” I picked up his phone. “Women need to start robbing men more. You guys act way too invincible.”

He smiled at the windshield.

I keyed in his password. “Okay. What am I looking at?”

“Go to my photos.”

I clicked on the icon and beamed. There was a really cute, frowny brown dog with a missing ear sitting on an exam table.

“That’s Brad,” he said.

“Brad?” I laughed. “I love dogs with human names.”

“Keep going. There’s a Gary in there too.”

I swiped.

His whole photo album was animals. Guinea pigs, cats, birds, even a snake. Some alone. Most he was holding. There were a few where he was in his white lab coat. Very cute. Another one where he was doing surgery. He had on the full doctor regalia. Mask, gloves, scrub cap, and gown, standing over an intubated dog.

I knew he was a doctor. I knew he did surgeries. Like, in theory I knew. But seeing him actually doing it?

It was that moment in the Keira Knightley version of Pride & Prejudice where she rolls up to Mr. Darcy’s estate and it’s this enormous mansion and she’s like, OH, FOR FUCK’S SAKE.

Seriously, I did not need the reminder of how perfect he was.

He glanced over, looking at me studying the surgery photo. “I was doing a free neuter and spay clinic for the rescue. For fun,” he added.

I sighed. “Of course you were.”

I didn’t care about money or status, that was not what did it for me with men. I liked intelligence and compassion and humanity. All of which Xavier had. In spades.

I couldn’t even look at this. This was going to make me too sad.

I swiped again.

Another of the lab coat pictures. He had a kitten in his pocket. Swiped again.

I recoiled at the next image. “Ewwww, what’s that?”

It was a picture of a yellow lacy thing held up by the end of a pencil.

He looked over. “Oh, that’s someone’s underwear. I pulled it out of a boxer’s stomach.”

I sucked air through my teeth. “Were they embarrassed when they found out what was in there?”

“Uh, no. They were fighting. Because apparently those weren’t the wife’s underwear.”

I gasped. “Nooo…”

“I had to kick them out. They were screaming in the waiting area.”

I laughed. “Is the dog okay?”

“Fine. The wife got him in the divorce.”

I shook my head and went back to scrolling.

He looked so happy in the ones with the animals. I knew how rarely he smiled like this. I liked how unguarded it was. Sort of how he was with me.

“I’m surprised you take so many pictures,” I said. “You don’t seem like a picture kind of guy.”

“I’m not. Tina and Maggie take them. The surgery one was for the rescue’s website. The rest are photos for the pets’ files. These are all new patients.”

“Oh, wow, you’re so busy. Is that usual?”

“I’ve been trying to take on as many as I can.”

I swiped past a picture of him holding two puppies, one in the crook of each arm. Then I swiped to the next and it was a photo of us.

It was so unexpected, it made me suck in air.

I’d gone back in time to our first date. The selfie that night at Mother Putters, right after we’d destroyed his friends at mini golf. Us cheek to cheek looking triumphant, Mike in the background, holding a putter and making a good-natured pouty face.

The only picture of the two of us.

My eyes went soft.

Almost three months ago. And I remembered every second of that day like it was last night.

He would be my boyfriend right now, in a different universe. One where Mom wasn’t sick. In this universe I would have flown to California just for a visit. My mom would know my name. We’d go shopping and eat at restaurants where she’d order her own food and wouldn’t need a bib. We’d sit up talking like we used to and I’d tell her about the cute guy I was dating. I’d show her this picture and we’d giggle and she’d say how she couldn’t wait to meet him. The family jewelry would be in the jewelry box and not lost somewhere, never to be found again. Then I’d fly home to Minnesota and back to Xavier and we’d get to figure this thing out between us. See if it had legs. See if it had years.

But that wasn’t my reality.

I turned his screen off and put his phone back down.

We drove in silence after that. He was busy focusing on the navigation and I was deep in thought. Depressing ones.

I wondered if I’d just gotten lucky that no Tinder notifications had popped up while I was looking at his stuff. No text messages from other women. He had to be dating again, he was like the most eligible bachelor in Minnesota. I mean at least one woman from the yacht who saw him shirtless should have swooped in by now. I know I would have.

I should probably start dating again too.

Two million men in Los Angeles, surely one of them could blot out the memory of Xavier Rush.

Yeah, right.

I scoffed to myself and he looked at me. “What?”

“Nothing. Just thinking about the Dart,” I lied.

“What about it?”

I actually did have a funny Dart story, but we were pulling up to the valet.