Tristan kept his eyes locked on the front door of the bar as he drove away. If he knew Marty, and he was pretty sure that he knew her better than anyone else, she’d be storming out that door to kick his ass any minute now.

“Ye need to go back in there and apologize, maybe tell the people in there that ye were joking,” Shayne said.

“Not happening,” Tristan said distractedly.

“Lad, if ye don’t fix this I…I think whatever chances ye had with the lass will be good and buried. Are ye ready to finally be rid of her forever?”

He gave a casual shrug that he wasn’t feeling and said, “It’s going to happen sooner or later. Might as well get it over with now.” Before the words were out of his mouth, his stomach gave a violent twist at the idea of never seeing Marty again.

She aggravated him, pissed him off, got on his last nerve, but he’d be damned if she didn’t make him smile, laugh and made him glad to be alive. Without her, his life was going to amount to absolutely nothing.

He shifted in his seat as he pressed on the gas. “I need a drink.”

Chapter 14

“Tristan, I have to be honest. I’m a little surprised to see you here today,” Dr. Bryne said, picking up a pen and a legal pad. He watched as Tristan added a sugar packet to his coffee and pulled out a large apple fritter from a small white pastry bag. “Well, besides having breakfast in my office that is.”

“Didn’t we have an appointment?” Tristan asked as he took a bite out of his fritter, careful not to spill any of the apple filling on his tie or shirt.

“No.”

“Are you sure? I could have sworn that we had a meeting first thing this morning,” Tristan said in a thoughtful tone as he added another packet of sugar to his coffee.

Dr. Bryne narrowed his eyes on Tristan. “You know that we didn’t have a meeting. The fact that you told my eight o’clock appointment to sit down and shut up when he complained about you taking his time slot, because you said and I quote, ‘the voices in my head are taking over and it's every man for himself’ lets me know that you’re well aware that we didn’t have an appointment.”

Tristan’s lips twitched as Dr. Bryne continued to glare at him. “Oh, come on, Doc! You know that you’re happy to see me.”

“Tristan,” he sighed. “You’ve been skipping our appointments for the last couple of weeks even though it’s a condition for returning to work. Then out of the blue you storm in here and scare the hell out of all of my patients and secretary and you expect me to be happy about this?”

“Yes,” Tristan simply said. “So, what do you want to talk about, Doc?” Tristan asked as he sipped his coffee. He hoped this damn meeting went as planned. He needed it to go well.

“Well, since you’re here and all I guess we could talk about a certain video that made its way onto the internet this weekend,” Dr. Bryne said casually, too casually.

Tristan tried not to wince at the reminder of that video. “That was nothing.”

“Didn’t look like nothing.”

Tristan sighed as he put down his coffee and leaned back against the leather couch. “It was just someone getting back at me for being me.”

“Meaning?”

He shrugged. “I’m an ass**le, plain and simple.”

“That doesn’t seem to bother you.”

Tristan pursed his lips, thinking it over. “It’s a character flaw.”

“I see,” Dr. Bryne said and Tristan could tell the man was struggling not to smile.

“I’m glad that you do.”

“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you about something, but since you've been skipping our sessions lately I haven’t had the chance.”

Tristan rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, I’ve been busy with the voices in my head and all. Plus those damn pink bunnies are really demanding.”

Dr. Bryne gave him a stern look, but continued. “I wanted to ask how things were working out with Marty. I know that the two of you used be childhood friends and drifted apart for a while there. It must be nice catching up after all this time.”

Well, that was unexpected. “It’s fine,” he answered quickly. He hadn’t come here to talk about Marty. Hell, he’d spent most of the night working and trying to forget about her. Not that it actually worked, but at least he got a lot of work done.

“Is there something in particular that you wanted to talk about, Tristan?”

“Well, I was wondering if you would sign off on my sheet so that I could be released from medical.”

Dr. Bryne frowned. “From what I’ve been told, you’re already working as if you’re off medical. You’re driving, responding to calls and making arrests. Why do you suddenly care about a piece of paper?”

“Careful, lad. He’s a tricky bastard,” Shayne said from his spot behind Dr. Bryne’s desk. Tristan’s gaze automatically shot to Shayne. Dr. Bryne followed the movement and frowned.

“Is something wrong?”

“No,” Tristan said as he turned his attention back to the doctor. “Now, about that signature. You’re right. I have been working, however, as long as I have that medical restriction hanging over my head, I have to bring Marty along and that’s putting her in danger.”

“So, don’t do anything dangerous.”

Tristan barely stopped himself from swearing. He took a calming breath before he continued. “That’s not really a choice for me, Doc. We’re not a very large department and as a supervisor I have to respond to a lot of regular calls.”

“I see.”

Tristan sure as hell hoped that he did. If he could get off medical, he would only have to worry about dealing with Marty in their office. He’d stick around until she got serious with another guy. Then he’d leave and never come back. He would never chance seeing her married to another man. It would destroy him.

“Were you able to get your doctor to sign off on your shoulder?”

“Yes, they signed off last week.” Mostly because they wanted to make sure that they never had to see him again. The terms may have been along the lines of him never ever returning there even if he was dying. It was an easy promise to make. So what if he now had to drive two hours to the nearest medical office if he needed an exam? It was well worth it.

“Okay, then let’s talk about the shooting. How does it make you feel now?”

His eyes shot to Shayne in question. He had to tread carefully and with Shayne reading through his file behind the good doctor’s back he had the upper hand. He hadn’t missed Shayne's soft chuckles over the past couple of minutes either.

Shayne’s face scrunched up in distaste. “Well, that’s…that’s just not right.”

Tristan forced himself to remain seated and not walk over there and tear the file away from Shayne so that he could read it for himself. No doubt the man was just f**king with his head.

“Tristan?” Dr. Bryne said, drawing his attention.

Oh, that’s right.

He cleared his throat pointedly. “You wanted to know how I feel about the shooting?” he asked loudly, hoping Shayne would stop laughing his ass off and give him the information that he needed.