“To make an appointment with you. He didn’t say I had to talk.”
She watched me. Tilting her head to the side, she asked, “So, if he ordered you to talk, would you?”
“I’d have to.” Narrowing my eyes at her, I asked, “Are you gonna tell him I ain’t talkin’?”
“Nope. King will only know what you tell him. I won’t tell him anything unless you sign a waiver giving me permission to share. Would you like to sign one?”
“Fuck, no.” I wasn’t giving him access to anything I said while I was here. Not that I planned on talking.
“Ok, we don’t have to talk. You can come to your appointments and we can sit in silence. Do you mind if I read?”
“Why the fuck would I mind?” I asked.
“Well, you are paying for my time.”
“Club’s paying for this shit.”
“Ok.” She looked at her watch, then announced, “We have ten minutes left. For future appointments, it would be great if you could be on time. That way, we would have the full hour to not talk.”
She smiled, letting me know she was mocking my attitude. Not that I gave a shit. I wasn’t doing this again. No more platitudes to the shrink. I would show up because my president ordered me to, but I was a grown-ass man, for fuck’s sake. If I didn’t want to talk about my goddamn feelings, I wasn’t going to.
I looked around the room. It was nice. Welcoming and warm. That’s how Rach would describe it. She had decorated my room at the club. The room I hadn’t been in since she died. Since I found her unconscious in our bed.
Fuck the memories. Changing the subject, I asked, “You see people in your home alone?”
“Normally, no. I am an online therapist. I have only recently started taking in-person patients.”
“You need a security system. Gunner is shit at taking care of his woman.”
I wasn’t much better. I hadn’t even known my old lady was sick.
“I am not Gunner’s woman,” she stated firmly.
I scoffed again. We sat in silence until the timer on her phone rang, letting us know our time was up.
“That is all the time we have for today. Did King say how often he wanted you to come here?”
I stood up and frowned at her. “He said it was up to you.”
“Ok, well, if we are just going to meet without talking, I think once a week is plenty. Why don’t you come back this time next week?”
I was confused. I’d only sat there for ten fucking minutes. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“I thought it was an hour long?”
“It was. Starting at three p.m. You only showed up fifteen minutes ago.”
“It hasn’t been an hour,” I pushed, waiting for her to argue with my leaving. Maybe push me to say something. Anything.
“Cash, I am sure you understand how appointments work. When you show up at the right time, you get the full hour. I have other patients.”
“Do you get paid for the entire hour?”
“I do.”
“Even if I ain’t fucking here?”
