The plus one, p.1
The Plus One, page 1
Begin Reading
Table of Contents
About the Author
Copyright Page
Thank you for buying this
St. Martin’s Publishing Group ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.
For those who hurt, those who’ve healed, and those who are somewhere in-between. You are worthy of love even on your hardest days.
And for the younger me that still gets stuck in the bad place. You make it out.
CONTENT WARNINGS
Hello, my dearest reader!
While this book Is a romance with a very happy ending and some laughs along the way, it also addresses heavier topics. Please be aware that the following are discussed throughout the novel:
• PTSD from losing patients as a medical provider in emergency situations
• Emotional repercussions of growing up with divorced parents
• Moving on after a past partner cheats
Also of note, the Global Health Care Organization mentioned throughout the book is fictional, created from various elements of existing systems and organizations, and is not representative of any singular group.
Please take care of yourselves as you read. I did my best to handle the above with nuance, respect, and compassion.
All my love,
Mazey
CHAPTER 1
Indira
T-MINUS FIVE WEEKS UNTIL THE WEDDING
Indira knew, rationally, it wasn’t doing her much good to keep canceling her therapy appointments.
But, irrationally, it was a hell of a lot easier to ride the wave of a decent week than to sit down on Dr. Koh’s beige couch and sift through her feelings until she realized she’d been deluding herself and her week was, in fact, total shit.
Indira also knew, as a psychiatrist herself, that this was called avoidance. And it was bad.
Fatal flaws, et cetera, et cetera.
Pushing away the tiny pang of guilt she felt for canceling, she stopped at the market a few blocks from the apartment she shared with her boyfriend, Chris, to buy ingredients for her mom’s old chicken parm family recipe and a way-too-expensive bottle of wine, hoping to surprise him. While Chris worked from home, he wasn’t much into cooking, and most nights Indira was too tired from her long shifts at the children’s outpatient center to want to whip anything up. They were in a rut of delivered food eaten in silence as they scrolled through their phones, together in the most disconnected way possible.
They’d moved in after only five months of dating, riding a high of decent sex and early relationship happy hormones. But after almost a year of on-again, off-again whiplash, the relationship was starting to feel more like roommates than romance, and they both knew something had to change.
At least, she thought they both knew that. It wasn’t like they talked about their relationship. They didn’t talk about much, if she were being honest …
But it would all be okay. If the emotional roller coaster of Indira’s childhood had taught her anything, it was that there wasn’t a problem out there that couldn’t be (at least temporarily) fixed by her mom’s red sauce.
Indira checked out, even grabbing an impulse-buy of dessert to try and lift her glum mood.
Practicing her brightest—albeit forced—smile, she made her way through the cool October evening to their apartment, giving herself a pep talk. Chris was, at his core, a good guy. And Indira could get over her mental blockade of past relationship failures mixed with melodramatic ennui and get this one to work. Besides, she’d been down the whole single-and-searching-on-dating-apps road. The grass was definitely not fucking greener; relationships take hard work; insert platitude here; blah blah blah.
Indira hiked up the stairs of her building and let herself into the unit, sweeping into the kitchen with a flourish.
“Surpri—”
The unexpected sound of lusty moans killed the greeting in her throat.
For a moment, Indira wondered if she’d walked in on Chris watching a particularly vocal porno.
And then she saw.
Oh, the horror of the things she saw.
There was writhing.
And grinding.
And an … open jar of peanut butter?… (???)
Indira’s jaw was on the ground as her fucking boyfriend groped—with very little finesse, skill, or sensuality, thank you very much—a stranger on their fucking couch.
With peanut butter smeared on their faces.
(Seriously, what the hell?)
Her mind was slow and sluggish to process the tableau of betrayal she was witnessing in real time. The entangled couple finally registered her presence, separating their sticky faces long enough to stare back at her. The shocked silence held them all captive.
It was the soul-shattering howl of her cat, Grammy, that finally snapped Indira out of her daze.
Her head whipped around, looking frantically for Grammy, who had a propensity for inserting herself in the center of most human interactions. A little paw batted under the crack in the pantry door.
Indira saw red.
Oh no. There’s no way this dickhead locked Indira’s cat in a closet to pat down the titties of some rando without interruption.
“What the actual fuck,” Indira shrieked, stomping to the door and ripping it open. Grammy darted out, back legs skidding across the tile as she booked it to the bedroom.
Besides Grammy’s continuous wailing, a piercing silence fell between everyone as they continued to stare at each other.
Then Chris turned himself into the world’s douchiest cliché. “Indira, it’s not what it looks like.”
That trite little phrase set off a trip wire of rage in Indira’s chest.
“Really, Chris?” she yelled. “Because it looked like you were tongue-punching the tonsils of a stranger on the couch I paid for. But please, explain to me what I’m actually seeing.”
Chris’s face turned an alarming shade of mauve as he spluttered, and the woman’s jaw dangled open.
“And why the fuck is there so much peanut butter?” she added, her hands turning into claws at her sides. “That shit is organic. And expensive.” Indira stared expectantly at the duo.
“We…”
“I…”
Chris and the blond woman looked at each other with a combination of fear and longing that made Indira want to dry heave.
“We both really love peanut butter,” Chris eventually whispered, saying it like he was delivering the world’s most melodramatic line in a play.
Indira slow-blinked at him for a moment before throwing her head back and shrieking out a laugh. If she didn’t laugh, she’d scream.
“Un-fucking-believable,” she said. “I’m out of here, you piece of shit.”
Indira darted to the bedroom, ripping through the closet and grabbing any bags she could find. She moved like an efficient tornado, shoving shoes and chargers and shirts into duffel bags as she went.
Grammy added to the drama with her ceaseless cries in the background. Indira didn’t even know a cat could make noises like that. She made a quick mental note to ask Harper, one of her best friends, if earth-shaking screams were normal in felines or if Indira had unwittingly adopted a demon-possessed creature instead of an old, docile ball of fluff. But at the moment she had more important things to deal with.
“Indira, hold on,” Chris said, standing in the doorway, hair mussed, pants unzipped, and shirt on backward, globs of peanut butter visible under the fabric. “Let’s just calm down and talk about this like adults.”
“That would require you to be one, Chris. And from where I’m standing, you’re a cheating, cat-imprisoning man-child with the emotional intelligence of a rusty nail. So, no. I won’t be calming down.”
She marched to the bathroom, picking up what she could from the floor as she went, then used her entire arm to swipe her toiletries into a bag.
“You don’t understand. This is different. You and I … we haven’t been happy for months. I—”
Indira stopped in her tracks, eyes so cold and hard Chris slammed his mouth shut.
Months? In that moment, Indira didn’t think she’d ever been happy with the asshole.
“Get out of my way,” she said through clenched teeth. Chris at least had the decency to lower his head and slink back to the couch.
She stormed through the apartment, dropping bags on the kitchen counter as she gathered up odds and ends.
Moving back into the bedroom, Indira took a deep breath in preparation for her final mission: saving Grammy.
Grammy was no one’s idea of cute. She perpetually looked like a bolt of lightning had just jolted her wiry frame, sooty hair standing on end at wild angles and back permanently hunched like a dramatized Halloween cartoon. To top off her loveliness, she had a half-missing ear, a curled lip that always displayed one stained fang, and the spectacular ability to infuse havoc into any situation.
This dazzling creature was curren
“Get a cat, they said. It’ll be fun, they said,” Indira muttered to herself. They primarily being Harper, who had enabled Indira’s impulse decision to adopt a furry companion to fill the dull and gnawing sense of loneliness that hit Indira regularly.
But, observing the unearthly noises and mentally preparing to lose at least a nipple, if not an entire boob, to Grammy’s claws in what was about to go down, Indira wondered if she was making a fatal mistake.
With no other choice, she walked across her bedroom, unlatched Grammy from the curtain, and winced as the cat’s claws slammed into her skin. The torture continued as she pried Grammy off herself—Indira’s sweater gaining some lovely rips in the process—and squeezed the poor gremlin into a cat carrier before moving back to the kitchen.
With rage still pumping through her system, Indira found a surge of superhuman strength and, like a mother lifting a car off her child, hefted all of her earthly possessions onto her back and into her arms.
“Don’t fucking call me,” she said to Chris, who had the audacity to stare at her like a startled owl. His companion still had her mouth hanging open.
Indira had her hand on the doorknob when the other woman cried out, “Wait!”
Indira stopped. She wasn’t sure if it was the weight of the items she carried or the hurt that was radiating out from the center of her chest, but she realized she was trembling. She turned to look over her shoulder at the stranger.
“It’s … We’re in love,” the woman whispered. By the look on her face, Indira could almost believe it.
“What’s your name?” Indira asked, swallowing past the knot of emotion in her throat.
“L-Lauren,” she replied, her big blue eyes shimmering. She was blond. Freckled. Beautiful.
“Well, Lauren,” Indira said with a pitying smile, “good fucking luck.”
CHAPTER 2
Indira
Indira made sure to slam the door behind her as she went, then flew down the stairs and out to the street. It took her a few minutes of wandering to remember what random-ass side street she’d parked on, but she eventually found her car.
A hysterical giggle bubbled up from her throat as she stared at her SUV.
Her tires were slashed. All of them. Every single one deflated and floppy … kind of like her ego.
She started laughing even harder.
Her entire body shook with cackling laughter.
Then something in her chest cracked.
And she was bawling.
Indira collapsed against her useless car, tears streaming down her cheeks and a pained howl tearing from her throat Grammy decided to harmonize.
Indira couldn’t pull herself together, so she leaned into the sadness, letting it pour out of her.
Eventually, with a final, rattling breath, she cried herself dry. Then considered her options. Lizzie, another of Indira’s friends, lived in an apartment less than a mile away, but she also had a gorgeous partner and an eighteen-month-old tottering around and a total of zero doors in her studio apartment. Indira was a firsthand witness to the lack of self-control Lizzie and Rake had when it came to keeping their hands off each other in public; she couldn’t imagine what occurred behind (not) closed doors.
Indira’s other two closest friends, Harper and Thu, also lived reasonably close, having recently moved back to the area from New York and California, respectively. But they, too, lived with their significant others in one-bedroom apartments. While a night or two on their couches wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, Indira knew anything longer than that would leave her with a sore neck and back probably for, like, ever. Getting older sucked.
That left her older brother, Collin, and his fiancé, Jeremy.
The pair was intimidatingly put together, their cushy doctor salaries granting them a spacious three-bedroom home in Manayunk, one of Philadelphia’s more residential neighborhoods a few miles northwest of Center City.
Indira and Collin were close, having leaned on each other since they were little ones trapped in the crosshairs of a messy divorce, and she knew he wouldn’t mind her crashing at his place. In fact, despite the longer commute she’d have to endure for work, she felt a tiny bubble of excitement at the opportunity to spend time with her brother while she figured out what to do next.
Besides, Collin and Jeremy were getting married in a little over a month and had so many pre-wedding events planned—most of which seemed more like exploitation of the wedding party for free labor to make decorations and goody bags than actual celebrations—she was already planning on being there quite a bit.
Maybe watching horror movies and ordering pizza like she and Collin had when they were teenagers would help her through this outrageously awful situation. This wasn’t likely, but if listening to Taylor Swift since she was a die-hard teenage superfan had taught her anything, it was that healing from a breakup was a slow, treacherous process and any attempt at feeling better was worth it.
Indira shot Collin and Jeremy a quick message in their group chat, telling them that something had happened with Chris and she’d be crashing at their place for a bit, knowing they were probably in surgery at the hospital and wouldn’t see it for a few hours.
Straightening her spine (as much as she could under the tremendous weight of all her shit and pseudo-feral cat), Indira left her vandalized car to be dealt with on a day that sucked ass just a little less and walked to City Hall to catch a train out to Collin’s.
Collin and Jeremy, like Indira, were doctors. Collin and Jeremy, unlike Indira, were anesthesiologists, earning them a level of respect in the medical community (and a giant salary) that Indira would never scratch as a psychiatrist.
Physicians and surgeons and psychiatrists alike all had the goal of healing, but because Indira wielded a complex system of therapies and medications instead of a scalpel, her work would never be as valued. Psychiatry lacked the instant gratification of surgery, and just as mental illnesses were ridiculously stigmatized in society, those who treated them were held in lesser regard.
Not that Indira gave a shit. To her, the brain was the most vital human component, and she was humbled to have the privilege of helping her patients cope and heal theirs … even if she struggled with her own sometimes.
Arriving at the station and swiping her pass, Indira draped a scarf over the outside of Grammy’s carrier, hoping the general loudness of the city would divert notice of any bizarre screeches the creature decided to let out. She picked a window seat in a fairly empty train car, dropping her stuff around her in a mess.
The train pulled out a few minutes later, and Indira watched the city blur into streaks of gray and green. The steady vibrations of the ride relaxed her tense muscles, and the commotion of the past hour hit her unguarded heart.
How could Chris do that to her? How could he betray her like that?
Indira had twisted herself into knots to be a chill girlfriend. A fun girlfriend. To be exactly the type of person she thought Chris would like.
That had worked fucking well.
The train pulled to a stop at the next station, and Indira blinked away the tiny stars in her vision, focusing on the view outside her window and hoping the onboarding passengers wouldn’t see her tear-stained cheeks. It was a useless effort, fat droplets squeaking out and plopping on to her lap.
Indira was so damn sick of being left by the men in her life—first her father, then every guy she’d offered her heart to after—and just once, she wanted to be someone worth staying for.
She tended to fall too fast. Too hard. Care way too much. It was why Chris had seemed so safe. The thought of him had never made her heart swoop or her head float. Liking him hadn’t felt like anything more than … well, liking him, and she thought not feeling too much would be a safeguard from another emotional car crash.
So much for that plan, because now she was sitting here, bawling on the fucking train, and careening off a cliff to rock bottom.
