Brynn swung by the staff fridge to grab her yogurt before heading to her office for a quick break. She glanced at her watch and winced. She felt like she’d been here for hours, but it wasn’t even half past ten.

“That’s probably the tenth time I’ve seen you check your watch today,”

Brynn gave Susan a wan smile as she peeled off the yogurt top and dropped it in the trash before sitting on the corner of her desk.

But Susan didn’t let up. “Never known you to be a clock-watcher, everything okay?

No. No, everything’s not okay.

Brynn shrugged. “Having a little trouble settling back into the daily grind.”

Susan folded her arms and tapped plain fingernails against her forearm. “Interesting choice of words. Watching the clock, taking long lunches, leaving the office as soon as possible in the afternoon…referring to your job as a grind?”

Brynn raised her eyebrows at Susan’s detailed assessment. “If you’re concerned I’m not pulling my weight, just say so.”

“Oh gosh, it’s not that,” Susan said with an exasperated wave of her hand. “I know you’d never give less than your best to your patients, and to the practice. But ever since you got back from vacation…”

At the concerned look on her partner’s face, Brynn’s yogurt started to taste sour. “I thought the break would help, ya know?”

Susan nodded slowly. “It should have. I know I felt better after getting away for a few days, even though it was for unhappy circumstances.”

Brynn gave a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry about your mom. But she’s doing better?”

Susan shrugged. “As well as can be expected, I guess. But yeah, she’ll make it. We’re grateful.”

Immediately Brynn felt awful that she was moping around for no good reason while Susan actually had a reason to be down, and instead she was going about her business happily and professionally.

“Well, I just wanted to see if everything was okay,” Susan said. “I know you just came through a rough breakup and all, so if you need to talk…”

“It wasn’t really a breakup since we were never together,” Brynn muttered.

Susan tilted her head. “What do you mean? Weren’t you guys together for like two years?”

Ohhhhhh. She was talking about James.

“I was kind of…seeing someone over the past few weeks. Casually,” she rushed to add.

“A rebound!” Susan said with a grin. “Sexy!”

“It was sexy,” Brynn admitted. “And then it blew up in my face.”

“Aha, I knew it was guy issues that were getting you down.”

Yeah, if by “guy issues” you mean your worst enemy telling you he’s been in love with you since forever and then promptly disappearing and not returning any of your phone calls. Yeah, that had gotten her down all right.

Even worse was that nothing else in her life seemed to get back to normal either. She was barely doing her job, all of her old friends were boring, and worst of all…despite the fact that her life list had returned to its status on her nightstand, she hadn’t once opened it.

Didn’t want to open it.

“I’m a mess, Sue.”

“It’ll get better, I promise. Guys have a way of making us…crazy. But it’ll fade and you’ll feel right again.”

She smiled at her friend’s well-meaning advice. Even though she knew she was dead wrong.

Brynn didn’t want to go back. But she didn’t know how to go forward either.

* * *

It wasn’t that Brynn had never been on a bad date before. She’d had her fair share. But she’d never been on a bad date that should have been great.

Like many little girls with romantic inclinations, Brynn had spent a fair amount of her younger years daydreaming about her future husband. He’d be tall, naturally. Dark, personal preference. Handsome, that was a given.

He’d also be smart, successful, and kind, but never boring.

James had almost made it. Minus the boring part. And considerate and kind weren’t quite the same thing, but he had been a good guy.

But Michael Alden?

Oh baby—he was literally the stuff of fantasies. Her fantasies.

She even prided herself a little in branching out from her doctor/lawyer dating pool. Granted, he was CIO of a pharmaceutical company, which meant he mostly worked with doctors. But still.

Take that, Will Thatcher. I’m not such a creature of habit.

She could change it up.

She could be different.

She could be open-minded.

Case in point, Michael had a dog. Brynn was not a dog person. At all. But was she writing Michael off just because of that? No, no, she was not.

And yet she wanted to go home. Badly.

“Is everything okay? You seem a bit quiet,” Michael said as he topped off her wineglass with a delicious Pinot Noir.

“Sorry,” Brynn said sheepishly. “Long day.”

They were all long lately. Ever since that awful showdown with Will, her days had somehow become an endless string of the same old coffee, the same old commute, the same old workday. Same salad for lunch, same problems, same triumphs…

She half listened to Michael as he told a story about how his nephew’s space shuttle drawing looked disturbingly like male genitalia. And even though she laughed in all the right spots…even though the anecdote was genuinely entertaining, it was all…wrong.

He was wrong.

The hair was too dark. The eyes weren’t the right color. His shoulders weren’t quite as broad as she might like.

And he didn’t excite her.

Her heart starting to pound, she quickly put him through her Future Filter. That mental game she played with every potential partner where she fast-forwarded five years to the point where they had wedding bands and family trips to Disneyland and a homemade-ice-cream maker for special treat days. She could see it all.

And she didn’t want any of it. Not with him.

Oh my God, oh my God.

“Are you all right?” he asked, looking alarmed as she put a hand over her suddenly tight chest.

Maybe. Probably not. Could be a heart attack.

Or perhaps, more appropriately…an attack of the heart.

Oh my God, oh my God.

“Would you…excuse me, just for a sec—”

She was moving away from the table before she’d even finished the sentence, weaving around the white tablecloths on her way to the ladies’ room.

She burst into the first empty stall and braced her hands on the wall, not once stopping to consider that her palms were resting on germ central. Her face was hot and it was getting increasingly hard to breathe.

Brynn slowly turned and lowered herself to the toilet seat before pressing her hands to her flushed cheeks.

Very slowly, very carefully, Brynn let herself go into her Future Filter again. Let her picture herself in five years as the new Brynn.

No goals. No bullshit. No rules. Well…fewer rules.

There were still wedding bands and children. But the husband wasn’t a brunet, and the kids weren’t the tidy, well-behaved, matchy-matchy-clothes type of children.

They were blond, and wild and mischievous.

Just like their dad.

And they would still do Disneyland, but they would do other crazy stuff too. Unexpected stuff like running through the mud on a random Tuesday morning, and having food fights. With nonstaining ingredients, of course.

But there would be no white couches, and probably too many age-inappropriate horror movies, and the kids would only have to have goal lists if they wanted to. If any of them took after her, they probably would.

And they would be happy.

She would be happy.

With the wrong man, who was so damn right it made her literally ache inside.

The man she’d thrown away because she was still trying so hard not to be Dumpy Dalton that she’d become a complete shell of a person instead.

A rough choking noise escaped her throat, and she heard two friends at the mirror falter in their conversation, but she didn’t care.

She’d pushed him away. Thrown Will aside like he wasn’t fit to take out her trash, when really he’d done nothing but love her the way she needed to be loved.