Free Flirting With Pete: A Novel by Barbara Delinsky Page A

somewhere above.
    Casey focused on the primordial coolness of the earth. She breathed slowly and deeply. “Mmm.”
    “Is that your phone rattling on the table?”
    “Ignore it,” she murmured between more of those same slow, even breaths. After a minute, she rolled her head from side to side, gently stretching her neck.
    “It’s still shaking,” Brianna advised in a voice that moved toward the offending sound.
    “Take a message,” Casey instructed. Her mother wasn’t going anywhere. The doctors were alarmists. Her friends could wait, she didn’t want to talk to Oliver or Dylan, and her clients didn’t call on her cell phone.
    “Hello?… No, this is Brianna. Who… Oh, hi, John. Casey can’t come to the phone…. No, she’ll be a while…. I’m sure you wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important, but she can’t talk right now.”
    Casey released a breath. Pushing her upper body erect, she put out a hand just as Brianna returned with the phone. When she put it to her ear, she said, “I hope this is good.”
    “I think it is,” John informed her airily. “I’ve made a decision. I’m leaving the group.”
    Casey’s spine stiffened. “Leaving the group for what?”
    “Walter Ambrose and Gillian Bosch. They have an office ready for me. A receptionist is already calling my patients about the change.”
    “What about us? What about our group? What about the rent ?”
    “The way I see it, I paid my rent every month. If Stuart chose to keep it, that’s the landlord’s problem. Let him go after Stuart, and as for the group, it’s not working for me anymore. I’m outta here, Casey. I have a practice and a reputation.”
    “So do I,” Casey said.
    “I have better things to do than bicker with you ladies.”
    “So do I, ” Casey insisted.
    “I’m gone.”
    “So am I,” Casey fairly cried, and she didn’t back down. Swept along by indignation from one condescending dig too many, she told John her plans as they popped into her head. It was only when her thumb ended the call that she raised wide eyes to her friend in an expression that said, What have I done?

Chapter Four
    Casey didn’t say a thing. She simply held her breath and looked at Brianna.
    It was a long moment before Brianna said, “Not that you always look both ways either.”
    “Okay,” Casey admitted, reasoning aloud, “I’m flying by the seat of my pants here, but it isn’t so crazy, is it? I have an office inside all set to go. There’s a waiting room with its own entrance. There’s zero rent.”
    “You just said you were going to sell.”
    “That was before John bailed out. Without him, there’s no group.” As she said it, reality hit. “We’d have to find another psychiatrist, because a group practice needs at least one, and that’d mean getting word out and interviewing candidates, but even before that comes the question of whether I want to stay with Marlene and Renée. And then there’s the issue of finding a new place, because there’s no way we can come up with the back rent, especially now that John is washing his hands of the whole thing. He’s right; the rest of us did pay our rent. Stuart signed the lease; Stuart collected our money; Stuart pocketed it and rode off into the sunset. If the landlord goes after anyone, it’ll be him. So maybe I should be worried that something terrible has happened to him, but he and I never clicked. Now I understand why. He’s abandoned his wife, about whom I do worry, but Stuart? We’re talking a snake, here. He’s off somewhere, living on my hard-earned money. Well, I have an ongoing practice, and I need a place to see clients.” She looked toward the office. “Can you imagine meeting with clients in there, looking out, and seeing this? It would be totally therapeutic.”
    “It’s your father’s.”
    “Was. He’s dead. You pointed that out.”
    “Right, and when I did, you said that in your mind he isn’t.”
    Casey took a deep breath. “Well, I’ll just