He didn't know why he had allowed her to call him Preston.
Nobody called him Preston, ever. Well, save for his mother, and Richard on occasion. He hated that name with a passion. He had been relieved when people had preferred to call him Burke, and it made him smile when people weren't sure what his first name.
He liked that Cristina had never felt the urge to call him Preston. It was almost as though by being called Burke he was escaping who he had been as a young child, finally escaping that awkward, nerdy and socially inept personality that he had affected early on in life.
So why, then, had he decided that Addison could call him Preston?
It made no sense, really. He didn't know all that much about her, and she didn't know all that much about him, either. They were unlikely friends, and even less likely to ever have anything more than that awkward kind of friendship that comes from being colleagues who spend and ungodly amount of time with one another, but probably would have never met outside of work.
He supposes that on some level, they must have a lot in common.
Despite the fact that he was born and raised in Alabama and she is a Manhattan girl through and through, they seem to have similar demeanors. Both focus themselves entirely on appearing to be professional, and neither really seems to care about gossip nor wants to be the main subject of rumors, but both seem to be popular material for rumors, Addison more so than Preston. They both have sophisticated tastes in wine, food, and music, which they have accidentally discovered about one another on various occasions.
Perhaps it was because both had the misfortune of being given old, stuffy male Anglo-Saxon names, and neither of them really seems to completely fit the bill.
Or maybe it was because he hoped to become her friend.
Of course, it could simply have been to spite Shepherd.
But why, then, does it hurt when he finds out through the grapevine that she has left? Why does it sting that she never said goodbye?