Set in the last year of Addison and Derek's marriage. Addison's POV.
No amount of coffee, no amount of crying
No amount of whiskey, no amount of wine
No, nothing else will do
I've gotta have you, I've gotta have you.
Gotta Have You, The Weepies
The light is warm in the little Italian restaurant. It throws a gentle glow over his face and softens his features, ironing out the slightly predatory smirk, until all she can see is the kindness that he routinely shows her. She's his best friend's wife; her husband is 'stuck' in a surgery yet again; and he's gotten stuck with entertaining her. He does it with a very good grace; he manages to make it seem as though he really wants to be here with her, although she's pretty certain that he doesn't. He looks after her out of loyalty to Derek. And, she supposes, because they've known each other a long time and they're sort of friends. But from everything she knows about him, she'd bet the 850-dollar Manolo Blahnik strappy black sandals she's wearing that he'd rather be sitting across from a woman who isn't close to maudlin tipsiness, who doesn't have suppressed tears in her eyes, and who he could be reasonably . . . no, it's Mark, and he has no self-doubt where women and sex are concerned . . . absolutely certain he'll be screwing later on.
When did she get this pathetic? She's Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery . . . Shepherd. She falters on the last name. She's a double board certified surgeon. She's world-renowned . . . world-renowned for God's sake . . . in neonatal surgery and genetics. And mirrors tell her that she's beautiful, but her heart doesn't believe it anymore. Because Derek just looks through her—whatever designer finery she wears; however sexy she is, although his indifference has made her shy in recent months; however many babies she saves, and articles she publishes, and keynote speeches at medical conferences she gives. She feels like some sad, disempowered mouse of a woman desperately waiting for a crumb of her husband's affection.
"Damn it!" she says under her breath, and savagely rips up the untouched ciabatta roll that's innocently sitting on her side plate.
"Everything all right, Add?" Mark asks, amusement and concern mingling in his voice. "What did that bread roll ever do to you?"
She looks up, and now he is smirking at her a little. But it's a nice smirk, not predatory, and his eyes are looking into hers as though he actually cares about her. She used to get that from Derek; she doesn't very often any more, and it unhinges her enough to blurt out, "Do you think I'm beautiful, Mark?"
She's immediately embarrassed and she hopes that he'll just tease her, because that's what she's come to expect from him. But, instead, his smirk disappears while the look in his eyes deepens, and she's surprised to see him blush.
"Yes," he says, very simply, very quietly, before looking away from her, picking up his almost full wine glass, and draining it.
"Really?" she asks. It's nice that someone thinks she's beautiful; an attractive, eligible man . . . her husband's best friend and a compulsive womanizer, true . . . but still.
"Don't, Add," he says. His voice is still quiet.
She feels somehow brushed off, rejected . . . once again. But she knows this is irrational and that she's not being fair to him, and so she accepts it and takes a sip of wine to calm herself and pull herself together.
But she can't stop herself, and, as she sets down her glass, she asks him, "Why doesn't Derek love me anymore?" Derek confides in him, much more than he does in her, and if anyone apart from Derek knows the answer to this question, it's Mark.
He pauses for what seems like an eternity before he says, "He does love you, Addie. He's just busy."
She wants to ask why Derek is always so damn busy. Mark's supposedly the best plastic surgeon on the East coast, and she's her. Why aren't they so incessantly busy that they don't ever have time for dinner and hardly ever sleep unless it's in a hospital on-call room? It doesn't make sense. But she refuses to turn into a shrill, weeping mess all over Derek's friend. The fact that he's there for her doesn't mean she has to exploit and embarrass him. She has dignity; she's not a stereotype and she's not a damn doormat and she's not going to act like one.
"Why don't we order some coffee?" she asks him and waits while he attracts the attention of the waiter and orders two double espressos.
As she drinks the hot, dark liquid, she sighs and says, very quietly, almost to herself, "Derek and I were so . . . magical together once." And the moment these words are out of her mouth, she's shocked that she's not quite sure whether it's Derek she misses as much as the magic that suffused their relationship.
Mark doesn't reply, but when she looks up he's looking at her again, and even when her slightly blurry eyes meet his, his gaze doesn't waver. And, on God knows what impulse, she stands up, leans across the small table, and tries to kiss him, tries to part his lips with her tongue, because for one moment . . . a hiatus in reason and common sense . . . he's all she wants in the world.
"Don't, Add," he says gently, without judgment and pushes her away—although the pushing away feels more like being pulled towards him because it's so soft and caressing and she can feel his breath warm on her neck as he adds, "I can't."
"I'm sorry," she says, flustered because reason has come flooding back into her mind. She sits down. "Mark, I'm . . . I . . . I'm sorry. I shouldn't have . . . I shouldn't be putting you in this position."
"It's fine. Forget about it," he says, almost irritably and she recoils a little at his tone. He sighs deeply. "Let's get the check, huh?"
"That's a good idea," she says, falsely bright and organized and she rummages in her purse, pulls out her wallet and selects a platinum credit card. "My treat," she says, adding, when he objects politely, "you've had to put up with enough from me this evening."
He shakes his head, shrugs and smiles, "Whatever you say, ma'am," he jokes in a gruffly gentle voice.
"Quite right," she agrees and gives a small smile, grateful that he's . . . rather sweetly, she thinks . . . helping her to retrieve her poise.
Their coffee finished and the check taken care of, they're standing outside the restaurant. A cab drives down the street and he hails it and, when it stops, opens the door for her and gives the driver the address of her brownstone.
Before he closes the door, he leans down and looks into her eyes. He hesitates, and his gaze momentarily flickers away from hers before the intensity increases and she's transfixed by the slate blue of his eyes boring into hers.
"Just so you know," he says in a low voice that's husky with an emotion she doesn't think she's ever heard from him before, "when I said 'I can't'—"
She opens her mouth to speak, and he breaks off, shakes his head very slightly, and puts one finger against her lips to quiet her.
"I can't because I love you, and if I started something with you I wouldn't be able to stop." He looks away from her and then adds, "I just wanted you to know that," before he slams the cab door shut and lets the driver know he can go.
Addison can't look back at him as the cab drives away, although part of her desperately wants to. Part of her desperately wants to stop the cab and get out and run into his arms. With him, just now . . . that was magic. And the only reason she lets the cab drive on is that she knows if she started something with him, she wouldn't be able to stop either.
