by Evelyn Sola
“Right,” Mellie says, finally causing the lovebirds to cease their private conversation. “What was I thinking? We’re looking for love, and you’ve already found it. And look at this.” Mellie grabs Sandy’s left hand, holding up the giant, pink engagement ring for all of us to see as she lets out a loud whistle.
“Wow,” is all I can manage to say.
“Wow, is right. You can see this thing from outer space.” Mellie finally drops Sandy’s hand. “You realize what you’ve done, right, Jacob?” Mellie asks. “Every man is going to hit on your woman. Do you know why? Because it will be a stroke to the old ego to get her to leave or cheat on the man who gave her that rock. I bet half of the male population she’s been in contact with since you’ve given her that has hit on her.”
Sandy laughs guiltily, while Jake turns to face her, his face questioning.
“Is this true, Sandra?” He reaches over and strokes her hair. “Someone thinks they can get you to take off your ring? I don’t think so.” He smiles at her, showing off a dimple. “Show them, baby.”
With a smile on her face, Sandy slides the ring to her knuckle, exposing a tattoo at the base of her ring finger. Jacob’s is written around her finger. He shows us his own hand, and Sandra’s is tattooed on his skin.
“Always have your bases covered, JC,” Jason says, slapping his friend on the back.
“How did you two meet?” I ask.
“At a party, April of last year. She walked into the room and changed my life. Love at first sight,” he declares.
“For you?” Sandy asks.
“For the both of us.”
“Maybe.”
CHAPTER 9
ALEX
“I love them,” Ananda declares as we stand on the deck. Jason is talking with Jake and Sandy when the rest of Jake’s family arrives. His older brother, his wife, and his younger brother arrive, followed by his parents.
“Me too,” I say as I lean against the rail. “You should have seen the way he slapped her on the ass.”
“Ugh. If any man slaps me on the ass, I’m kicking his ass. I don’t want any part of that alpha male crap,” Mellie says, crossing her arms over her chest. Ananda lets out a loud laugh.
“Mellie, have you lost your mind? The only man who can handle you is an alpha. Look at you. You’re taller and more intimidating than most men. You just want to be the boss in the relationship, but let me tell you, that ain’t gonna work for you. You need a man with balls.”
“Bullshit,” Mellie counters. “I’m looking for a nice guy. A gentleman. Not someone who has to walk around proving to everybody what a big man he is.”
I tune out the argument between my two friends and focus on the party. A giant of a man, who looks like an older version of Jacob, practically picks Jason off the ground in a hug. The entire Clark family circles around him, embracing him. An older woman kisses him on his cheeks and gives him a motherly hug.
My chest tightens, thinking of my own mother and how much I miss her.
When she lets him go, he looks around, and when his eyes land on me, he smiles, causing flutters in my stomach.
Since the day I dismissed his interests and told him I was interested in Dr. Doyle, he hasn’t made any more attempts at conversation. Not until today. I still saw him in the hospital hallways, but not a single word was exchanged between us. Not a good morning. Not a hello. He hasn’t come by the office with any more muffins.
The only interaction I got was when our eyes locked as we were walking in opposite directions. We’d held the stare until we’d walked past each other. My nipples had been hard, my chest heaving, and I had been out of breath by the time I made it to my destination.
As more people pour into the backyard, many faces I recognize from the hospital, I pour myself a glass from the pitcher of drinks Sandy made. Fooled by the purple color, I take a huge gulp, not anticipating the amount of vodka in the drink, but after downing the first mouthful, I take another, letting the alcohol relax the tension from my body.
I step back on the porch and watch the scene unfold. Mellie and Ananda are chatting with a group of guys. Jason is with the Clarks, but there’s a young woman standing next to him. Her face looks familiar, which means she probably works at the hospital. He introduces her to his friends, but it’s the way she looks at him that has my heart racing. After shaking hands with the other guests, she takes a step closer to Jason, standing too close for someone who is simply a colleague. When he leans down and whispers something in her ear, I bite down hard enough on my bottom lip to draw blood. She nods her head to whatever he says, and he takes a few steps away from the group, but he stops, looks up and scans the yard until his eyes find me.
I stop breathing as he looks at me, and when he must have gotten his fill of me, he walks to the table, pours a drink and brings it back to the woman. When I pull my gaze away from Jason, I realize that he’s not the only one who’s interested in looking at me. His friends are looking, and when I catch Sandy’s eye, she quickly looks away and whispers something to Jacob.
It appears she’s said something about me and told him not to look because Jacob is very unsubtle as he pretends to look around the yard. When he spots me, and I’m looking directly at him, he quickly looks away.
When the woman hooks her arm through Jason’s, I avert my gaze from the scene and walk back in through the sliding glass door.
CHAPTER 10
JASON
Caught completely off guard by Maxine’s sudden grasp of my arm, I stiffen at her touch. What follows is an awkward silence. As if I have no will against my body, I turn my gaze and because the universe hates me, Alex is looking right at us. She’s not looking for long though. She abruptly turns on her heel to go back inside my house. As uncomfortable as this scene is, there is something comforting about her walking around in my house. Touching my things. Leaving her smell everywhere.
“So, Maxine,” Sandy says, looking from the empty deck and back to me, “what kind of nurse are you?” Sandy, an angel here on earth, grabs Maxine and the two of them walk to the other side of the yard, leaving me alone with Jake.
“Mellie’s friend, my ass.” I ignore him, but he’s grinning like he’s in on a secret.
“She is.”
“And?” he asks.
“And she’s not interested.” I no longer believe that. She’s fighting a war with herself. For whatever reason, she’s barricading herself from me, but not for long. That ends today.
“That is not a woman who’s uninterested. Talk before I get my mother involved.” Jake’s mother has made it her mission in life to fix me up with any black woman she meets who is under forty.
“Nothing to talk about. She’s not interested. In fact,” I say, looking as a bunch of doctors walk into the yard, “she’s interested in him.” I point at Dr. Doyle, who is walking into my yard with a few more surgical residents.
Jake assesses Dr. Doyle before he turns back to me.
“She’s interested in that guy and you invite him to your party? Are you nuts?”
“I didn’t invite him.” I had made it a point not to invite him, but we work so much and have so little time to meet anyone outside of the hospital, it’s not uncommon for us to socialize outside of work.
“You want me to kick him out?” Jake’s already walking toward Dr. Doyle, but I grab his arm. “I would punch him, but I’m reformed. I can make an exception this one time.”
Jake used to be the type of guy who’d hit first and ask questions later, but the last thing he would ever want to do is upset his fiancée by getting into a fight.
“Sandy will be so happy when her fiancé gets arrested for assault a few weeks before their wedding. Nothing says wedded bliss like a possible felony conviction. Stand down, man. I’m not threatened by that guy.”
I look at Dr. Doyle. He’s at least half a foot shorter than I am. He’s wearing a cardigan over his shoulders like a preppy clothing ad. There’s nothing remarkable about him. No, I didn’t invite him,
but I’m glad he’s here.
She comes walking out of the house, holding a bottle of my very expensive imported German beer. In fact, those were in the back of my fridge, hidden away from any nosy guests. The fact that she rummaged through my fridge and took my specialty beer like she’s entitled to it does things to me.
She takes a few angry steps toward Mellie and Ananda, doing her best not to look at me. She doesn’t seem to notice Doyle either.
“Okay,” Jake says, “I won’t punch him. Yet.”
“If he needs to be punched, I can do it, but he’s no threat.”
“Okay, but I’m not letting you punch him. You need your hands, idiot. Go over there and do that fake southern charm thing that you do. Women go crazy over that shit.”
“I don’t think that would work on her.”
“So, when did this happen? You were chasing anything in a skirt at the bachelor party,” he says.
I tell him about how we met and everything that followed.
“Women,” is all he says. He turns around, finds his fiancée and blows her a kiss. I can see her giggle from across the yard as she pretends to catch the kiss. Maxine, who is still with Sandy, smiles wistfully at me.
Sandy turns her away, but not before she catches my eye and jerks her head in Alex’s direction. I look that way, only to find Alex looking at me. As if she’s caught doing something she shouldn’t, she quickly turns around and starts talking to Ananda.
“Get your ass over there, JD. It’s about fucking time, too. Time to move on from Natalie.” Jake lowers his voice when he says her name. He’s the only one besides Mellie who knows the entire story between me and Natalie.
“She’s been texting. I blocked her number, but she found a way around that.”
“She sounds desperate,” Jake says. A desperate Natalie is a dangerous thing. “She knows it’s over now and is trying her best to hold on to you. That’s all that is. Don’t sweat it.”
He taps me on the shoulder just as his future mother-in-law walks in with Sandy’s sister Tash and her husband Chris. Sandy’s younger cousin Vivienne is also with them. Vivienne is a gorgeous twenty-year-old. She walks with her family but not before she gives me what I think is supposed to be a flirtatious smile.
Her presence is enough to get Luke out of his seat and off his phone. He stands up and walks across the yard right in her direction. When she sees him walking in front of her, she sticks her foot out to trip him, but he sidesteps and intentionally bumps her with his body.
Luke is over a foot taller than her, and the hit, though not hard, causes her to stumble and almost fall on her ass. Luke gives her a look of triumph and walks away.
“Hey, Dr. Dupree.” I turn to find Dr. Doyle standing behind me. I turn to face him, inwardly smug at having to look down on him. I take a step forward, trying to intimidate him with my height. Jake must catch on because I hear him chuckle.
I introduce them and smirk at Jake’s unnecessarily rough handshake.
“I hope you don’t mind I’m here. Schwartz and King told me about it. They got called in so can’t make it.”
I look at Alex again. She’s looking right at us, but instead of focusing on Dr. Doyle, she’s looking at me.
“It’s cool,” I tell him. Unable to stand his presence for a second longer, I say, “Go grab yourself a drink and some food, man.”
“Yeah, I’m going to go back to my fiancée,” Jake announces, looking over at Sandy, who is still talking to Maxine, but who are now joined by Dr. Grace Beauvais, an obstetrician with a short, blond bob.
“You’re engaged to Dr. Beauvais?” Dr. Doyle asks, surprised. “I didn’t know she was engaged. Hell, I thought she was gay.”
“That’s because she is gay, Doyle,” I say, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. “Jake’s engaged to the woman in pink.”
Dr. Doyle is stunned speechless as he looks from Jake to Sandy.
“Is there a problem, Dr. Doyle?” Jake asks.
Dr. Doyle doesn’t answer right away. He continues to look back and forth. “Um, of course not. So,” he says, dropping his voice. He moves closer to Jake, now standing between us. He turns his back to me, cutting me out of the conversation, but I can still hear him. “Your, ah, family—”
“My family what?” Jake asks, confused. I step closer to the two, getting my first clue in the mystery of Doyle and Alex.
“Are they happy about the engagement?” Doyle continues to look from Jake to Sandy, a perplexed look on his face.
“Ecstatic. They love her.” At that exact moment, Jake’s dad walks over and throws an arm around Sandy’s shoulders before leaning down to kiss her cheeks. She smiles at him and lays her head on his shoulder as she introduces him to Maxine.
Doyle looks at the scene, entranced. He then looks around the yard and spots Alex. She’s not facing us, but we can see her profile as she laughs at something Ananda just whispered in her ear. He’s pensive as he looks at her, his usually cold blue eyes showing a hint of vulnerability as his gaze softens. A small smile forms on his thin lips, and I will myself not to punch the asshole in the throat. I was pretty sure before, but now I’m positive I know why he ended things between them.
“I see someone I know. I think I’ll go say hi.” The asshole knows practically everyone here, but with those words, his eyes never leave her. He’s now looking at her bare legs, and I’ve had enough.
“Let me introduce you to my dad and fiancée.” Jake doesn’t wait for him to answer. He grabs his elbow and pulls him to the opposite side of the yard.
As he heads toward Sandy, Alex walks directly into my path, up the stairs and back inside. There are two sets of stairs that lead to the deck, and she had already been standing close to the other set, but she chose to walk across the yard and into my path to get to the other.
I follow her inside. As quietly as possible, I slide my big body through the sliding door. She’s inside my fridge, bent over, showing even more legs in those incredibly short shorts. Her T-shirt is riding up, showing off an incredibly smooth back.
My hands ache as I envision walking up to her and sliding them up her shirt, caressing what I know is soft skin. Unable to talk myself out of it, I take a step closer, but I don’t touch.
She finally pulls her head out of the fridge, holding what I know is my last specialty beer. She gasps when she sees me, almost dropping the drink.
“You know,” I say, taking the beer from her hand. I find my bottle opener, open it, take a long sip, and hand it back to her. “These aren’t for the guests. As you can see, I hid them all the way in the back of the fridge.”
She holds the bottle of beer, not sipping it. She looks at my face, then down to the top of the bottle, where my lips were.
“You expect me to drink this?” she asks.
“That is what you do with a beer.”
“But you just drank out of it. It’s a bit familiar, don’t you think?”
“That didn’t seem to be a problem for you when you ate from my fork?”
I arch my eyebrows at her as I wait for her next move. She holds my gaze as she finally lifts the bottle to her lips. While she sips, putting her mouth where mine just was, I take a step closer to her until her back is against the refrigerator door.
“You have no idea how familiar I want to be with you, angel.”
I expect to see her cheeks turn pink at my implication, but they don’t. She removes the bottle from her lips, her eyes never leaving mine.
“I think I do,” she says, taking a small step to the side, away from my awakened body.
I pull the bottle out of her hand and take another pull. “Like I said, these aren’t for the guests?”
“Are you calling me a bad guest?”
“I am,” I say, sipping again. “Very bad.”
“I’m so sorry, Dr. Dupree,” she says with a fake pout. She takes the bottle from me, her fingers grazing over my hand.
“I don’t think you’re sorry at all.”
“So smart
. I see why you’re a doctor. You’re very astute.”
“Not the half-wit you thought I was, huh?” I smile at her before snatching the bottle from her again. Her eyes find mine, and she inhales loudly. I take a step closer to her and hand her back the bottle.
“I saw you invited Dr. Doyle,” she says. Remembering my words to Jake, I grab her wrist and pull her back to the front of the fridge. Before she can react, I take another step forward, invading her space completely as I press my body on hers.
“Who?”
“Do you know that he and I went out on two dates?” She swallows nervously as she sips the beer. I’m so close to her, I know she can feel the hardness in my pants. I’m so close that every time she exhales, I feel her hardened nipples against my chest.
“I didn’t know that, no,” I say, sounding bored. “And I don’t care either.”
“We kissed,” she adds as if she didn’t hear the last words I spoke.
“Did you now?” This time her breasts are against my chest, my cock is granite in my pants, and her pink lips are only a breath away. As much as I don’t want to think about John Doyle, I can’t help but think about what a complete idiot he is for letting this angel walk away, and right into my path.
“Yes,” she says, breathless.
CHAPTER 11
ALEX
“So,” Jason says as he has me pinned against the fridge, “how was it?” His voice is tight as I feel my breasts press against his brick-like chest. Already, I know the kiss was nowhere near as good as what I’m feeling now, and our lips haven’t even touched. “I heard that you think he’s your soul mate. That’s a huge deal, Alex. Meeting one’s soul mate. Tell me, did your souls actually mate? Did your toes curl when he kissed you? Did you feel your pulse accelerate? Did he make you lose your breath? Make you forget your name, who you are and where you were?”