I Wanna Sext You Up

by Evie Claire

  The last time she remembered having her phone was in the meeting with Dr. Sherazi. That must mean she had inadvertently put it into her work bag when she packed up. Because, lord knows, her nerves were shot after that awkward encounter.

  She glanced over her shoulder, remembering she had hidden her work bag under some stuff in the backseat when she stopped at the bridal shop. One could never be too careful with a laptop left in a car in a big city. Pulling the bag over the backseat, she startled slightly when the standard-issue ring tone vibrated against the outer leather pocket.

  Ummm…where’s Adele?

  Mental gears turning, tummy tickling with dread, anxiety warming the nape of her neck, she slid a hand into the pocket and pulled out a phone that looked just like hers…minus the tiny puppy teeth marks hers bore on one corner.

  Mental gears racing, tummy roiling, neck now slicked with nervous sweat, she slid her thumb over the screen to answer a call that was coming from…her phone.

  “Hello?” she said, barely holding the foreign phone to her ear like it might bite, feeling for all the world like she was the star of an of M. Night Shyamalan film…deserted country road, girl all alone without her phone…yeah, it was kinda creepy. Slowly, she peered over her shoulder into the backseat, chills racing the length of her. What the hell was going on?

  “Um…” There was one word on the other end and then silence. At least it wasn’t heavy breathing. Her nerves relented a bit. Still, she was in the middle of nowhere. Quickly scanning her surroundings, she didn’t find a single soul that could help her if she needed it.

  “L…Lorie?” Distracted as she was, the sound slid into her ear and down the side of her neck like he’d whispered it hot and heavy over a pillow instead of through a cell tower.

  She knew the voice. The question was: Why did she feel it?

  And why was it calling from her phone?

  “Dr. Sherazi?” Her brain reeled. What the hell? “What are you doing with my phone?” Lorie riffled through her work bag, looked back at the watch still not working on her wrist, pulled the strange phone away from her ear. Realization slid over her in a sickening way. In her infinite need to form a rapport with the man, she had stupidly laid her matching cell phone beside his. In the twisted rush of emotions, she had retrieved the wrong one. “Can you hold on one second?”

  “Sure.” The answer was clipped, but for once, Lorie didn’t care about any awkwardness. She dropped the phone into her lap, gripped the steering wheel with both hands, and tried to fully process her day and the newest spiral in her tornado. She was on an overnight work trip. Too far from Atlanta to turn back. Which meant she would be phoneless for a solid twenty-four hours. Oh yeah, and all alone on a back road in the Middle of Nowhere, Georgia.

  “Damn it!” she grumbled into her car’s silence when the enormity of her mistake hit home. Not only did she not have her phone, she didn’t have her lifeline. What if she had a flat tire? What if she had an urgent work call? She had her laptop with her. But what good did that do without an actual phone to use? “Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” She white-knuckled the steering wheel, staring straight ahead, cursing through gritted teeth. What was she going to do now?

  “Lorie? Are you okay?” Sherazi’s voice came from the phone lying in her lap.

  Fuck.

  So, she didn’t have a phone annnnd she’d just dropped some sailor language on the doctor in her call deck who would least appreciate hearing such profanity. Her tornado was nearing category five.

  “Dr. Sherazi, I’m so sorry.” She sighed heavily, hating how unprofessional she must appear. “I’m halfway to Macon. I have an overnight there. A day full of appointments tomorrow. I can’t possibly turn around to switch phones.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Pfff.” Lorie looked around. “I don’t know. A back road between Nowhere and BFE.” Lorie gave a half-hearted laugh at the absurdity she currently found herself in and made a mental note to take the interstate next time.

  “I’m not familiar with that area,” Dr. Sherazi said succinctly, clearly not catching on to her attempted humor.

  “You wouldn’t be, Dr. Sherazi. I’m pretty sure of it.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon. I’m so sorry about all of this.”

  “But you’re on the road all day?” he asked, not accepting her apology. “You need a phone.”

  “I need my phone.”

  “No. If you’re alone on the road you need a phone.”

  “I’m not ten,” Lorie shot back. Of course, she knew she needed a phone. Anyone traveling alone needed a phone. But there was something in his tone that rubbed her wrong. Something that implied she couldn’t take care of herself.

  “You’re also not Gal Gadot.”

  “Wonder Woman?” Lorie asked, confused as to how she played into any of this.

  “You don’t lock your phone,” he accused.

  Lorie took a minute, pulling the phone away from her ear to look at it, because…WHAT! Was he some kind of poor idiot genius? Because the flow of this conversation was like riding class-five rapids. In a teacup. Who could keep up with that?

  “No. I’m always in the car. Typing in a password is too much.”

  “You shouldn’t be on your phone when you’re driving anyway.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Oh, your mother called. And texted.”

  Lorie inhaled and exhaled. Slowly. Audibly.

  “I didn’t read it. But you don’t lock your phone.”

  “You already mentioned that.”

  “Well, you need a phone. My password is 7226. Data is unlimited. Whatever you need. Call me when you get to Macon. We’ll figure things out from there.”

  And with that Dr. Sherazi hung up. Not a goodbye. Not a see ya. Nada. Just done. But at least Lorie could think again.

  She was thirty minutes from Macon. Surely, the world wouldn’t melt in a half hour. Once at her hotel, she could figure it out.

  It was only twenty-four hours. And while not ideal, it also wasn’t the worst possible situation she could be in. At least she had a phone. And permission to use it if she needed.

  She pulled back onto the road, thinking as she drove. Slowly, her reality settled in, and it looked a bit better than it had at first. It could be nice. A day away from the lifeline she stayed tethered to way too much. There were things she needed to think through. A lot of things actually—endless showers culminating in a blowout wedding that she wanted to enjoy, not dread. She had to find a way to make lemonade out of her lemons.

  By the time she reached the outskirts of Macon, Lorie was over it. Refocused and ready for her business dinner. A meeting that simply had to go better than the one earlier today. What were the odds the day could get any worse?

  She chuckled as she counted the disasters. Dr. Sherazi—good lord—he wasn’t winning any congeniality awards. He was brusque. To the point in a relatively alarming way, everything said with a sense of urgency that, coming from a doctor, made you think it actually was. Maybe that was why God gave him such arresting eyes—to distract people from the fact that he had the sociability of a wet cat.

  Still.

  Those eyes.

  Whew. It was a good thing he didn’t make much eye contact. Stares like his had a way a of making a girl forget herself.

  Chapter 6

  Lorie

  I’m free after five tomorrow. What’s your schedule?

  Lorie fired off the text to her own number as she walked through her hotel room door late that evening, resisting the urge to text Liza or Phebe about her current predicament. That would leave messages on Sherazi’s phone. Which would be weird. Ugh. She grimaced in the full-length mirror, dropping her bags to the floor. Alone and lonely.

  By the time she reached the bed she had stripped off
the first layer of her stuffy business suit. The silk tank came off next. Wearing nothing but her panties, bra, and a thin camisole, she hoped to finally stop the sweat that had dampened her skin all day—damn nerves and Southern summer heat waves. Falling backward into a bank of bed pillows, she landed with a gentle bounce and turned back to the phone, waiting for a response.

  Normally, she would pass the hour before bedtime on her phone. Texting, stalking Instagram pics and Snapchat stories. Not tonight. She placed Dr. Sherazi’s phone on the bedside table and plugged it in. Her charging cord, she had. The lifeline to her world, she didn’t. And she was forcing herself to see it as a good thing.

  Because Liza and Jay were getting married. Married. Jay had always been likable enough in a goofy kid-brother kind of way. It was possible he had matured beyond his booger-eating days. But was it enough to deserve someone as amazing as her best friend? The jury was still out.

  Lying on her back, cool sheets calming her skin, Lorie crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the ceiling. Thinking. She couldn’t ignore the past anymore. It was time to put on her big girl panties and deal with it.

  Life wasn’t awful. It was pretty damn good. She was proud of her success. It was the memory of her family’s fall from grace that still stung. The thought of what people had and probably still would say about her father made her stomach roil. She couldn’t defend him. He’d made a bad choice. She still loved him.

  Going back to Social Circle triggered her anxiety. Tiny hometowns talk. Which was why she’d left. That and she refused to be a financial drain on her parents’ already compromised income.

  For years, she’d struggled to start over in Atlanta. When she started seeing a therapist and working through the emotions, her outlook changed. Then she landed a new job, and her world started to change. She wasn’t going to let it slip through her fingers again. No matter what it cost.

  Currently, Dr. Sherazi was the biggest challenge in her professional life. His prescribing potential for Lampalin was staggering. If she could harness that potential, accomplish what her teammates hadn’t been able to, Victoria would certainly take notice. Then Lorie wouldn’t feel like such a newbie. But how to crack him?

  She turned to the phone on the bedside table. Was it her inroad? Did his phone contain as much info about him as hers did? Probably.

  “No, that’s unethical.” Lorie shook her head and recrossed her arms the moment she started reaching for it. “Right?” She paused and looked back. If she had her phone she could call Phebe and discuss the situation. Get an unbiased opinion. But she didn’t have her phone. Using his to talk to her all evening seemed wrong. No, she would leave it lying quietly on the table. But she did wonder.

  While her phone was probably blowing up with messages and social media notifications, Dr. Sherazi’s phone hadn’t made a peep. She pressed the button to be sure it was still on. It came to life, displaying the boring factory-issued screen all phones were presumably born with. Had he forwarded his calls to a landline? Disabled texting? Was that even a thing? Or was Dr. Sherazi the kind of guy that went straight home from work and sat quietly drinking dirty chai lattes and reading?

  Probably.

  Okay, definitely, because the man certainly wasn’t winning any congeniality awards.

  “I mean research?” Lorie wondered aloud. “Nobody likes reading research articles.” They were boring, laborious, some not even worth the paper they were printed on.

  She startled when a sound finally came from the black box on her bedside table. It was a loud blaring bing announcing a message coming in. Out of habit, Lorie grabbed the phone and without thinking glanced at the screen.

  Amal: Forgot to send this earlier. The girls miss you!

  Who was Amal? And what was the video she had sent? Lorie knew she shouldn’t. She knew it was wrong. The entire time her finger lowered to the screen she knew she should pull it back. Each white button her index finger tapped—four of them to be exact…seven, two, two, six…to be even more exact—she mentally told herself what she was doing crossed about a million lines she shouldn’t.

  But she was bored. And there was always the option to mark a message as unread. And what exactly did Dr. Sherazi expect her to do? Turn the phone off and use it only in case of emergency? Okay, so probably—yes. But how realistic was that? Besides, she was pretty sure messages were blowing up her phone, too. Unless he was a decent human being and had in fact turned it off.

  Whatever, surely looking at a video didn’t buy her a one-way ticket straight to hell. Especially not when the video was adorable.

  Two little girls—the ones from the picture on his desk, maybe—sat in the grass somewhere, blowing bubbles and giggling.

  “Thank you, Umple Saam! We love our bubbles,” the oldest who was missing one front tooth yelled into the camera as she blew a huge bubble. Her younger sister popped it with a finger and fell into a hysterical laughter fit when it sprayed over her cheeks.

  “Sa-sa?” The toddler turned her attention to the camera, grabbing for it and pulling it to her mouth like she wanted to kiss it.

  “Blow Uncle Saam a kiss, baby,” a woman’s voice instructed. Amal? Maybe? Uncle Saam? Lorie giggled at the thought. Dr. Sherazi didn’t strike her as overly patriotic, which meant the girls were his nieces. Right?

  They blew kisses as instructed and the video ended.

  “Huh.” Lorie stared at the black screen, her furrowed brow giving way to a smile. Dr. Sherazi, a doting uncle? That wasn’t exactly the impression she had of him.

  He seemed more the stiff, unlovable type. One who didn’t waste time on things like emotions and feelings—things that couldn’t be scientifically classified or controlled at all. But then again, Lorie’s assumption was based on their prior exchanges. The time she’d practically chased him down the hallway of his office, trying to get him to sign for the samples she was leaving while delivering a five-second sales pitch. Or the time he totally blew her off in front of a gathered crowd. Oh wait, that was just hours ago. Ouch.

  She could easily write him off as being a total dick. The only thing keeping her from doing just that was the Band-Aid on her finger. And now the video from his nieces. Annnd, okay, yes, he had been cool about the phone mix-up—something that was one hundred percent her fault.

  What the heck? She was bored. Without contemplating the reasons she shouldn’t she instead thought only about why she should. It was absolutely adorable.

  Thought you needed to see this stat. They are adorable :)

  And that was it. She fired off a text with her attempted medical humor to her phone, forwarding the video of the little girls thanking their Umple Saam for his gift. The minute it was out of her control, however, she had second thoughts. Would he see it as a nice gesture or as an invasion of privacy? Was she being unprofessional? Shit. She dropped the phone onto the bed and went to wash her face. Nothing she could do about it now.

  She was just being nice. That’s all it was. Truly. She was a nice a person. Forwarding a text like that was a nice gesture. Right? Absently, she raised her bandaged finger to her nose, inhaling the distinctively sterile scent as she rubbed it against her top lip. Realizing what she was doing, she stopped immediately.

  “Okay that is weird,” she said, rolling her eyes at herself and retreating to the bathroom to wash her awful day off her face.

  Chapter 7

  Saam

  So, she was snooping. Going through his phone. Scouring it for secrets no one else would know.

  Good.

  It somehow justified the fact that he now knew way more about her than he could’ve ever hoped for.

  He turned back to the unpassworded phone. Back to dissecting the text from a girl named Liza that answered some questions about what made Lorie Braddock tick.

  Liza: Excuse my ramble, but I need to text what I can’t say aloud. Today, you proved
, once again, what an amazing friend and person you are. I think back over the years, how vastly different your life is from the dreams eighteen-year-old you had. Girl, you lost everything, but somehow you managed to keep *you.* When your family went bankrupt, it changed you, but only for the best. And look at you now! I know how hard it is for you to come back to this town and stand by my side. I know what I’m asking. And once again, you amaze me. Your courage, your friendship, YOU, mean more to me than you will ever know.

  I love you

  LYLAS

  —L

  The novel length text was immediately followed by a second one.

  Liza: I had the saleslady take this picture of your reaction to my dress today and I freakin’ love everything about it. Most of all, I love you!

  Attached was a picture of Lorie excited, shocked, and perfect. She was gorgeous as fuck. The kind of girl who would still look amazing after a night of hot and sweaty sex. Makeup smudged and hair matted to her head. Preferably lying with her bare breasts pressed flat against his sheets, her smooth legs tangled in his.

  Wait…no. That was not where his mind needed to be going. Lorie Braddock had already distracted him enough today. He rolled his shoulders out, took a drink of wine, and pulled his mind out of the gutter. Putting his glass and her phone down on the coffee table, he settled back on the sofa, interlacing his fingers behind his head. And as if on cue, her phone screen lit up again—like it was challenging him to a battle of wills.

  Should he? Dare he? It was wrong on every level possible. He shouldn’t. Plain and simple. He had sworn a Hippocratic oath, which basically bound him to always do right by all of mankind. To be the kind of moral super police the world so badly needed.

  But was it still so wrong if its means justified its ends? It wasn’t like he was snooping in her phone to find out the dirty details of her life to judge her.

  She had caught his attention. That hadn’t happened in ages. He just wanted to know her. And while his med school grades were impeccable, all those hours studying had come at a cost. Conversation was hard for him. The getting-to-know-someone monotony was not his strong suit. Women responded to that. Negatively so. And if they didn’t, chances were, they were looking for a sugar daddy.