by Evie Claire
Saam sat back, rubbing a hand up his neck while he tried to read her. She smiled and shrugged. She hadn’t lied. If she opened her mouth again, she might.
The bartender returned and put the credit card receipt on the table.
Saam leaned in to sign the bill, sliding his other palm across the table and depositing her credit card. She hadn’t noticed he’d kept it when the bartender left with his.
They stood and she had every intention of continuing to argue the point.
God he’s tall, she thought, wavering on her feet and completely forgetting her point. Standing so close that the heat radiating from his chest warmed her neck, he was undoubtedly way more everything than she was prepared for.
An extra second was needed to allow her head to regain its proper state after the whoosh of weightlessness that consumed it. It was in that exact moment—one where she found herself face to ridiculously chiseled chest—that a synapse in her brain loosened. One deregulated pathway that made Saam seem like something that was missing in her life.
Not that she saw it. Nope. She felt it. Her body begged to press into his. Into the warmth of his chest. Into the balmy breeze of Dial soap and lavender starch that lifted off his skin. Into the heat of his tanned arms. Where his shirt would slowly melt off and…
Shit. What was happening to her? A couple beers and she was mentally undressing one of her doctors? This was so not okay. She needed to get home and away from this Don Juan as soon as she could. Because damn, her thighs felt way too heavy to stick around. It had been too long since she’d had someone else help her in that department. And Dr. Saam simply couldn’t be the one to finally do it.
“Are you okay?” Dr. Saam placed a hand on her upper arm. Leaning into it was a horrible idea, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Yeah!” Lorie said, the gusto returning to her being. “Just stood up too quickly after the beer.” Lorie went back to her phone, searching for the Uber app that she was suddenly having a hard time finding. “Uber, where are you?” she spoke to her phone.
“You don’t need Uber.” Dr. Saam threw a tip on the table and took Lorie by the hand.
So not a good idea, but so everything she wanted him to do.
Okay, so five minutes. She would give herself five minutes to indulge in this fantasy. One where he took her home, ripped her clothes off, and they made hot passionate love all over her apartment. Then she would know what color his eyes turned when he made love.
What was the harm in that? It was all make-believe and if she allowed herself to indulge the growing fantasy, maybe she would be able to forget it.
Before she knew it, she was in the passenger seat of Dr. Saam’s Volvo sedan giving him directions to her condo. Which was again waaaay past the limits of acceptability, but an exception she reasoned she could indulge for a short time. He had kept her phone safe for her, after all. The ride was quiet, Bob Dylan played his version of her favorite Adele tune, one she found a new appreciation for.
“I prefer the original by the way,” Saam had offered, implying her custom ringtone. She had nodded, agreeing that the original was okay.
“My friend asked me to sing this song at her wedding,” Lorie added, which only brought more talk of her past. Only the memory didn’t sting like it normally did. Was that the beer?
And then they were on the curb in front of her building. A lamp burned through the second story window of her apartment.
“Thank you for the ride.” Lorie smiled at him from the passenger seat, pausing, waiting, because she really didn’t want to leave him. “It wasn’t necessary.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m not far from here. It was no problem.”
And then silence filled the car. Neither moved.
“Oh, right.” Saam startled to attention, moving for his door. Lorie watched as he got out of the car and walked around to open her door. Offering a hand to help her out, she stupidly took it. And the earlier weight in her thighs returned and moved north, easily convincing her vagina to join in.
What the hell am I doing?
A passing car horn startled them both, bringing her back to reality. This was not something she could indulge one second longer.
“Thank you, Dr. Sherazi.” Her tone was terse, more for herself than him. Immediately she stepped away. Placed a solid two feet between him and her flaming body and wiped a hand over her face in a vain attempt to get her shit together. “Goodbye.”
Dr. Saam, for all his hotness, was caught off guard by her abrupt change of direction. His hands pushed into his pockets and he turned away, mumbling something about goodbye.
Lorie didn’t even look back as she marched to her door.
She simply couldn’t have the hots for Dr. Saam Sherazi.
Chapter 9
Saam
“Saam, what could possibly keep you in Atlanta? Your family is here, in Jacksonville. Dad can arrange your research funding with Hopkins. He’s already made the calls.”
Saam pulled the fridge door open, hanging over the top of it, searching a lineup of leftover to-go boxes for anything edible. A cardboard box with Mario and Luigi’s logo emblazoned on the top of it caught his eye. Inside he found pizza shriveled into shoe leather. A week in the fridge did that.
“Which is why I can’t take it.” Saam tossed the box into the trashcan and sighed. “He did it. I didn’t do it. I can’t be in his shadow forever.”
“I worry about you, Saam. It’s ten o’clock on a Friday night, and you’re talking to me. There is more to life than work.”
“I know that, Amal.”
“Have you even unpacked? Or is the place still in the exact state Mom and I left it?”
Saam looked around his sparsely furnished apartment. He was a guy. He had zero need to nest. As long as he could shower, eat, and sleep, that was all he required. Well, that and a TV.
“I’m unpacking stuff as I need it.” Not a total lie.
“Are you doing anything else outside of work and working out?”
“I’ve joined the board of the Children’s Hospital.”
“That’s work.”
“I had dinner with a pharmaceutical sales rep last Friday,” he said before thinking better of it, still standing and staring at the pizza box in the trash.
“Still work.”
“I…” He paused to think of anything else he had done recently.
“Wait, male or female?”
“Her name is Lorie, why?”
“Okay.” Amal’s voice ticked up with interest. “Tell me about Lorie.” Saam pursed his lips. When Amal said a name like that, he knew what was coming.
“Don’t even go there. We accidentally switched phones. We met to return them. She knows about my desire to do research. Her company could possibly provide funding.” Saam thumbed through an application Lorie dropped by his office earlier that day. One that conveniently held a flyer for Lampalin, too. A flyer illustrating the minuscule size of a Lampalin needle versus their competitors. While he appreciated the application and the comparison, he would have appreciated her hand-delivering it more. Why she hadn’t had bothered him all afternoon.
“Desire…” Amal giggled, repeating his word.
“Stop.”
“Is she married?”
“No, but dating some guy named Brad, I think.” Saam rubbed his palm against the short spiky hair that faded into his neck. “It doesn’t matter anyway. She’s off-limits.” Saam cleared his throat to try and hide any emotion seeping into his voice.
“Oh my gosh, you like her.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I’m your twin. You just made that weird throat noise. You so like her. Why is she off-limits?”
Saam sighed, trying to hide anything from Amal was pointless. “Drug rep.”
“Please, doctors diddling drug reps is a cliché
for a reason. She is not off-limits.”
“No, this one is. She’s not husband hunting.”
“Which is exactly why you want her.”
“Everybody that sees her wants her. She looks like Kate Upton.”
“Of course, she does.” He could tell Amal was rolling her eyes. “She’s hot, I get it. You live in Atlanta. There are a million hot blondes in a twenty-mile radius. Have you checked your Tinder app lately?”
“I deleted it.”
Amal groaned at his admission.
“I really wish you would come back to Jacksonville. I have plenty of friends that would love to go out with you.”
Saam didn’t want any of those friends. Half he already knew. None of them held a candle to Lorie.
“Why can’t I stop thinking about her?”
“Lorie?” Amal’s voice ticked up at the end. Saam liked the way she said the name this time. Even separated by hundreds of miles, he knew his sister well enough to know that she was switching from sarcastic, teasing twin into the solidarity of a sister that always had his back. “Because you think you can’t have her.”
Saam drummed his nails on the counter. Yes, he was competitive. Dinner was good. Better than he’d expected. Until Brad ruined everything.
“You’ve always loved a challenge, Saam. Ever the overachiever.” Amal paused and he knew exactly why. She was undoubtedly switching the phone to her left hand and popping the dominate one on her hip—the way she always did when she shared an opinion she strongly felt. “Are you going to wimp out because of some guy named Brad?”
“I don’t even know that I like her like that.”
“Please. You never mention girls to me.”
“There haven’t been any to mention. I’ve been in school, remember?”
“Whatever. Look, all I’m saying is that if you like her you should ask her out. She either says yes or she says no. It’s that simple. Yes and you get to do your macho, chest-thumping thing. See where it goes. No and you can hate her for being a bitch and move on.”
Saam rested his elbows on the kitchen counter he had bellied up to. It had been a week and he was still thinking about her.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe, my ass. You want to call her.” There was no getting around his sister. Sharing a womb for nine months made that impossible. “Do it. Don’t you dare text her. That’s weak.”
“Fine.”
“Right now. As soon as we get off the phone.”
“I can’t. It’s too late. That’d be weird. And I’m volunteering with the Children’s Hospital all weekend anyway.”
Amal made a small approving sound in the back of her throat at the mention of volunteering. “Then Monday. I’m going to call and remind you.”
And she would. He knew she would.
“I’ll look forward to that,” he said, allowing sarcastic dread to seep heavily into his words.
“Buckle up, buttercup, it’s just a phone call.”
He laughed into the phone, knowing she was smiling, despite the militant-sounding endearment she was so fond of.
“Give the girls my love.” He hung up and scrolled through his text messages, finding what he was looking for.
Their text chain hadn’t changed in a week. He didn’t like that. Because he did like her.
Chapter 10
Lorie
“I just can’t believe it.” Lorie stormed around her bedroom, shoving clothes into a bag to appease her anger.
“He’s an asshole. Why does that surprise you?” Her neighbor Phebe lounged on the bed, stroking Brad’s ears and watching the wild packing with growing amusement. “All guys are assholes.”
Lorie peered out of her closet long enough to fix Phebe in an unimpressed glare.
“Except Brody,” Phebe corrected, yawning.
“You got the last good one,” Lorie agreed and jerked a sweatshirt off its hanger. She pushed it in the bag and—catching a glimpse of her frazzled reflection in a nearby mirror—decided to wash off the makeup she’d put on for her date. “Why even bother to ask if you aren’t going to show? You know? That’s so rude,” she said through her scrubbing, raising her voice so Phebe could hear.
“Or maybe he did show up, took one look at you and said, ‘No freakin’ way,’ ” Phebe yelled back.
Lorie wiped her face on a bath cloth and peeped through the bathroom doorway, crestfallen.
“I’m kidding,” Phebe said, animating her words with a grand waving gesture. “Any guy that looks at you gets an instant hard-on. Which only proves my point that the guy is a no-show asshole. Is there a way to flag him on Bumble for standing you up? Give a sister a warning?”
“Good idea.” Lorie squared her jaw, imagining all the ways she could take the guy down. Phebe always had the answers. Lorie flopped down beside her bag and grabbed her wine. “It’s not him. He wasn’t all that impressive. I just needed it. Work has taken over everything. I wanted to flirt and have some fun. Forget myself for a night.”
Annd forget about Saam, she thought. It had been a week and she still had dreams about those eyes of his…okay, wet dreams if she was being honest.
“And I totally support that.” Phebe nodded her agreement, clinking their wineglasses together. “You are the only person I know that willingly gives up their weekend to hang out at a diabetic kids camp. Your boss must absolutely love you.” Phebe tossed a bottle of sunscreen into Lorie’s gaping bag.
“Victoria is impressed. But, I enjoy it, too. Growing up, I went with Liza every chance I got.”
“She’s diabetic?”
“Since childhood.” Lorie nodded.
“Am I ever going to meet her?”
“You will. She’s in town every week with her wedding planning. Wants to get everything finalized before she goes back to her teaching job.”
Phebe nodded.
“Well, this weekend, you can shoot arrows at a target or something. Pretend it’s the asshole’s head. Sunday evening, we’ll get drunk and trash him even more.” Phebe raised her glass.
“Done and done.” Lorie raised her glass to meet Phebe’s.
Being stood up was a blow to anyone’s ego. Even if it was nothing more than a pathetic attempt to get her mind off someone else. Now, her thoughts were only spinning even farther down the wrong path.
Saam wouldn’t be so immature as to stand a girl up, she thought, zipping her bag and chugging the last bit of wine.
* * *
—
It was eight A.M. on a deserted back road. Lorie pointed her phone toward the welcome sign for Camp Sunshine, snapped a pic, and fired it off to Liza.
Lorie: Guess where I am this weekend?
It was kind of work. Maybe she should set better boundaries for herself. But Lorie enjoyed her weekends serving as the camp’s music director. And it wasn’t like her personal life was on fire these days. Kids were more reliable than asshole Bumble dates.
Liza: Good for you! I’m coming with you one of these weekends! Are our initials still on that tree by the lake?
Liza and Lorie had a long history with Camp Sunshine.
Lorie: Yes, can you believe it—fifteen years later! I’ll send a pic
Lorie smiled at the memories, tucked her phone away, and eased onto a tree-lined drive that led into the heart of camp. She rolled down her windows, straining her ears for the first sounds of squealing kids. A large field came into focus to her left. She leaned out the window, slowing to a crawl and watching a group of kids chase after a soccer ball.
Dr. Sherazi played soccer as a kid.
The thought zoomed into her mind from out of the deep blue nowhere. Followed by the steaming hot memory of what she’d done the night before to other memories of him. She’d been stood up. It stung. Indulging her fantasies had seemed like a good way to get over it. Now, she
pressed her thighs together at the memory. Damn it! That was not going to clear her mind.
But maybe he could, she thought.
Her eyes strayed to a counselor running down the field, up to his waist in a sea of pint-sized soccer players. Dressed in neon soccer silks, she had to do a double take when he broke free of the mass. Umm…hello soccer legs. The guy was new, or maybe he was on a different weekend rotation from Lorie, because that kind of physique she would remember.
Forcing her eyes back to the road, she rolled into the parking lot beside the administration building. She should definitely check in first, then maybe continue gawking at the soccer counselor while she found her cabin assignment.
“Lorie!” Alice, the camp director, wrapped her up in a hug when she walked into the small wooden structure. The place was a mess—scattered papers, an un-strung tennis racket, life jackets piled over an old armchair. And because the camp was nonprofit, only camper cabins had AC. Which made Alice’s office feel like the inside of a toaster oven. She pressed a sweaty cheek to Lorie’s. With perspiration already pricking the back of her neck, Lorie didn’t even flinch. It was part of camp life. “I’m so glad to see you!”
“Hey, Alice.” Lorie returned the hug, peeking over her shoulder to where Alice’s constant companion and resident therapy dog, Tug, sat panting in the heat. He was a gorgeous yellow Lab that was quite possibly better behaved than Lorie. Stately, friendly, and strong, it was Tug who welcomed anxious newcomers to Camp Sunshine. “And hello to you, too, Tug,” she said, leaning over to kiss his silky yellow head.
“Just one second, I’ll get your cabin assignment,” Alice said, taking a file folder from her desk. “Everything’s such a mess this weekend. I had to let my assistant go, and I can’t for the life of me figure out her filing system!” Alice huffed her way through several pages before finding what she was looking for. When she finally did, she read the document twice and then pursed her lips in confusion. “Oh, it’s your weekend to be out of cabin. Curfew detail.”
“Any chance there’s someone who wants to swap?” Lorie offered. There was always someone who wanted to swap. Lorie was one of the few volunteers that enjoyed being in-cabin with the campers.