I Wanna Sext You Up

by Evie Claire

  Yes, ladies—#babybrother is coming back home! And still single. Did I mention he’s an MD now?

  Lorie’s fingers felt weak and tingly. Her hands forgot how to work, and the phone slid between her legs to the floor. Still trembling, she wrapped her middle in a bear hug and leaned her head against the bed. She was a fucking fool. Plain and simple.

  But she had made her decisions. They were the right ones, even if they didn’t feel like it just now. So, why was she sitting in her room being pathetic? That wasn’t going to solve a damn thing, now was it? She pushed off the floor, pulled on some running clothes, and couldn’t wait to get outside.

  A run, that would clear her head. It always did.

  * * *

  —

  Three miles down, sweat pouring, body aching, breath gasping, Lorie arrived back on her doorstep in a much better frame of mind.

  She had made the right choice. Durden’s funding was a sure thing. Love never was. She couldn’t let Saam risk it. What if she wasn’t worth it?

  Settled on her couch with a large glass of water, she pulled up her Instagram account determined to never stalk Saam again.

  And as if her poor heart needed another ischemic event that day, there was a tiny red bubble under her notifications tab. Nothing unusual about that. Instinctively, her finger selected the tab.

  The bubble gave way to a follow request. Not unusual, either. Until the name of her request popped up—Amal Sherazi Ahura.

  Lorie’s heart and brain stopped working the moment the nerve endings in her brain connected and made sense of the unfathomable depths of social media hell to which she had just fallen.

  What were the odds that Saam’s sister had decided to seek her out and follow her not an hour after Lorie had stalked her Instagram account? Fingers quivering again, Lorie scrolled to Amal’s profile and saw the bright red heart sitting underneath the recent picture of Saam.

  Fuck.

  It was a rogue thumb that had liked the picture. Had to be. Not a conscious decision. And now she looked like a Glenn Close kind of creeper.

  So. Busted.

  Before she could do anything with the request, she dropped the phone on the couch and went to exchange that huge glass of water for a vodka of equal size. Straight up.

  After grabbing her keys but leaving her phone on the couch in case her fingers had another brain fart that day, she fled up the steps to Phebe’s.

  What. The. Fuck?

  Chapter 30

  Lorie

  “Girl, you have to own it. What else can you do?” Liza’s voice poured out of Phebe’s phone. Phebe held it up, on speakerphone so they both could listen.

  “She’s right. There’s no going back from that.” Phebe grimaced, and then smiled. Maybe years from now Lorie would see the humor of her situation. Today, she only saw the misery. “This is exactly why I don’t do social media. Nobody needs even the slightest hint of what goes on in my brain.”

  “That I would wholeheartedly agree with.” Lorie nodded, taking a gulp of vodka. “Owning it, I don’t.”

  “Then what are you going to do?” Phebe asked.

  “Ignore it. He’s moving to Jacksonville. I will never see him again.”

  “You’re forgetting the luncheon you have to plan…for him,” Liza interjected.

  “Oh, I can totally duck out of that, too. I’ll just avoid him.”

  “You’re being a coward.” Phebe shot an honest look down the couch.

  “I’m not denying that.”

  “Why?” she pushed further.

  “Yeah, why?” Liza added through the phone.

  “Because I like him. Okay?” Lorie launched off the couch, throwing her hands in the air and going to refill her glass before she found the bottom. “But it is way too complicated between us now. There could even be legal ramifications over the formulary thing.” Leaving her glass on the counter, Lorie talked with her hands to try to get the point across. “I’m not getting anywhere near that. Saam is about to get everything he wants. So are my teammates. If Saam and I were together, everything would change. It would be a conflict of interest. Durden could take it all away. For what? For us to explore feelings we had for each other when we were locked away from the real world?” Lorie frowned. “Come on. I would never do that to him.”

  “Okay,” Liza sighed into the phone. “Maybe he’s getting everything he wants. Maybe your teammates are. What are you getting?”

  “A clear conscience. Peace of mind.” Lorie rambled off a list of answers she had ready.

  “An easy way out,” Phebe added.

  Lorie rolled her eyes.

  “Don’t ghost him. Text him. Tell him congrats, good luck. Anything. Don’t let your crazy social stalking be the last memory he has of you.”

  Lorie didn’t roll her eyes at Phebe’s advice. Instead, she worked her lips together, fidgeting with her ponytail. Finally, she nodded.

  “Okay. I’ll text him. He probably thinks I’m a weirdo already.”

  “Or he could be flattered that you’re stalking him,” Liza offered.

  “No.” Lorie huffed a laugh and shook her head. “Men don’t understand the subtleties of social behavior. He definitely thinks I’m a weirdo.” Lorie rubbed a palm down her running pants, her palms already slick at the thought of texting him. “But I’ll do it.”

  “Good.” Phebe nodded her approval.

  “Agreed,” Liza’s voice floated through the phone.

  “Sure.” Lorie stood and moved toward the door. “I’m going now. If you haven’t heard from me in twenty-four hours, bring rosé and pizza.”

  The moment she entered her apartment, Lorie found her phone and fired off a text to Saam before she lost her nerve.

  Congrats on your funding and good luck with the move. I know you’ll do great things. Can’t wait to follow your adventures on Amal’s Instagram

  She waited, watching an entire Netflix documentary while she did. Checking her phone every few minutes.

  Nothing.

  When her alarm went off the next morning, she grabbed her phone before her eyes had opened.

  Hoping.

  Maybe even praying a tiny little bit.

  Nothing.

  Chapter 31

  Saam

  “Alice, did you let your nonprofit designation lapse?” Saam Sherazi thumbed through a stack of papers Alice had handed over when he arrived at her office hours ago. He was wrapping up life in Atlanta, preparing for what came next. One final item on his to-do list was fulfilling the promise he’d made to see what could be done to save Camp Sunshine.

  “We did what?” Alice asked, coming over and taking a look at the papers, too.

  “Right here.” Saam pointed to the line item he referred to. “Camp Sunshine got taxed as a small business—like any other summer camp—last year. The year before…” Saam flipped pages. “You guys were taxed as a nonprofit. I’m no accountant, but that’s a pretty huge deal.”

  “Let me see that.” Alice took the paper, bringing it closer to her face, comparing the two tax returns. “Son of a biscuit,” she finally said. “I never look at tax returns. I don’t understand any of it. Everything is handled out of house. I just write the check they tell me to.”

  “This wouldn’t make up the entire balance, but it would come pretty darn close.”

  “Is there any way to fix it? To get the money back?”

  “Yes, but it takes time. You would have to appeal it. That could take a year or more.”

  “We don’t have enough in reserve to stay open that long.”

  “Right.” Saam turned back to the papers. “I’ll keep looking, but at least we know the situation isn’t quite as dire as we’d thought.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Sherazi.”

  “Saam, please.” He nodded, gently insisting she dro
p the formality.

  “Saam,” she repeated. “I have a meeting in a few minutes. But, please, make yourself at home here. We’re going to walk around the grounds.” Alice looked out her office window and smiled. “I love when former campers want to come back and see the place. It tells me what we’re doing here matters.”

  “It definitely matters, Alice. And we’re going to find a way to keep your doors open. Don’t worry.”

  There was a knock on the door. Tug lifted his blond head from where he’d been lying at Alice’s feet. Staring toward the door, his tail immediately thrumming against the wooden floor at the prospect of company. The door opened and a small brunette poked her head in.

  “Hope I’m not interrupting,” she said, peeking around the room before entering, still acting like a kid who thought the camp director’s office was as forbidden as a principal’s.

  “Elizabeth Lawson! Come here and let me hug you!” Alice stood, moving to greet the former camper with a huge hug. One Tug managed to wiggle his way in between, threatening to knock the two women to the floor.

  “Well, hello to you, too!” Liza said, breaking free from the hug and bending to pat Tug’s head. “This can’t be Pal, is it?” She looked wide-eyed to Alice.

  Alice frowned. “No, Pal is buried on the other side of the lake. This is Tug.”

  The women dropped to the floor and started rubbing Tug’s ears. “You look just like Pal!” she exclaimed. “I loved that dog.” She happy-sad frowned back to Alice.

  Looking up, she noticed Saam sitting in the corner, lap full of papers.

  “Oh! I’m sorry. I did interrupt.” She quickly got to her feet, wiping off her jeans, and restoring order.

  “Elizabeth, this is Dr. Saam Sherazi. He’s one of our volunteers.” Saam stood to offer a hand. Elizabeth moved to accept his hand, but the look on her face went from welcoming to confused to shocked beyond belief in a matter of seconds.

  “Everybody calls me Liza now,” she said to Alice without taking her eyes off Saam. Her head tilted toward her shoulder, taking him in like she couldn’t quite make sense of him. “Dr. Sherazi, do you work in Atlanta?”

  “Yes, I did.” Why was this woman looking at him so strangely?

  “I think we have a friend in common.”

  “Who?”

  “Lorie Braddock?” she said, holding on to his hand, waiting to judge his reaction to the name. Saam’s mouth went bone dry. He licked at his lips to try and force saliva to flow again, fearing he couldn’t speak without it.

  “Oh, that’s right! Yes, Saam and Lorie did volunteer together one weekend. That was a crazy weekend. I had to let my assistant go.” Alice paused, something clicking in her brain. “The same assistant that would have been responsible for this mistake.” Alice pointed toward the papers Saam held in his other hand.

  Stunned by the tiny size of his world, and still trying to find the spittle needed to speak, Saam said nothing, continuing to slowly pump Liza’s hand as he thought of what to say.

  It had been weeks since he’d blocked her number. Her absence allowed him to function again. And aside from a weird like on Amal’s Instagram page he was doing just that. Even though Amal had insisted it meant more, Saam had convinced himself Lorie liking the picture of him in Jacksonville was a final “fuck off”—a final good riddance. But that wouldn’t make for polite conversation.

  “Of course. How is Lorie?” he asked, because it seemed like the right thing to ask.

  “She’s okay.” Liza took her hand back, casually looking at her nails, and then sharply back at him. “How are you?” The pointed way she said it, the slight but knowing tilt of her head, told Saam that the girl standing before him knew more of his secrets than Amal did.

  And he didn’t like it.

  Instead of answering, he quickly gathered his papers and moved toward the door.

  “I’ll finish these up on the porch, Alice. You guys enjoy your tour.”

  “Nice to finally meet you, Saam.” Again, the way she said finally crawled into his ear like hot wax. What did she know about what went down between him and Lorie? And why was Saam suddenly so desperate to know?

  Chapter 32

  Saam

  “Dr. Saam Sherazi.” Liza said each word slowly, methodically. An impish glint growing in her gaze, like she was adding the final square to a thousand-piece puzzle. “Boy, am I glad I got to meet you. I was beginning to think I never would.”

  Saam startled, turning in his Adirondack chair to face her. Apparently, the cabin’s back porch wasn’t a very good hiding spot. Saam stood to greet her, placing the papers from his lap in the chair.

  Liza crossed her arms over her chest, raking a gaze up and down him. A gaze that told him playing dumb simply wasn’t going to cut it. She was tiny but fierce.

  “You and Lorie are pretty close, I take it?” Saam leaned into the porch rail, looking out over the campground.

  “Very. She’s my best friend.”

  “I bet she’s a good one.”

  “Very.” Liza was watching him. He could tell that much from his periphery. What she was thinking as she stared, he had no idea. If he had two brain cells to rub together, he would have said his goodbyes and left. Sticking around for the conversation that would inevitably follow—one most assuredly about Lorie—was self-inflicted torture. But the thing was, once her name was mentioned, the rational part of Saam’s brain, the one he relied on so heavily, ceased to exist. He was starved for any news of her. Instead he stayed and silently prayed for a tiny morsel he could obsess on. “She used to come here with me when we were kids.”

  “Yes, she mentioned something about that.” Saam glanced over at Liza and cleared his throat. “When we volunteered that weekend.”

  “Um-hum.” It was a quick tight sound, one loaded with every innuendo it could be. Liza uncrossed her arms and knelt to pet Tug, who had moved his nap onto the sunny porch. Saam turned, taking the opportunity to try to read Liza’s face. “It never mattered if she had other plans for the weekend. Anytime I asked, she always agreed to come with me. Didn’t think twice about it.”

  “This place is that much fun, huh?”

  “It’s fun.” Liza nodded but wrinkled her nose, still rubbing Tug’s ears. “But that’s not why she said yes.” Liza stopped, sitting back on her heels and staring fondly out over the soccer field. Only she didn’t continue, pausing, obviously giving Saam the choice of whether he heard what she had to say.

  “Why did she say yes?” Saam took the bait. He had to, didn’t he?

  “Lorie never puts herself first. She’s the kind of person who does everything she can to make other people happy. Even if it means making herself unhappy in the process.” She turned back to him, as if driving a point home with telepathy. “Thing is, she doesn’t always know how unhappy she’s made herself. Until it’s too late.”

  Liza didn’t have to be telepathic to make him understand her. Saam already knew Lorie had a good heart. And as her best friend, Liza should already know that things were over between him and Lorie.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I’m sick and tired of Lorie putting everyone else first. As her best friend, it’s kind of exhausting to watch. She deserves to be happy, too.” Liza stood from where she’d been kneeling, walking back to Saam with a pleading look wrinkling her brow. “You moving to Jacksonville isn’t going to accomplish that.”

  Saam took a deep breath, his brain feeling suddenly weightless as he tried to process what Liza was saying. Because that wasn’t at all the narrative that had been playing on repeat in his mind for weeks now. If him moving to Jacksonville would make Lorie sad, that could only mean his staying would make her…

  No. He couldn’t even dwell on that possibility. Not when he had worked so hard to pry the need he still had for her from that place in his chest that tightened eve
ry time her memory surfaced. Nope. He couldn’t give that spot the tiniest bit of hope. Or else it might grow into something he couldn’t control. Again.

  “Liza, I appreciate this. I’m sure Lorie would, too. But it’s not that simple. She and I…it’s just not meant to be.” Saam shrugged helplessly.

  “Yeah, I get that.” Liza raised her hand to stop him. “Believe me, I’ve heard it about a million times already.” She interlaced her fingers in front of her and cleared her throat. “But hear me out. If work wasn’t a thing.” Liza used air quotes just like Lorie did. Lorie. Saam’s stomach roiled. “If you two had met in a bar. Would you be moving to Jacksonville?”

  Saam scoffed at the question, knowing the answer, but not willing to admit it.

  Liza fixed him in a hard gaze, but before he could respond Alice burst through the door of a small storage shed beside the porch.

  “Found ’em!” Alice held a set of keys in the air. “Saam, I’m driving Liza to the other side of the lake to see the dock. Want to join us?” Alice motioned toward an ancient golf cart parked nearby.

  The dock.

  Again, his stomach roiled at the thought.

  Liza’s head cocked to the side, obviously enjoying the emotional reaction Saam couldn’t hide. Exactly what did she know?

  “No. I’ve…got…to get back.” He a rubbed a hand along the spiky hairs at the base of his neck, trying to compose himself. No way Lorie would have shared that much detail. “Will you send me your accountant’s contact info? I’ll see what I can work out on your nonprofit status.”

  “Sure! I’ll send it your way this afternoon.”

  Saam chanced a glance at Liza. But she had decided to spare him any further scrutiny, instead twining a garland of felt flowers around her neck.

  “See you, Saam,” Liza said over her shoulder, walking toward the golf cart.