I Wanna Sext You Up

by Evie Claire

“Exactly. I dare you to answer that question.”

  Their movement stopped. Both of them standing still while the couples around them continued moving. It was a slow song. The first one of the night. On a packed dance floor, their stillness wasn’t that noticeable. But for Lorie, the question cut her to the bone, laying her open, her secrets bared for anyone who cared to see. For a girl who’d already been the juiciest gossip going for way too long with these same people—it felt as if her insides were spilling beneath the dancers’ feet in a great crimson wave.

  She pushed out of his arms and through the crowd.

  “Lorie…” he called after her, but she refused to answer. Couldn’t even be bothered to slow her pace as she stormed off the floor.

  A bottle on a nearby table caught her eye. Never missing a beat, she gripped its neck in a fist and continued for the falling darkness outside the tent. It seemed safe out there. A place she could hide to work through emotions she hadn’t prepared to face at her best friend’s wedding.

  A woman on a mission, she charged back up the path Phebe had led her down earlier. Back to the little kitchen garden tended by Camp Sunshine’s budding farmers. When she burst into the open area near the bench, she ripped the foil from the bottle’s neck.

  “Shit!” she grumbled through clenched teeth, when she realized what she had forgotten.

  “Let me.” Saam’s hands were on her again, from behind, no less, taking the bottle from her hands. She bolted away, whipping around to find him taking a bottle opener from his pocket. Why hadn’t she heard his shoes on the path like she had Brody’s?

  “No, it’s…” She grasped the neck to pull the bottle away, but he refused to let go. Instead swinging it back in a way that insured she came with it.

  “Stop being ridiculous, we both need a drink.” Saam took out his phone, turning on the flashlight app and shoving it into her free hand. His phone. She blanched at the thought of how it had brought them together. He worked on the cork until it squeaked past the glass neck.

  “You want to tell me what that was all about back there?” he said, lifting the cork to his nose so casually.

  “Saam, you’re here with a date. You have no business asking me a question like that when you’re here with someone else. Hell, you shouldn’t even be dancing with me in the first place.”

  Saam’s head shot up. He rocked back on his heels, his eyes raking over the length of her, darkening from dazzling blue to sapphire to navy in a span of seconds. He started to speak, but then stopped and refocused on the cork.

  “I can’t dance with an old—wait what did you call us? An old…buddy?”

  “You need to stop,” Lorie said once she caught her herself.

  He chuckled, but his attention remained on the wine.

  “I don’t think she dances.”

  “Wow, sounds like you two know each other really well.” Lorie was purposefully being as sarcastic as possible, hoping if she struck first it would hurt a little less when he repaid the favor.

  “Wow, sounds like you’re kinda jealous.” He bit at his lip, failing to hide a smile he enjoyed at her expense. Lorie’s eyes narrowed.

  “Who could you possibly know at Liza’s wedding?”

  “You are jealous.” He offered her the first drink with mischief dancing behind his words.

  “I’m not jealous.” Lie. “I’m…just…caught off guard.” Half-lie. “You’re supposed to be in Jacksonville.”

  “Am I?” Saam wrinkled his brow and offered Lorie the bottle. She pursed her lips, crossed her arms over her chest, and stepped away. Bubbles didn’t seem like a good idea. Not when her insides were already rippling with nerves. “It’s a Saturday night. Surely Durden doesn’t expect you to work on the weekends.” The bottle’s glass bottom clinked against the metal bench when Saam sat it down and took a tentative step toward Lorie. “Is that the kind of work culture I’ve signed up for?”

  Durden.

  Her company’s name sounded funny coming from him. So casually said, like any employee would. Only further reminding her that she could now have everything she wanted, if she hadn’t fudged things up so royally.

  “You aren’t a salaried employee. You can work whenever you like.” Lorie shrugged, but her heart picked up its pace, beating hard against her ribs in the diminished personal space. A distinctive smell washed over her. That damn Old Spice body wash of his. A smell she remembered way too well. One that affected her way too much. Only thing was, her feet were incapable of moving her away from its source. Bastards.

  “That’s a shame. I’d looked forward to having you as a coworker.”

  What was he doing? What was she doing?

  Okay, so maybe he wasn’t totally off-limits anymore, given that he was no longer a physician she was tasked with calling on, a physician who could determine her professional success with a stroke of his pen. It was a weird gray area now. One that certainly didn’t need sorting out tonight. The night of her best friend’s wedding.

  “I need to get back. Thanks for…whatever.” Lorie waved at the wine and added over her shoulder, “Enjoy your night.”

  Lorie moved toward the path. Saam gently took her arm and tugged her back.

  “Who did you see when you sang your song tonight, Lorie?” Saam’s voice was a whisper on the evening breeze—soft, warm, inviting. Its tone a gentle reminder of the intimacies they’d shared. The urgency with which he spoke turning his words into a plea—an unspoken request that she remember what they’d shared.

  Of everything they’d shared that night, how had Saam remembered what she’d told him about her song?

  Normally, Lorie would’ve found a way to dodge the question. Always quick on her feet—even if it put a foot in her mouth—she could avoid the discomfort of admitting a truth that scared her. Like the one she currently faced. Only, with his hands on her, her heels remained buried, unwilling to free themselves.

  One single word formed in her brain. On her next breath, it pushed out of her mouth in a whisper to match his own.

  “You,” Lorie exhaled, closing her eyes against the image, forcing the burn behind her eyeballs to cool by lifting her head to the nighttime sky. “I saw you.” She exhaled a short, soft sigh, unable to believe she’d let her secret slip. She’d lowered her walls and let him in. Because his hand still held hers, and that’s what his touch was capable of.

  He closed the remaining distance between them, stepping into her, his abdomen pressed against her side. His hand released hers, working its way around to her other hip. And just as he grabbed hold, preparing to spin her around and make her face him…and her admission…another voice broke their silence.

  “Lorie?” Phebe’s voice cut through the night like a knife, calling her name from several yards down the path. Rattled for the hundredth time that night, Lorie stepped away from Saam, her heels sinking deeply into the soft garden soil. Threatening to knock her over. She recovered, and brought a hand to her head, breathing heavily to force oxygen into her brain.

  “I’m up here!” Lorie called back, moving toward her friend, her voice as shaken as her insides.

  “Liza needs you. She’s gotta pee. Is everything okay?” Phebe stumbled from the path and into the clearing, immediately freezing, eyes bulging when they landed on Lorie and Saam together in the dusky evening light. “Oh.” She paused. “Am I interrupting? I can…help Liza, I…yeah.” Phebe started to turn around.

  “Nope, that’s my job. Liza needs me.” Lorie pushed farther away from Saam and turned back to the path without so much as a goodbye. He deserved it, right? He had a date. And asking Lorie such questions simply wasn’t something he should be doing when he had a plus-one.

  “O…okay. What was that?” Phebe asked halfway down the path.

  “Me being stupid again,” Lorie quipped over her shoulder, not wanting to elaborate on anything that happened in
her life since she took the stage.

  “Liza went back to where you got ready, I think.” Phebe pointed in the direction of the cabin. “Brody and I snagged a table. Come find us when you guys get back?”

  “Yep. I’ll be right back and your third wheel for the rest of the night.”

  Because he had a date.

  Chapter 37

  Saam

  “Did I see you dancing?” Alice asked when Saam stumbled back into the crowd, still dazed by Lorie’s admission. Of course, it was what he’d hoped to hear. But he would never be prepared for it.

  “Yes.” He frowned. “Is that okay?”

  “Oh sure!” Alice waved his concern away, straightening a table arrangement. “I mean, I assume so. This is Camp Sunshine’s first wedding, but I can’t imagine Liza would care. Was that Lorie?”

  “Um…” Saam paused, taken aback by the sound of her name. “Yes.”

  “I love that girl. Haven’t seen her in ages. She’s been too busy maid-of-honoring and working to volunteer lately.”

  “She doesn’t volunteer anymore?”

  “No. Not in forever.” Alice paused, doing a quick mental calculation. “Not since the weekend you both were here, I don’t think.”

  Lorie wasn’t volunteering anymore? The news needed a while to settle itself in his mind. Once it did, a lightbulb went off upstairs. “That makes so much more sense now.”

  Alice said nothing but studied Saam through a squinty glare while she folded and stacked an unused ceremony chair against several others.

  “What makes sense?” she finally asked.

  “Lorie doesn’t know about me, does she?” Saam landed a finger in his chest.

  “Doesn’t know that you’re the full-time camp doctor or that you’ve decided to base your research here at camp?” Alice tilted her head, unsure what Saam’s vagueness referred to.

  “Either. Both.” Saam’s agitation grew.

  “I can’t imagine she would. Unless you told her.” Alice turned her attention to a piece of paper she took from her pocket, one she ran her finger down as if ticking off a list. “Would you mind checking the supplies in the men’s restroom?”

  “Um, yeah, sure.” He turned toward a bunk near the wedding tent they had designated as the men’s restroom, but then turned back. “If you see Lorie, will you tell her I’m looking for her?”

  “Sure thing!” Alice beamed, heading off in the opposite direction. “And, Saam, thanks again for volunteering to help me out tonight. First times are always nerve-racking for me.”

  “I’m happy to help, Alice. I have a feeling this could be a great new revenue stream for our camp.”

  “Our camp.” Alice chuckled, pursing her lips and looking at him sideways. “There aren’t many people I could share this place with. But I think you’ll do just fine.”

  “Your permanent plus-one for future Camp Sunshine weddings,” Saam quipped over his shoulder, already on his way to assess the TP situation. There was lots of work to do and time was of the essence. First fulfilling his duties as Camp Sunshine’s new medical director and then fulfilling something else. Something only for himself.

  Something he once thought impossible that now grew in his chest with each passing moment.

  Hope.

  Yes, he had expected volunteering to help at Liza’s wedding would put him in Lorie’s path, but not even in his wildest dreams could he have imagined the rest.

  I saw you.

  Chapter 38

  Lorie

  “You can stop hiding.” Phebe leaned over and whispered in her ear. “I just saw Saam leave.”

  Lorie stood on the edge of the tent behind a large flower-wrapped pole where she’d been hiding all night, casually searching the crowd for Saam. And obviously failing. She still hadn’t seen who his date was. And now it certainly wasn’t going to happen. She turned her attention to Phebe.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Silver Volvo with medical college and Atlanta United stickers on the back?” Phebe’s brows lifted to punctuate her question.

  “That sounds right.” Lorie’s shoulders fell as she thought back to the night he’d driven her home from Mario’s after pizza. And a few too many beers. Before she’d messed everything up.

  “So now you can relax and enjoy the rest of the evening.”

  “You’re right.” Lorie sighed and played with an earring.

  “Tomorrow,” Phebe reminded her. “We’ll figure everything out.”

  “There you are!” Alice walked up to join the girls. “I’ve wanted to talk to you all night.”

  “Alice, you look beautiful.” Lorie embraced the woman, admiring her pale blue gown, a total departure from the cargo pants and tank tops she normally lived in. “I’ve never seen you out of uniform.”

  “Oh, I feel ridiculous.” Alice waved away the compliment. “But Liza’s wedding is giving Camp Sunshine the money we need to keep our doors open long enough for Dr. Sherazi to figure out the rest of our finances. For that, I can handle a pair of heels for a couple hours.” Alice laughed at her own joke, grimacing as she turned her foot to the side to show off a low kitten heel.

  “Wait…what?” Lorie shook her head and swept a look over Alice’s head to Phebe, needing confirmation of what she’d just heard. Then turning back to Alice, she leaned farther in. “What is Saam…I mean Dr. Sherazi…doing for Camp Sunshine? Isn’t he in Jacksonville now?”

  “Jacksonville?” Alice’s mouth twisted into a pucker. “No, sweetie, he’s taken a position as Camp Sunshine’s medical director. The majority of his research can be done right here. He’s already got fifty campers enrolled as study subjects.”

  “What?” Lorie looked to Phebe again, the facts flying at her too fast to comprehend. Why hadn’t she been told? “I’m the research and development liaison for my company. The company he’s getting this funding from. Why don’t I know about this?”

  “Oh no!” Alice’s face slackened. “Does your company think he’s going to Jacksonville? Is the funding dependent on location?”

  Lorie thought about the question, her gaze drifting to the floor to help her think.

  “No. I actually haven’t heard anything official. I just assumed. His father is at Hopkins. It’s a logical choice for him…”

  “Alice, are things official on your end?” Phebe butted in, sensing her friend was struggling to find the questions to get the answers she needed.

  “Paperwork signed yesterday.” Alice smiled at this, nodding, obviously reminding herself that it was official. “He’s even moving out of Atlanta, living in the counselor cabin.”

  Lorie’s head whipped around in the direction of the counselor cabin. A cabin she knew all too well. One they knew even better. The news was too much.

  “The counselor cabin,” Lorie repeated breathlessly, buried memories of what they’d done inside those walls flashing to the forefront of her mind. She closed her eyes and tried to keep her chest from caving in. Shaking her head, she forced the memory back into hiding. Not tonight. She couldn’t do this tonight. “Well…well, good for him.”

  “Oh, I do hope you’ll come volunteer again soon. The kids miss your music.”

  Lorie frowned. She hadn’t thought about them during her self-imposed exile from camp. She’d only thought about herself and how awkward it would be to bump into Saam. And how painful it would be to remember.

  “I’ll check my calendar tomorrow, Alice. You’ll get my next free weekend. I promise.”

  “Good.” Alice’s attention turned away as a group of people started toward the opposite side of the tent. “Oh, it must be time for Liza and Jay to leave. I’m going to hold you to that promise, Lorie.” Alice disappeared into the crowd.

  “Holy shit,” Phebe said the moment they were alone again, speaking for both of them, and then putting her hand on L
orie’s back to usher her forward. “Come on,” she said gently, clearly aware of how difficult her friend was finding the basic functions of life currently. “You can’t fall apart yet. Tomorrow.” Phebe took the champagne flute from her hand and replaced it with a sparkler for the send-off. “Tonight, you’re still Liza’s maid of honor.” Phebe pushed Lorie forward into the line of bridesmaids, marking the path Liza and Jay would take to their getaway car. “Smile,” she instructed.

  And Lorie did as she was told. Because that was what she did. Exactly what she was told. Exactly what she thought would make others happiest.

  But what about the thing that would make her happiest?

  Chapter 39

  Lorie

  “Thanks for the ride, guys,” Lorie said, exiting the backseat of Brody’s car into the soft night of her condo’s small parking area. “I wasn’t in the mood for a bridal party sleepover tonight.”

  “You need about a million hours of sleep. Call me when you wake up. We’ll go to brunch and get schnockered.” Phebe leaned in for an air kiss and hug as they walked to the building.

  Lorie returned both, gave Brody a quick hug, too, and they parted ways in the stairwell.

  Minutes later, Lorie emerged from her apartment with a very fidgety Brad.

  “Okay, buddy. Hang on, we’re almost there,” she cooed at him as he leapt down the steps—his bladder urging him on.

  They burst out the front door onto the sidewalk. Brad beelined for the little grassy strip between it and the street. She always took him out front at night. She felt safer in the streetlights. Single girl in the city and all.

  Single girl, she thought. And then sighed.

  But, hey, at least he wasn’t in Jacksonville.

  “But he had a date,” she mumbled under her breath, toeing a rock and flicking it off the sidewalk. What was that all about?

  “Lorie?” Her name called from across the street startled her. Brad took notice and started barking. A car door closed, and she peered through the night to find Saam.