escape as soon as possible.
“Let me call you when I get home,” I tell him. “Kelly and I are going to order something to eat. And I need to catch up on every gruesome detail of her personal life.”
“Sounds good,” he says.
“Is it your weekend to come to New York, Bruce?” Kelly asks.
“I wish,” he says. “But I’ve got my cousin’s wedding. I couldn’t weasel out of it.”
“You’re not going down for that?” Kelly asks me, staying true to form and never missing the chance to put me in the hot seat.
“I’m not,” I say cheerily, giving her a veiled drop it look as best I can.
“It’s not for lack of an invitation,” Bruce says with an exaggerated frown for my benefit.
I shift again, realize I’m coming perilously close to fidgeting and force myself to sit still. “I’m on call and I’ve got some things I need to do around my apartment. Like catch up on sleep,” I say, trying to infuse my voice with a modicum of regret.
But the truth is, I regret nothing.
First of all, the whole back-and-forth thing on top of my long hours at the hospital is getting to be a bit of a grind. A break this weekend sounds like a small slice of heaven. Second, and I would take a sledgehammer to the knee before admitting this to Bruce, I find his huge and boisterous family exhausting and best experienced in small doses. Very small. As someone who comes from a quiet family of four, I’m not used to either the decibel level or their propensity to argue every point—including every single freaking political point—as though the penalty for agreement or compromise is immediate execution by backyard firing squad.
“I’ll be in town next weekend, Kel,” Bruce says. “Maybe I’ll see you then.”
“Sounds good,” Kelly says, waving. “See you soon.”
“Bye, Kelly,” he says before turning back to me. “Bye, babe. Love you.”
“Bye,” I say, waving.
Keenly aware of Kelly’s speculative gaze on my face, I can’t hang up fast enough. Although a smarter woman surely would’ve prolonged the call just so she wouldn’t have to endure the questioning that’s about to come her way.
“What’s that about?” she asks with the intensity of Annalise Keating grilling a witness on the stand in open court. “He says I love you and you say bye?”
See? What did I tell you?
I take a big gulp of my margarita before answering. I need it at this point. My nerves feel fried.
“Okay, first of all, he didn’t say I love you. He said love you. There’s a difference. He says love you every time he hangs up from talking with anyone. That love you was probably aimed at you as well.”
“He wasn’t looking at me when he said it,” she says, eyes narrowed.
“And second,” I continue loudly, “that’s not a word that should just get thrown around.”
“Maybe he’s not just throwing it around, Ally. Especially considering he’s talking about moving here to be with you.”
“You are just on a tear tonight, aren’t you?” I say, trying to laugh it off as I reach for my drink again. “Can we order our loaded nachos now? Is that allowed?”
“Me? I don’t know what’s going on with you—”
“Harlow,” comes a deep voice as a figure looms over the table. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Startled, we glance around and discover none other than the Sphinx himself toting a carry-out bag. My heart begins a frantic sprint toward cardiac arrest, and that’s before I take a good look at him. Meanwhile, Kelly’s breath hitches with subtle but unmistakable feminine appreciation, which tells me that she’s seeing what I’m seeing.
Allow me to paint the picture for you.
Aviator shades. Wet hair. Sweat-ringed T-shirt. Knit shorts. Shoulders. Arms. Legs. Muscles. Clean sweat.
Basically the human version of Zeus.
This, right here, is one of the most troublesome things about Dr. Jamison: he’s always sexy and getting sexier. In scrubs. In scrubs with his lab coat. In a suit. In running shorts. If I ever have the misfortune of seeing him in swimming trunks, I’ll probably turn multi-orgasmic on the spot.
“Dr. Jamison,” I say once my hormonal surge recedes to a manageable level. “You didn’t mention you were training for the Olympics.”
“Nothing like that,” he says, laughing as he turns to Kelly. “Just a jog around the park and a quick dinner before I go back to work. Michael Jamison. And you are…?”
All things considered, Kelly recovers pretty quickly for someone whose eyes have been replaced with puffy red hearts. “Kelly Henderson,” she says,