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Utah piped up before he had a chance to respond. “Oh, we’re not dating-dating. I was Liam’s new dog’s foster mom, so we’ve become friends as his pup’s gotten acclimated to living at his house.” She looked over at him with an appreciative smile. “When he needed a date tonight, I was happy to help out. It was the least I could do to thank him for adopting Phoebe.”
“I’m sure he appreciates you helping out.”
Vicki’s smirk indicated she wasn’t buying any of it, and frankly, Liam didn’t blame the woman. With how beautiful Utah looked, Vicki had to know his intentions were not of the friend variety.
He gave a coy, “More than you know,” reply.
Thankfully, they were next in line, so Vicki gave a friendly wave. “We’ll speak later.”
He had no doubt about that.
The woman sitting at the table covered in a white tablecloth smiled as they approached. She had a clipboard, a small box, and stacks of numbered squares of paper in rows in numerical order.
“Name?”
“Liam McDonnell and Utah Douglas.”
Using her pencil tip, she skimmed the list of attendees in front of her until she found his name with “Utah Douglas” in parentheses on the same line, followed by the number thirty-six. She made a checkmark next to his name, then pulled blue tickets from the box on the table and handed two to each of them.
“Here are your drink tickets. You’re welcome to buy more.”
She perused the numbers until she found what she was looking for, then handed Liam a slip of two-by-two inch of paper with the number thirty-six in bold letters.
“This is your table number. Please be sure to check out the silent auction in the back of the room. All proceeds go to the Verdure Charitable Foundation.”
Verdure was the health network Boston General was a part of. It consisted of over fifty hospitals and clinics in the New England area. Parker being named their Person of the Year was a big fucking deal, and Liam couldn’t be prouder of his friend.
Speak of the devil, he and Alexandra approached table thirty-six as he and Utah sat down. Liam reached inside his pocket and turned the vibrator in Utah’s panties on low as Parker made introductions.
He saw his little bee smile and close her eyes briefly before she squirmed in her seat, as if willing herself to pay attention as Parker went around the table introducing people to Alexandra.
“And you know Liam,” Parker said. Alexandra gave him a smile and nod of acknowledgment.
Liam reached in his pocket and shut the vibrator off, and turned to Utah next to him just as a small whimper of disappointment escaped her lips. “This is Utah Douglas.”
“Oh, you must be Dakota’s sister,” Alexandra said. “You look just like her.”
“That’s me.”
“Thank you for your help with Phoebe.” Parker pulled out the chair next to Utah for his companion, and Alexandra quickly sat down as she continued, “Parker mentioned you might be interested in getting more involved with ARF?”
His friend moved his chair to temporarily sit next to Liam on the other side of Utah while the women talked.
Parker kept a smile plastered to his face as he looked around the room, and barely moved his lips when he mumbled so only Liam could hear, “I thought you two weren’t going to sit together?”
Liam did the same, giving a head nod and a wave at people he recognized around the room while he replied, “Fucking look at her. You think I was going to let her sit alone?”
Parker let out a low chuckle. “I think you may have a problem, my friend.”
“Hopefully, this doesn’t come back to bite us both in the ass. She came up with a cover story when Vicki Kaiser came over to introduce herself.”
“Oh shit. You’ve already seen Vicki?”
“Yeah. I don’t think she bought the story Utah told her, but I don’t think she made the connection that Utah’s our new IT consultant, either.”
Liam was careful not to call Utah a hacker—anywhere. He never wanted to slip and say it, so he just didn’t ever.
“You’ve only got eleven more weeks to make sure the two never run into each other. That should be easier with Utah working from home.”
