“What?” Julian looks momentarily baffled as I lift my chin.
“Pay me, for both the prep time and the shadowing. And you’ll withdraw the complaint right now, while I watch. If you agree to these terms, we’ll start immediately.”
“How much?” Julian asks, his voice incredulous.
“Every month of rent I’m unable to sell weed during,Julian.” I cock my head to the side. “Or lest you forget, your entire career is riding on this.”
His eyes widen all the way to the whites. Finally, he grits out, “Deal.”
“Great. By the way, you work here for free now.” I ball up a towel and throw it at his face. “You can start by making the coffee.”
I saunter over to the door, flip the sign to Open, and smile for the first time in weeks.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JULIAN
After a week of early mornings at Nomi’s “coffee shop” and evenings studying Nomi’s assigned readings, quiz day arrives.
“Well?” She crosses her arms, which has the outrageous effect of hoisting her breasts even higher. Their rounded tops puff out of her black tank top ominously, like a blowfish about to strike. This helps quell the swirl of heat licking through my groin.
Theoretically.
“Did you do the reading?” She’s looking at me as if I haven’t, but Ihave. I read, I highlighted, I had an existential crisis about how I ended up back in Sparrow Nook apprenticed to a street pharmacist. Then, I read some more.
I clear my throat. “Yes.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.” And when I finished what Nomi hand-selected for me, I picked through the works cited, reading those articles, too. Let no one ever say I half-assedmyhomework. I’ve spent a small fortune on PubMed access this week, and I have the twitching eyelid to prove it.
Nomi’s tawny brown eyes narrow, and she points to the counter where the quiz waits. “Then get started. You have fifteen minutes.”
My mouth forms a hard line, and I snatch the pencil. The questions are straightforward but aren’t playing around.
What functions does the endocannabinoid system regulate within the human body?
Explain the dopaminergic reaction of THC within the hypothalamus.
Cannabis with what ratio of THC to CBD is most effective for treating symptoms of Parkinson’s disease?I feel a brief flush of shame as I slash out an answer to that one.
The timer buzzes, and I slam my pencil down on reflex. My cheeks heat as Nomi takes my paper. She may be wearing denim cut-offs and stacked black lace-up boots, but she is one hundred percentteacherright now, and it’s doing things to me. She reads my responses through lowered lashes, absently pulling her bottom lip into her mouth. When she reaches the end, she sniffs, then tosses the paper in the trash.
“Well?” I know I aced it, but I want to hear her say it. I want my gold star, and I wantherto give it to me.
Oh, God, I’m getting a boner.
She walks toward the door, her hips swaying in perfect rhythm back and forth, like a metronome ticking away the last of my sanity. “You passed,” she calls over her shoulder. “Come on.”
I grin, then bound after her.
After I squeeze into her car’s tiny front seat and buckle in, Nomi puts on a pair of cat-eyed sunglasses and pulls out onto the road. I’m almost grateful for how bunched up my limbs are—being this uncomfortable is the only way I’ll survive the way the shorts’ frayed hem dances across her thighs, catching on the tiny blonde hairs there. The image of her legs spread open before me on the patient table flashes through my brain like a lightning strike, and I flinch, staring out the window instead.
“Where are we going?”
Nomi takes a deep breath. “You passed the quiz, so your shadowing can begin for my medicinal clients. I don’t want to hear about how I’m not a doctor—”
“Point of fact: you’renota doctor.”
