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“You know you’re safe in the company of a good old Southern boy.”
“Actually, the fact you are a good old Southern boy is what makes me wary of your intentions. Sir.”
She’d meant it as an answer to his teasing use of ma’am, but his gaze flickered, his smile getting a more serious look. A blush rose to her cheeks. She shouldn’t try jokes. She wasn’t good at them. Her timing was always awkward.
She was startled by a healthy nudge from behind. Beulah pulled Les’s laptop bag off her shoulder. “I’ll just put this in your room for you,” she said.
“We were supposed to study—”
“Bye now. You kids stay out late. Don’t come home until the police put you in the squad car.”
Les sent her a searing look, but Beulah just winked and back pedaled to corral the other women. They sauntered away with a few more lingering looks in Brick’s direction and big smiles at Les, promising her an interrogation later.
Probably when she most needed to digest the latest lecture notes.
During the first year, Beulah had told Les, “Right now, it’s all about book stuff. This is the time to make friends, the ones who’ll be with you in the foxhole when we get to the clinical stuff.”
She did make a small group of friends, primarily thanks to Beulah, though when she was talked into going to a house party or out for drinks at one of the popular hangouts, Les mainly went to make sure Beulah and the others who partied too hard got safely home.
In their study group, Les had been dubbed “Search Engine,” because she committed the most complicated material to memory. She didn’t see it as aptitude. It was balls-to-the-wall hours of striving to internalize all the information poured into them during medical school.
Long and short, if she wasn’t in the lab with their assigned cadaver, learning details about anatomy she’d never imagined existed, she was online watching the latest class lecture or in class attending one. Or in her room, going over the coursework and working on her residency application.
On the days she worked at the hospital, her schedule was twelve or thirteen hours there, with nighttime left over for study, and anything else wherever she could fit it in. Like making up a week’s worth of reasonably healthy lunches and dinners at one go. She and Beulah portioned them out in Tupperware containers so they could grab them from the fridge each day on their way to the hospital or school.
As Brick gestured Les toward the passenger side of the truck, stepping ahead of her to open the door, those thoughts crowded in and made her feet drag.
“I look like hell,” she told him. “I haven’t taken a real shower in two days. I did two enemas at the hospital and had a ten-year-old throw up on me. I went through my spare scrubs. This was the only set left in the community bin that didn’t fall off of me, and it’s two sizes too large.”
She didn’t think about her appearance as a priority, beyond being presentable for rounds and patient interaction, and brushing her teeth so coffee breath didn’t make those patients pass out.
Death breath Code Blue on seventh floor, stat.
“Means I might be able to see down the front of it,” Brick said, unperturbed. He produced a pack of cinnamon gum from his shirt pocket. “Want a stick?”
She couldn’t suppress the smile, and took the gum. “Do you medical types go commando under the scrubs?” he asked.
That light in his eyes was still there. She sighed to cover her uncertainty over it. “I guess you’re here for the fire training you mentioned? No way you drove two hours just to take me to dinner.”
“I told you I’d come to see you.”
“Yeah, right. Rory mentioned college co-eds, and I was a convenient excuse.” She managed a casual chuckle. “If you want, we can have that pizza you suggested delivered, and hang out with my study partners. You’ll like them.”
“Les.” Brick shifted closer, gazing down into her face. His fingers flexed on the door frame. “Get in the truck. Or I’ll slap your ass and find out if you’re wearing anything under those baggy pants.”
Holy crap. He’d teased her before, with Rory. But not like this. The surge of sexual response was alarming. Despite her long-standing desire not to be seen as his best friend’s little sister, she panicked, grabbing for the surer ground of responding exactly how she would in that role.
“I wasn’t the least bit afraid to kick Rory in the balls when we were wrestling as kids.”
Brick’s gaze kindled. “I’d be willing to take my chances in a wrestling match with you. I’m better at it than he is.”
The weird sexual tension she had to be misconstruing became even more confusing. This was dinner with a family friend, she told herself. That was all. “I can’t be gone long. I have a lot of studying to do.”
Another shift closer, and he slid his knuckles along her face. “Count of three,” he said. “One, two…”
He wouldn’t. He would. She knew he would, and the reasons why, and how she was responding to it, were a lot more complicated than a flirtatious exchange. Suddenly that light in his eyes wasn’t mischief. Not even flirtation. It had the intent of a solid flame, seeking fuel to build it up higher.
The abrupt lack of subtlety startled her. She wanted to be affronted, to tell him to go to hell. Or get into that wrestling match and see how different his technique was from Rory’s. Hell, he smelled good. She liked his aftershave.
