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“I’m sorry, who are you?” Patrick is nonplussed.
“Dr. Callan Barrows. I’m the interim professor taking over Dr. Lawrence’s class. Miss Fritz skipped out early on me and she has some explaining to do about that.” Callan’s gaze finally breaks away from mine and he takes Patrick in with a slow, disdainful sweep. “Who are you?”
“He’s my ex,” I answer for him. “And he was just about to fuck off. For good.”
“No. Wait.” Patrick angles in closer to me, panic striking his features as his eyes search mine. “Do you know him?”
I can’t stop my wry smirk. “As he said, I skipped out early on him and owe him an explanation for it. Come on, Dr. Barrows.” I grab his forearm, becausehell, his forearms. “I’m running late now so we can talk while you walk me to the T.”
“Layla! Wait!”
“Bye, Patrick. I assume I won’t find you lurking around my classroom again.”
We head for the exit and when we step out into the late morning sunshine Callan says, “That was the boy you mentioned who fell for you when you told him not to?”
That’s how it started. Then the tables turned on me.
I shake my head incredulously. “You’ve got a real thing for coming to my rescue,” I muse, walking across campus toward Brigham Circle. With any luck, I’ll make the train and escape this entire morning.
“You’ve got a real thing for attracting clingy losers.”
“Present company included in that?” I toss him a quick smug glance.
“I said clingy, so no.”
“Ah. Right. Well, professor, what can I do for you?”
He grunts. “Have you told anyone about Friday?” he asks as we hot-foot it through the bright and humid Boston summer air.
“Just my best friend Stella and my sister Amelia. It wasn’t as if I knew who you were or that you were my professor at the time. Besides, they won’t tell anyone,” I assure him.
“But will your sister tell Oliver? Fuck.” He catches my waist and pulls me to a stop before walking us over to a shady tree. “You’re LaylaFritz. I know your sister and brother-in-law. Hell, I work with basically your whole family at the hospital.” His voice climbs.
“I know.” I shift my weight. “I know exactly where they work.” My gaze hits the hardtop. I’m being a bit of a bitch and it’s not his fault this is our situation or that Patrick decided this was the day to show up. I temper my tone and mood and lift my chin. “Listen, I… um. There’s something I need to tell you and I was going to, but you were surrounded by your horde of admirers, and I didn’t want to be late. I’m headed to MGH now.”
“What?” Callan grasps my arm only to just as quickly release it when he remembers where we are. “Why?”
I peek up at him through my lashes. “Oliver got me a position in the emergency room for the summer.”
“A position?”
“Sort of like an early clerkship. I’ll be working with Andrew Albright who is his friend. Watching mostly. Learning. Helping when I can.” Andrew Albright or Drew as he prefers to be called is the chief of the emergency department, so therefore Callan’s boss.
“Christ,” Callan hisses, scrubbing his hands up and down his face before they land on his lean hips. “There is no escaping you. I’m going there now. I have a shift.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know who you were Friday.”
His head bobs and he stares sightlessly out onto the med school grounds as he thinks. “I thought you looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it, and in truth, I never would have put it together that you’re Oliver’s sister-in-law. I think I met you once very briefly and that was a few years ago at a charity event.”
I shrug. “Maybe. I don’t remember. I’ve been to a lot of those. Being Octavia Abbot-Fritz’s granddaughter is like that.”
His gaze snaps back to mine and he squints. “Granddaughter?”
“Amelia was my guardian. Our parents died when I was little. When she married Oliver years later, he adopted me. I was only fourteen at the time. Anyway, when he did that, I changed my last name to Fritz and his family became my family.”
“So you’re more than simply his sister-in-law. You’re his kid. Great. I not only fucked my student but my colleague’s kid. And now you’re going to be working with me.” He’s breathing hard. “Christ, Layla, I feel like a real son of a bitch.”
That raises my hackles. “I’m an adult, Callan. I make my own decisions and they have nothing to do with Oliver or any other member of the Fritz family. Besides, Amelia and Stella won’t tell anyone. Least of all Oliver, who hates hearing about my love life. And we both know it won’t happen again.”
