Page 31 of Hearts on the Table
“What, what?”
He crossed his arms, settling against the sink. “You’re being quiet. Is it about earlier with…?”
“No.” The truth was, I’d hardly thought of Katie at all once Jasmine and Eli had shown up. His familyhadbeen fun. Their closeness was intriguing, even if I didn’t really understand it. In addition to the industrial-sized bubble solution on his deck, Sam kept a folding booster chair in his hallway closet. Maybe it was normal to make space like that for the members of your family, and I was just out of practice. I didn’t have a room in my mother’s apartment in New York, let alone any designated closet space.
Something to think about another time. For now, Jasmine’s words stirred in my brain. I felt like I was circling around something, hesitant to fully grasp it.“You should have asked,”he’d told me earlier. I bit my lip, wondering if I could take his advice to heart.
He waited for me to decide. Patient. The way he looked at me made me think he was willing to stand here like this, with me, for days, simply because he was interested in what I had to say. That, more than the bubble machine or the forearms or the recycling, loosened my tongue.
“Jasmine says you’re not seeing anyone. At least, not right now. Or maybe not for a while.”
“Hmm.” His eyes flicked out the window to his brother’s house. I wondered if Jas was going to get an earful later, or as much of an earful as Sam could deliver. Maybe a full sentence or two.
“Is that…” I flushed, feeling like an egomaniac. But I had to know. I knew he liked me, just not to what extent, and it was becoming increasingly critical that I know how deep his attraction went. “Is that because of me? You said you’d been attracted to me for a while. I mean…do you like me? Or do you, like,likelike me?”
I took a page out of Sam’s book and shut my mouth after that masterpiece of grammatical tomfoolery. It didn’t get any easierto stand there feeling like an idiot when it took Sam an extra-long time to answer, even by his standards. Once, he opened his mouth, sucked in a breath, then closed it. He stared at the ceiling, measuring every word in his head.
“I’ve dated women since I’ve known you.” He paused. “I like you more than I liked them. Not that they weren’t lovely.” Another pause. While I waited, I tried to reconcile the sharp prickling in my brain at the thought of him with other “lovely” women.
“I have found it hard recently to…” Pause. He rubbed at his forehead. “To have feelings for you and pursue other relationships.”
“Feelings for me.” That didn’t sound like just attraction.
“Hmm.”
“Took a long time for you to come up with an answer that didn’t really answer my question.”
The kitchen was dark, only the oven light and the twinkle lights on the porch illuminating us. His smile flashed in the gloom. “Probably best if I filter a little bit.”
“What if you took the filter out?”
“You’d run for the hills.”
No, he hadn’t directly answered my question, but that didn’t matter anymore, because for the last two weeks, I’d been grasping at straws with him, trying to uncover every piece that I could. And he’d been hiding some of it. Or, as he put it,filtering. Eff that.
All my noticing and watching and thinking about him crystalized into an overwhelming need to know exactly what the man in front of me was like, unfiltered. I wanted to meet the real Sam. Listen to his slow words. Peel him apart until he was completely exposed to me.
I stepped closer. It wasn’t smart, I reminded myself, to poke this particular bear. Not with The McDaniels hanging over myhead. Not since hospital policy said we couldn’t date, anyway. Not when the thought of tangling every area of my life again with one person made me want to pass out.
I’d already learned my lesson there. Once one thing went south, it all did. It was in my best interest to keep those aspects of my life separate. Except…Except I wanted to poke the freakin’ bear! Even as it felt reckless and crazy, his quiet, measured patience with me felt safe. Sturdy.
“What would you do, Sam?” It drove him just as batty when I used his real name as when I called him Doctor. A real win-win for me. “What would you say if you didn’t have to hold anything back?”
Something feral slashed across my mild-mannered attending’s face. Just as fast, it was gone.
“Whoa.” My breath sucked in.
He muttered a curse, rubbing his hands down his face, erasing any trace of the unfiltered hunger that had blazed there just a few seconds ago. “We shouldn’t do this.” His eyes weren’t piercing. No, the blue of his eyes was softer. More tempered. Like him.
“I know. Hospital policy.”
“Yes. And Lainey policy,” he reminded me. It didn’t stop me from taking another step closer.
“Right. That, too. It’s a good policy.” Except was it? Was it really? He was close enough for me to feel the heat of his body. It charged the air between us. It made me want to press up against him because I knew he’d wrap his arms around me tight.I freaking knew.
“I will not push that boundary with you.” He sounded like he was trying to convince the both of us, which I appreciated. I told him so.
“But…” My eyes snagged on those top two buttons he’d undone earlier. I was close enough to see the threads runningthrough the holes. “But what if I took that boundary out of the way? Would you still be…interested?”
