Page 64 of Anatomy of a Meet Cute
“I forgive you, and I promise you I’m not mad. In fact, it’ll be a funny story for me to tell later,” Jehan said, still squinting down at the phone. After a moment, she looked up, her eyes bright. “Do you have anything else you need to get off your chest? Because if you don’t, I have a question for you.”
“If you don’t feel like we need to talk about this more, then I guess not.” Her friend’s forgiveness felt foreign to her. After all, her mother’s party was arguably small potatoes compared to a wedding. At the start of this conversation, Sam would have understood if Jehan had cut her off and thrown a tantrum. Yet instead of dealing with a bridezilla, she just had a friend who managed to forgive her mistakes. The difference between her mother’s reaction and her friend’s made Sam feel like she was trying to find her balance after spinning in circles for a little too long. One of the two women’s responses was off; she just wasn’t sure which yet.
Sam watched her friend’s face carefully for clues. Whatever was going on with Jehan, she wasn’t going to tell Sam now. A fact that was made abundantly clear as the corners of Jehan’s mouth turned up and spread into a big grin.
“So,” Jehan said, looking at Sam mischievously. “Are you gonna tell me why Grant Gao is texting you at midnight? I heard you left the hospital together.”
Momentarily stunned by the conversational turn, Sam felt her mouth fall open. After a beat, she looked her friend squarely in her face, pulled her shoulders back, and said, “Probably because I kissed him.”
“What! Finally—wait till Duke finds out. We had a bet, you know.” Jehan jumped up and down a little as she rearranged herself on the couch to better face Sam.
“A bet?” The words came out as more of a laugh than a question.
“Yes. But who cares right now?” Jehan patted the pillow in Sam’s lap rapidly. Still grinning, she said, “Tell me everything.”
“I mean ...” Sam hesitated, enjoying the sight of her friend getting all hyped up. “Maybe we should wait for Duke since y’all had a bet and everything.”
“Don’t keep a secret from me now.” Jehan lightly shoved Sam.
“Fine. But only on the condition that we tell Duke together. I want to see his face.”
“Done.” Jehan practically jumped up and down as she agreed.
“So it all started because of Dr.Franklin,” Sam began. Jehan’s laughter and frequent questions interrupted her and made the story take three times longer than it should have to tell. Sam knew she would be tired tomorrow, but between the sound of her friend giggling and the text waiting for her on her phone, she had to admit that the night wasn’t so bad. Not by a long shot.
“Earth to Dr.Holbrook.” Kaiya’s voice interrupted Sam’s spinning thoughts, forcing her to stop staring at the poster of a baby in gestation.
“Sorry. I spaced out.” Sam gave her head a small shake as she tried to clear the phone call with her mother out of her mind. Logically, sheknew there was no way Diana could have known she was headed into the birthing center, let alone that she and Kaiya were going over the early qualitative results from the first month of the program. And yet her timing could not have been worse.
“I know. You’ve done it twice,” Kaiya said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms. The gesture wasn’t unfriendly, but it didn’t exactly read as pleased either.
“Yes. And I’m sorry about that too.” Sam winced.
“As I was saying, obviously, we’ll want to see the maternal-health and visit-attendance data to corroborate this, but our first client evaluations are overwhelmingly positive ...”
A not-insignificant part of her wished that she hadn’t answered her mother’s call. However, it had taken her three days to call back, and Sam had felt like she couldn’t miss it. To say the call was jam-packed with Olympic levels of passive aggression would have been an understatement. Unlike Jehan, who was way too forgiving and not at all forthcoming about whatever was going on, her mother was not in a place of forgiveness. As much as her mother said she absolved Sam, she managed to pile on twice as many phrases like “I know my party isn’t a big deal” and “you kids have lives now.” For a call that only lasted fifteen minutes, Sam felt like she had survived forty-eight hours of an emotional blitzkrieg. In fact—
“Sam.” This time Kaiya’s look left no room for interpretation when she interrupted Sam’s thoughts.
“I apologize.” Kaiya raised a skeptical eyebrow, and Sam hastened to add, “Again. I apologize. I had a fight with my mother right before I came here, and clearly, my attention is still on that call.”
“Well, do you think you can get your attention here? I have started to explain the context for these quotes three times now. But really, this isn’t my research initiative; it’s your data.”
Sam grimaced and nodded. She deserved that. In fact, Kaiya had very few requirements for participating in this program, and one ofthem was Sam’s full attention. Guess she could addbad pilot-program leaderto her growing résumé of failures, right belowawful daughterandquestionable friendbut just abovemediocre basketball player—a title she’d earned by throwing away the ball twice at last night’s game. The only good things she could leave on her life résumé weresuccessful text flirtandworld-class horny person. Although she technically couldn’t take full credit for either, since Grant had a hand in both.
Eyeing her, Kaiya sighed heavily and pushed the paper in front of her around the desk for a moment before saying, “Look. I don’t mean to be unfeeling. What I am trying to say is that both of us have a full caseload. If either of us can’t be one hundred percent focused, we may as well call it a day and get back to work until we can. If you need time to concentrate on your outside life, just say so, and I’ll give it to you. You can do the same for me. But trying to pretend we are working when we aren’t does no one any good.”
“You are absolutely right. Your time is valuable—”
“Your time is too.”
“Sure. Our time is too valuable to waste,” Sam said, pulling her shoulders back in mock importance, then smirked at Kaiya. “We’re kind of a big deal. People need us.”
“Damn straight they do,” Kaiya laughed. “So can you leave that mom of yours outside the door?”
“Yes. You have my full attention for however much longer we have in this meeting.”
“Thirty-six minutes,” Kaiya said dryly.
