I run my hand through my hair again. I almost put her in my phone as ‘Doc Mackey’ that day we met, but I decided to just use her first name instead, and the result of that simple decision slaps me upside the head.
“Doc, I’m so sorry. I mean, Gray,” I say, turning to her. “That text wasn’t meant for you. I thought I sent it to my ex-girlfriend Grace.”
Her mouth hangs open a second. “Oh. Of course. I…I suspected it wasn’t meant for me.” She pauses, then asks, “Had a few too many beers that night?”
I huff a small laugh. “High-powered sleeping pill. I was anxious about whether you’d agree to help and was having trouble falling asleep. I guess between the pill and thinking about you, the signals got mixed up in my brain…and on my phone.”
She lets out a breath that contains a laugh as well. “That’s a relief.”
Strangely, she doesn’t sound relieved.
We stare at each other, and the implications of this sink in.
“So…uh…You’ve seen my dick,” I say, trying to keep it light.
Her cheeks pinken and she looks away. “I did, but…”
Her head snaps back as her eyes lock with mine, and she winces at the movement, her neck still not a hundred percent.
“I deleted the pic,” she says quickly. “You can check my phone.”
She grabs the phone off the coffee table and thrusts it toward me.
I put my hands up. “I believe you.” A smile quirks up one corner of my mouth. “But admit, you took a good long look at it.”
Her face flames this time, and I have my answer. I shouldn’t tease her, but I kind of like doing it. The flush of color on her cheeks makes her even prettier, and I can’t help wondering what she’d also look like with tendrils of her hair sticking to the side of her sweat-sheened face after…
I shake the thought away again. Nope. Don’t go there. It’s been a few months since I’ve had sex, and my body has clearly been trying to tell me something lately, but the doc is right. She and I need to stay professional.
“I couldn’t really help looking at it,” she says defensively.
I frown as something occurs to me. “Wait, so you thought I sent you a dick pic that night, and the next day you agreed to work with me?”
This time her face drains of color.
“No!” she says. “I mean, yes, that’s the sequence of events, but that’s only correlation, not causation. I didn’t agree to work with youbecauseof the dick pic. I agreed to work with youin spite ofit.”
I eye her like I don’t buy it.
“I swear,” she says. “I almost turned down the offer because of it.”
I give her a look of exaggerated offense. “My dick isn’tthatbad-looking, is it?”
The doc closes her eyes, realizing she’s not going to win this discussion. When she opens them again, she’s gotten her bearings.
“It’s a lovely dick,” she says, “and my life has been enriched for having seen it, but it didn’t influence my decision to take this job.”
I smile. “Not sure it’s ever been called ‘lovely’ before, but thank you.”
There’s a stretch of silence before Gray rises from the couch.
“I should probably go,” she says.
I hold up a hand. “No, please. I’m sorry,” I say. “I spent my childhood getting under my sister’s skin, and old habits are hard to break. I couldn’t resist teasing you, if only to mask my own embarrassment.”
Her face softens. “No apology needed. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’m a big boy.”
