“I was laughing because you said my name sounded feisty. Salem actually means peace.” I couldn’t help but smile widely as I laughed out loud again. “So my name means totally opposite what you thought.” I turned my head to the side and looked at him playfully—which was something I had never done to anyone, let alone an incredibly sexy and hot as fuck man. “But my smile was because you gave me a compliment about my name.”
Elijah’s forearms rested on the padded armrests of his chair, and his fingers dangled over the curve of the chair.No wedding ring. How had some woman not captured this man? Why couldn’t my mom have captured someone like this? Oh my God, no. No that would have been very bad.Did the silence mean he was assessing me?
“Do I get a turn now to ask ‘what’ and ‘why’ for all the silence and the assessing stare?” I boldly asked. I made sure to use what I thought was a playful and flirty tone. I had no real experience with using that tone before, but I’d seen romantic comedies before, and my impression of the flirty girl sounded good.
“Salem, you can ask or say anything you’d like.” Elijah gestured toward the closed door with his head. “Everything in here is safe and doesn’t leave these four walls.”
I tried to focus on him and not allow my mind to run away with a crazy fantasy of us having wild and passionate sex each time I’d come for my appointment. I would play those thoughts out tonight before bed.Focus on him and not your dirty mind!I nodded at what he’d said about things that would be discussed between us remaining confidential.
“So tell me about yourself, aside from meaning ‘peace.’ Tell me who Salem is. Give me the good stuff. Not the boring public information that I can get from looking at your school records.”
“Good stuff?” I asked, unsure of exactly what he’d meant.
“Yes. Let me tell you what I know. And I assure you that I know the boring, sterile things. Salem Renee Jones-Martinez. You’re a senior at Beverly Hills High School with a 3.0 grade point average. You were born in San Diego and relocated to Beverly Hills toward the end of your sophomore year. You celebrated your eighteenth birthday last month in January. Happy belated birthday. Your mother has expressed her concern in you being withdrawn and what she calls harmfully introverted.”
I nodded along with everything he’d recited. Mom was worried that I was harmfully introverted? I didn’t even know what that meant. I was impressed that he’d recited it to me from memory, but I guessed that was what these psychologist people did.
“Hmm, good stuff.” I nodded and thought for a second about what to tell him about me. Sitting in a room alone with this sexy beast made it difficult for me to think about myself when all I wanted to do was sit here and listen to him.
“Okay, well, I mentioned that I’m into genealogy. It’s pretty much all that I do in my spare time, even in the time that I should be studying. I have a strong interest in learning more about myself in terms of historical lineage. Fitting in isn’t nearly as important to me as being true to myself and being happy. My guilty pleasures include caramel macchiatos, masturbating as I fantasize about older men, and cheap nail polish from the drugstore pharmacies. I also mindlessly twirl my hair while I research my genealogy,” I boldly explained.
My cheeks grew warm as I casually and calmly closed my mouth. I couldn’t believe I’d told him about playing with myself at night and that I had a thing for older men. But he wanted me to be honest and tell him shit that he didn’t know already. Elijah hadn’t flinched, blushed, or moved an inch. His eyes remained on mine, silently daring me to look away.
“You have a very mature outlook on what’s important.” He paused for a moment before unclipping his pen from the pages. “That’s a very good thing.”
“Oh. Good. I’m glad to hear I’m doing something right.” It really was a breath of fresh air, because I could never seem to do anything right at home or was never enough.
“Do you hear the opposite at home?” he asked.
“If I can be perfectly honest with you, yes.”
“Tell me about that. What do you hear that is negative?”
“Well, just all the things that I should be doing rather than the stuff that I am doing. I love genealogy, and my mom thinks it’s a waste of time. She’d rather have me running around with other rich kids in the area. Ever since we moved here, she’s been after me to try to get involved with the cheer squad.” I shook my head and rolled my eyes before looking back at Elijah.
“The cheer squad isn’t something you have any interest in.”
“Exactly.”
“Have you told your mother that you would rather follow your passion with genealogy and family history?”
“Oh, yes. The reply is always a reminder of what a waste of time it is.”
Elijah wrote on his pad of paper for a few moments and clicked the pen to retract the gel point. He looked up from his notepad and focused on me again.
“Do you have any idea why she doesn’t want you involved in doing some genealogy sleuth work?”
“I don’t know.”
“Other than saying it’s a waste of time, she hasn’t given you any specific reasons?”
I shook my head, which prompted him to hold my gaze for a moment before he went back to writing on his notepad.
“Tell me about your parents.”
“Okay, my mom doesn’t work. She pretty much does nothing aside from help plan parties and social things with her boyfriend, Thomas.”
Elijah arched his perfectly sculpted eyebrow, and his sexy full lips turned upward into a tight smile.
