Sam made a conscious effort to slow her pace just a few steps before the front entrance to her apartment so that she wouldn’t appearovereager. She wasn’t sure why she was so jittery. They were literally going to physically look at a couple of buildings. That was it.
Exhaling out her nerves, she opened the front door to the apartment and bounced down the driveway as Grant rolled down the window and said, “You look nice.”
“Sunny dress for a sunny day,” Sam said, smiling as she opened the car door. Sunny dress? Internally, she hoped she didn’t sound like a grade-schooler. Who even thought things like that?
Pulling herself together, Sam took a good look at Grant as she was getting into the car, and her brain capacity plummeted. She might look nice, but he ... wow.
Grant had managed to pull off tousled sexy while still being entirely too clothed. His dark hair, usually so carefully styled, was just sort of pushed around his head like someone had only recently run both hands through it. The lightweight tan cotton sweater he wore complemented the same rich undertones in his skin and might have actually been sewn around his torso. It was the only way Sam could imagine making a sweater that managed to hug every muscle without looking like he’d squeezed into the thing.
Sam was begging her brain to get back in gear and stop staring when Grant leaned forward and squinted up at her apartment. Something about the motion snapped Sam back into reality, and she turned to see Duke standing in the living room window in his towel, waving and grinning like he was enjoying a fantastic joke. Mortified, she turned away from the window just in time to catch Grant waving and looking baffled.
Humiliation nearly forced Sam to melt into the passenger seat as Grant silently rolled up the window. She felt his eyes on her, and it took everything inside her not to cover her face with her sweater and hope that she disappeared. Reaching to take the car out of park, he said, “What’s with Duke—”
“Sorry. My roommates are extremely nosy.” Sam winced, finally making eye contact with Grant.
“I know he’s nosy. I was just gonna ask why he’s wearing a towel.” Grant laughed out the last half of the sentence.
“I tried to sneak out of the apartment before he got out of the shower. I didn’t want him asking too many questions.”
“Questions? What kind of questions?”
If it hadn’t been obvious that Sam was embarrassed before, the flush she was rocking now had to be a dead giveaway. Pushing her thick curls to one side so she could get some air on her neck, Sam tried to sound nonchalant as she said, “They are too stupid to repeat.”
Grant arched an eyebrow, and she realized that she was going to have to force a conversational about-face or risk having him grill her. Clearing her throat, she asked, “So where are we going first?”
For a moment, Grant just looked at her, and then he shook his head as if he had decided against pressing for details. “I thought we’d start with the Lost Key in SoMa.”
“I’ve never heard of that place.”
“That’s kind of the point. It’s one of those places that you have to know about to find,” Grant said, easing the car away from the curb.
“How did you find it?”
“My sister played a charity recital there a few years ago.” Anticipating her next question, Grant added, “Mandy, the cellist.”
“I’m excited to see where rich people have their supersecret charity events,” Sam said, letting go of her hair as she started to cool off.
“Did Dr.Franklin tell you that the chaplains agreed to share the room with us as long as we spruce it up?” Grant said, tossing a brief smile over at her before he made a careful right-hand turn, guiding them past the freeway.
“They did?” Sam twisted around in her seat to look directly at him. “I emailed him several times about it, and he didn’t respond. I figuredhe was still waiting for the slow-ass legal team to sign off on the Anjo agreement before he even bothered to ask.”
Grant laughed. “Be nice to the team. There are like two lawyers for the whole hospital.”
“Well, there could be more if we start bringing in money with our fancy birthing program,” Sam mumbled, crossing her arms. “And before you say anything else, yes, I know our little public hospital is not about to turn into the next Cleveland Clinic or anything. I dream big, but I’m not delusional.”
“Hey, even Cleveland had to start somewhere.” Grant shrugged, then slowly cocked a smile. “You may be a little delusional, but this particular nonreality wouldn’t be the biggest red flag.”
Sam eyed Grant, checking to see if he was truly joking or if he was judging her and covering his tracks. She was never entirely sure what foot she was standing on with him. After the Anjo group meeting and what she had dubbed the Hallway Incident, Sam had thought they’d come to an agreement. Then she’d had seventy-two hours’ worth of hospital shifts with him questioning her every move, and suddenly, she was right back on the plane failing to take Man Bun’s pulse all over again.
“Ha. Ha,” Sam said, as a block of warehouses whizzed by. “Very funny.”
“I am funny. Thank you for noticing,” Grant said, looking pleased with himself.
“If you were actually funny, I feel like you would have—” Sam cut herself off as Grant turned down a sketchy-looking alleyway, complete with the horror-movie harbinger of doom—wet cement on a conspicuously sunny day. Hoping she didn’t sound totally freaked out, she asked, “Where are you going?”
“The Lost Key. Listen, I couldn’t get us in to see the place properly, so we’re gonna gate-crash. Just play along.”
“Wait. What?” Panic shot through Sam’s veins. He had to be joking. What kind of doctor gate-crashed parties?
