If the movie hadn’t been playing in the background, she would have thought time stopped along with her breathing as her heartbeat sped up. Then he broke the spell with half a smile.
“I’m not too good for pity laughs. I’ll take it.”
Sam felt like she had just sustained an emotional body slam. Her fellowship was busy, so she was a little rusty on the mechanics of dating, and sure,A Goofy Moviewasn’t exactlyLove & Basketballon the sexy scale. Still ... either Sam had deeply misread this situation, or ...
“If you want to kiss me, this is your moment.”
The words came out of her mouth without thinking. Something about saying what she wanted made her pulse race. There was no coming back from this. Grant was looking at her with his usual inscrutable expression, and Sam thought she might melt into the grass like unwanted ice dumped from a cooler.
What if she had misread the situation? Hadn’t she just told herself to slow down? Worse still, she hadn’t really thought about the repercussions of what she had just proposed, and now she’d have to work with him every day. The rejection would make staff meetings awkward for at least a week.
Sam opened her mouth to tell Grant to forget about it right as he said, “Okay.”
Grant closed the gap between them so quickly that it made Sam dizzy. They were just a few centimeters apart as she reached for him, running a hand up his shoulder and around the back of his neck, enjoying the feeling of the fine hairs at the edge of his haircut. The motion brought them close enough that she could feel his chest rise and fall.
Grant moved a hand to cup her face, tracing a thumb across her lips and along the edge of her jaw. Sam’s pulse fluttered with anticipation. Finally, he leaned in. At first, the kiss was a brush, something featherlight, as if he were making sure that her lips were really there. Like all things with Grant, he wasn’t rushing through this moment; he gave them both time to feel each other.
The taste of him was heady and sweet, and Sam was sure she couldn’t ever get enough of it. When he ran his tongue across the bottom of her lip, it took everything Sam had to stop herself from jumping on top of him to get a better angle. Grant’s other arm wrapped around her as his hand moved to the back of her neck, further deepening the kiss. He felt so good against her that she forgot just about everything except for a vague awareness that they were in a park. The intensity was overwhelming. Sam lost herself in the sensation, letting the warmth and the smell of him wash over her.
She wasn’t sure how long they had been kissing until Grant pulled away, his face looking as dazed as her mind felt. His chest heaved like he needed to catch his breath, but Sam wasn’t interested in a break, and she reached for him again.
“Your phone is ringing.”
“What?” Sam blinked at him as if he had started speaking in Klingon. How did he know if her phone was ringing? Better yet, why did he care?
“Your phone is in your jacket pocket, and it’s vibrating against my rib cage,” Grant said, humor replacing the blissed-out look on his face. Gesturing to her, he said, “Is it the hospital?”
“Oh. Good question,” Sam said, shaking the lust fog out of her brain in case she needed to answer and trying to suppress her irritation that anyone would call her in the middle of the world’s best make-out session, then reached into her pocket. Both of them looked at the phone, and then Grant burst into a fit of giggles asMomran across the screen.
Sam was glad Grant found it funny, because she was furious at her mother for interrupting something so glorious. In fact, she was considering mailing her mother glitter. “Talk about bad timing.”
“We were making out in a park like teenagers. It sorta fits that your mom would call.”
“I’m gonna send her to voice mail and tell her I ran out of battery later. Just like high school.” Sam laughed, tossing the phone onto a corner of the blanket. Turning back to Grant, she leaned into him and said, “Now, where were we?”
“Making out until my dad drives by, I think?” Grant said as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close again.
“Let’s hope not,” Sam laughed, enjoying the look of Grant’s smile as he leaned in. The taste of that smile was even better the second time.
Chapter Seventeen
Sam waited until she was far enough inside the apartment hallway that Grant couldn’t actually see her, then broke into a happy dance that involved a good number of jumps, fist pumps, and a couple of shimmies. It was not a dignified happy dance. This was the wild tango of a woman who made out with a guy in a park in sight of everyone and their dog and didn’t even care because it was hot. Okay, and fun, Sam reminded herself. Then thought,Okay, but mostly hot.The only bad part of the evening was the realization that their schedules did not come close to lining up for the next few days, so she would not be seeing him soon. But then again, that was what text messages were for. Maybe she would even get pictures ...
Running a hand over her hair and down the front of her scrubs to make sure that she didn’t look too rumpled, Sam started toward the stairs up to the apartment. As much as she wanted to pretend she could keep a secret from her roommates, she knew there was no way she would be able to hide it for more than three seconds if she showed up looking like she’d tumbled down a hill, which she low-key had, but still.
A little voice in Sam’s head reminded her that she and Grant hadn’t talked about anything future related in the park. Maybe she should wait to tell her roommates and guard her heart a little longer?
Oh, who was she kidding? She didn’t need an engagement ring to tell her friends, the other, happier, louder, and just-kissed voice in Sam’s mind said.
With that, Sam ran up the last few stairs and barreled through the front door shouting, “Guess what!”
To Sam’s dismay, someone had left the living room light on, but no one was actually there. Turning her head down the hallway, she realized that both Jehan’s and Duke’s doors were closed, which likely meant that they hadn’t gotten home from the hospital yet.
“Guess I’ll have to wait to tell someone after all,” Sam said to no one as she stood on one foot and then the other to shuck off her sneakers. Grabbing her phone from her pocket, she walked into the living room and flopped on the couch, determined to veg out to whateverHousewivesfranchise was on. Remote in one hand, she flipped on the TV at the same time she unlocked her phone to text her bestie back in Ohio all about her evening.
Sam had almost forgotten about her mother’s call until she saw the number of times she’d tried to reach her. Nine missed calls and three voice mails.
“Oh my God.” Sam stared down at the phone as dread snaked its way through her veins. Had someone been hurt? Surely if someone had been hurt, more than just her mother would have tried to call. Unless both her father and her brother had been crushed in some sort of freak simultaneous meteor shower that had pummeled both Southern California and Ohio but mysteriously missed the Bay Area.
