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Alex chuckled. His golden eyes were bright, his hair neatly done, and his whole outfit— chino pants, a white shirt, and boat loafers—made him look like he was from old money. Far too old money for this house.
“Don’t worry, Soph.” He smiled, and my stomach clenched, my whole body desperate to leap on him and convince him to take me right there on the counter. Though I doubted Alex needed much convincing.
“I brought dessert!” interrupted Becks, ambling into the kitchen and dropping a huge tub of chocolate mousse on the counter.
It wasn’t much later that we were all sitting around the dining table, Alex to my right, his elbow just touching mine, leaving what could only be called a hot spot on my skin. Becks and Danny were sitting across from us.
“Tell me something interesting about yourself,” said Danny, waving his fork at Alex.
“Weird question, Danny.”
"No, it's not," he argued. "You can learn a lot about a person by what they find interesting about themselves. For example, I collect vintage cuff links and once spent nearly ten thousand dollars on a set. It means I like nice things and tend to splurge." He then ignored
Becks' gasp of "Ten thousand dollars. Are you mad?” and looked at Alex expectantly.
“Mmm, it’s not exactly the easiest question, is it?” Alex looked down at his bowl of chili as if it had the answers and then shrugged. “Apparently I talk in my sleep.”
Danny shook his head. “That’s boring. Give me another one.”
“Um . . . ” Alex scratched his smooth, cleanly shaven jaw with his right forefinger. “I’ve visited six out of the seven continents in the space of one year.”
“Really?” I asked, not sure why this surprised me so much. Maybe because it hadn’t come up in our conversations up until now; lengthy, get-to-know-you kind of conversations. That amount of traveling was bound to have some stories, good, bad, and ugly. I just had no idea why he wouldn’t share them with me. But I was determined to find out. The next time we were alone, I was going to ask him why he had omitted an entire year of his life when I was just starting to piece together the puzzle that was Alex Roberts.
Alex glanced my way and smiled. “It was right after residency. I spent all the money I had and took one year off to travel. I never got to Antarctica, but I hope to do it one day.”
Danny looked pleased. Lifting his glass to his lips, he asked, “Have you been to Cusco?”
“Not Cusco, but I did spend some time in Lima.”
“Sydney?”
“Yes.”
“Venice?”
“Yes.”
“What did you think of it?”
“Too crowded.”
Danny narrowed his eyes, as if evaluating Alex’s worth, and smacked his lips together. “I am not usually one to be protective, that was usually Sophie's role among our friends when we were younger. However, I like you, Alex, and I believe you are a good person. Please don't do anything to hurt Sophie. If you do, I will make an exception and find you wherever you are just to kick your butt.”
My jaw dropped as Danny's unexpected words hit me. I glanced over at Alex, hoping he would walk away from the table and tell Danny to piss off.
But instead, Alex looked at me with a gentle expression and responded to Danny in a serious tone, "Noted."
They exchanged a nod, a silent agreement between two respected men. “Approved. Now, next question. I’ll hand it over to you, Becks. "
Danny pretended his fist was a mic—just another one of Danny’s quirks—and, with a flourish, extended his hand toward Becks, as if he was passing her the imaginary microphone.
Becks, who had been friends with me for long enough to know how Danny worked, took the invisible mic and made her own. “What made you become an orthopedic surgeon, Alex?”
“Is this really a game of twenty-one questions?” I puffed, pressing my lips thin and gazing at both of them as if they were being ridiculous—which they were.
Becks frowned at me. Danny pulled a face. And then Alex, the good human being that he was, chuckled and dropped his hand to my knee, squeezing reassuringly. “I don’t mind. I actually enjoy the social element of twenty-one questions. So, to answer your question, Becks, I always knew I wanted to be a doctor. It goes back to when I was a kid and my mom bought me that board game, Operation, you know the one with the tweezers and the buzzer, and I guess I caught the bug . . . But my interest in orthopedics came much later . . . ”
But I couldn’t concentrate on much of what Alex said. I was far too busy thinking about his fingers brushing small circles on the inside of my thigh. My jeans did nothing to thwart the heat. Actually, they made things worse, trapping in the heat like a furnace.
