Page 73 of Things I Read About

The host stares, either gay and in love with my hot date—dates?—or he’s straight and in love with Joe Walker, Dallas Cowboy. “Table for three?”

“No,” we all say in unison. Nate takes a step back.

“Just two, man, thanks.” Joe flashes him a big bright smile. He’s sexy and he knows it. It doesn’t usually bother me, since I’m used to being around the cockiness of my dad and Shep, but I find myself wincing.

Joe and I head to our table, and Nate… disappears. I don’t see him anywhere. He didn’t speak to me all day, including the very long, awkward drive to the restaurant. His face gave away that he approves of Shep’s fancy sports car for about two seconds, then it went back to being a vault. Or maybe a void.

I didn’t catch him checking out my body. I didn’t catch any death glares at Joe, like the first time they met. Now, he’s not hovering or lurking; he’s just gone.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, sorry, I just thought Nate would be, like, around.”

Joe leans forward. “I’ve got you, Sal, who’s gonna try and snatch you from me?” He shows his massive hands.

I smile, because he has a point.

We order wine and food, and we chat. Mostly, Joe chats.

I get why Sadie set us up. She picked up on the little bits I told her about Nate and found me someone similar. Tall, handsome, and built like a cement wall. I look at Joe’s arm as he talks.

His biceps bulge like Nate’s, and they even have tattoos. Joe is from Texas, and he has that Southern Boy charm about him.

But I don’t know what he’s said in the last twenty minutes.

I just know that I was bored.

I am so bored.

I smile because he just laughed at a joke he made—something making fun of athletes, I think. That’s cute, making fun of himself, but the minutes crawl.

I’m not a stellar conversationalist. I zone out, I say thoughts out loud, and there’s a lot I simply don’t care to comment on. I don’t get nervous and overshare. I’m not chatting everyone up, so they feel comfortable, I’m just… here.

But there are times the minutes fly by. There are people who are not just easy to talk to, but also vastly interesting. Kat and Janie were that way at Samantha’s wedding, even though we all have very different lives. We talked for hours and hours again over spring break.

Mal, and her sister Val, are that way for me, too. Of course, we really only talk about medicine and medical school, but still. Not all fellow med students are automatically easy to talk to, that’s for sure.

I am probably not that easy to talk to, actually.

Nate, though, he didn’t have any trouble. Talking or not, it never felt like time was about to slow to an actual stop. Though, that entire spring break experience was unique, in a bubble set apart from normal life. Could Nate and I chat now? Would it be fun and easy?And where the heck is he?

“Sally,” Joe whisper yells at me.

“What? Sorry,” I say, startled.

He smiles wide. “No problem, babe. Spacey Sal, I know. What I said was, you probably can’t come home with me tonight and ditch the guard dog?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Yeah?” Joe asks, looking ecstatic.

“No. I meant, yeah, yes, you are correct. I can’t come home with you. I am under lock and key until they take care of the stalker situation.”

He deflates. “Bummer.”

“Totally,” I say, feeling bad that he feels bad.

He grabs my hand on the tabletop. “It’s just that training is about to ramp up later this week, then I won’t have much free time.”