A Brush with Love(4)
“Okay, lab goddess, you’ve got a deal. But it’s due tomorrow, so I understand if you’re too busy.”
“That’s fine,” she mumbled, wanting to melt into the floor at her new nickname.
“I’m Dan, by the way,” he said, reaching out a hand to shake hers. She returned the gesture, and Dan’s touch plucked at the already frayed threads of her composure, causing her pulse to flutter and her skin to prickle as his long fingers wrapped around hers.
This was all very … weird. While she had a handful of failed dates and unimpressive hookups under her belt, Harper usually observed guys with detached objectivity. She wasn’t blind and could appreciate that, yeah, some guys were cute, some were funny, some were even undeniably hot. But a man had never triggered anything inside her that made them worth her time or energy.
But something in the way Dan looked at her had her heart acting like quite the little drama queen.
It was probably that shameless fucking dimple.
Harper’s eyes flicked to the embroidered name over his breast pocket that came standard on all school-issued scrubs. Daniel Craige.
“Do you have a license to drill?” she blurted out.
Dan’s eyebrows lifted, and he blinked at her, making Harper cringe so hard, she almost snapped a neck muscle.
“Sorry, license for what?”
Harper cleared her throat. “To drill. Like, um, with a handpiece. Or like … license to kill … you know, Daniel Craig … James Bond…” She flapped her hand toward his chest, letting out a nervous giggle that ended with a mortifying snort.
At this point, Harper was confident she was concussed. Or hallucinating. Anything for this not to be real life.
Dan looked down to his chest, then back to Harper. A funny smile quirked his lips, and he opened and closed his mouth a few times before finally finding words.
“I don’t,” he said slowly, fully grinning now. “But whatever helps you remember me.” Then the bastard actually winked at her.
If any more blood rushed to Harper’s face, she was fairly certain she’d suffer from a subdural hematoma. And hopefully die.
“So, tonight?” he asked after a moment.
“What?”
“The model? Want to work on it tonight? I can meet you in the lab at five, after classes.”
“Oh, um, yeah. Right. Perfect.” She noticed she was still holding his hand and dropped it like he’d burned her. He let out a soft laugh.
“It was nice to meet you, Harper.” He stared at her for another beat before moving down the hall, tossing the stone pieces into the trash as he went.
Harper watched him retreat, then flushed again when he glanced back over his shoulder and caught her staring. At his butt.
“I remember the first time I ever talked to a boy,” Thu said at Harper’s shoulder. Harper whipped her gaze to her.
“Excuse me?”
“No, I mean it’s cool that I got to see what was clearly your first interaction with a man. Ever. Very smooth, Harps. I had no idea you were such a James Bond junkie.” Thu didn’t even try to hide her smug smile as she walked past Harper and to the auditorium.
CHAPTER 2
HARPER
“Harper met a guy today,” Thu told their friends Lizzie and Indira during lunch. Per their usual routine, the four of them convened at Big Joe’s Coffee where Lizzie worked, the shop located directly between the dental school and Callowhill’s medical school, which Indira attended.
“What guy?” Lizzie and Indira said in unison.
“Thu, shut up,” Harper groaned. Thu hadn’t dropped the topic all morning.
“A gorgeous man literally fell into her lap,” Thu said, taking a big bite of the warm cranberry scone Lizzie plopped in front of her.
While technically a barista, Lizzie had a muffin-shaped heart that beat only for baked goods, and she spent more time preparing treats for the pastry case than actually helping customers. Much to the dismay of Big Joe.
“What guy?” Lizzie hissed, leaning so far over the coffee counter, she was close to rolling over it.
“You all would dismally fail the Bechdel test right now. How very unfeminist of you. I hope you’re ashamed,” Harper mumbled, digging into her own scone.
Thu rolled her eyes. “Oh yes, Harper, how dare I get excited at your first interaction with a hot guy in the four years I’ve known you. I should be very ashamed, indeed.”
“I interact with guys!”
“You haven’t been with a guy since, what, undergrad?” Indira asked, sipping her coffee. “Mercury went into retrograde yesterday, so I knew shit was about to get wild, but I definitely didn’t see something like this happening.”
“If someone doesn’t give me details about this guy in two seconds, I swear I’ll start screaming at the top of my lungs,” Lizzie said, a glutton for drama.
“Lizzie, you work here.”
“What’s your point?” Lizzie said, fixing her with a look of genuine confusion.
Harper buried her head in her hands as Thu relayed the embarrassing scene in such graphic detail that Harper wondered where she could get some bamboo shoots to shove up her fingernails instead of this torture.
“He’s definitely into her,” Thu concluded with a satisfied nod.