Page 90 of Last Chance Love

“Look,” she said, sitting on the edge of the desk and leveling her gaze with mine. “I don’t care what you and Leon get up to in private. We both know relationships between people here aren’t banned, though they’re a little harder to see than you and Leon.”

There was no point trying to hide it. After all, she was right. We didn’t need to keep things hidden, even if it was the general approach to guys sharing a bed or a relationship. “We aren’t exactly broadcasting it to everyone we meet.”

“And you’re not hiding it as well as Riley and Max did,” she pointed out. “And you two aren’t nearly as difficult to see together as, say, Elliot and Reno.”

“Really?” I said, affecting surprise as best I could. “That’s different. The two of them?”

She eyed me momentarily. “Either you’re good at playing dumb, or you didn’t know. Which makes me wonder if Leon has figured it out.”

“If he has, he hasn’t shared it with me,” I said, maintaining the basic rule of lying effectively. My question could have been taken the way she’d taken it, as genuine surprise at the news or as surprise that she thought they were together, which was true. I didn’t realize she had figured them out. As for the second, well, Leon hadn’t shared anything about it with me. It had been the other way around.

“Interesting, but like Reno and Elliot’s relationship, not all that important. Any more than your relationship with Leon is important in the grand scheme of things, though again, perhaps that helped give him a little push,” she said with a shrug and then frowned. “Though I do have to wonder what’s in the air lately. Used to be that once in a while, you’d sniff out that two guys were enjoying themselves in private andmaybehad a relationship of some sort. But three in a year? Odd.”

“Maybe it’s in the water. I hear it can make frogs gay,” I said, arching a brow.

“Cute,” she said, only vaguely irritated. “I suppose everything must move in cycles.”

“Yes, very gay cycles.”

“Ha! Now, there’s something that would be amusing to study.”

“I would love to see your funding proposal for that.”

“It would certainly be a fun meeting,” she chuckled, crossing her legs at the knees again. “Garrett would probably piss himself.”

“Er…Mr. Isaiah didn’t strike me as the type to worry about the affairs of the guys in the program.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, he doesn’t. Live and let live. That’s his motto, especially if it brings harmless happiness. And he wouldn’t be bothered if some of the donors had their feathers ruffled by the proposal. He’d find it hilarious, watching me stand up there trying to justify that.”

“I-I feel like you’re contemplating that idea a littletoomuch.”

“Now, now, even I’m allowed to have a little harmless fun. And trust me, if you had to sit around trying to talk about business and, with an irony that’s lost on a few of them, the virtues of compassion and understanding while they talk among themselves and stare at your tits and ass, you’d want to tweak their noses a bit as well.”

“Uh, seriously?”

“You wouldn’t?”

“No, I meant, people really treat you like that?”

She scoffed. “I’m young and attractive enough, it happens. At least they don’t make any stupid comments about me, either to my face or Mr. Isaiah… anymore.”

“Anymore?”

“We had a donor who made a comment to Garrett after I left the room.”

“Had as in you dropped him as a donor?”

“What? God no. Don’t waste good money, even if you’re squeezing it from a pig. Garrett decided to share his opinion on the man’s views very directly.”

“Please tell me he punched him.”

“Knocked him out. He looks like a jolly, fat man, but he’s got a lot more muscle under there than people think. The only reason he’s not out here working with everyone like he used to was he hurt his back quite badly a few years ago from a particularly angry steer.”

“Good for him,” I said. “As a medical professional, I can’t exactly condone injuring another person, but sometimes life has to work itself out the way it needs to.”

“Agreed,” she said, uncrossing her legs and sliding off the desk. “I’m going to take you off some more clinic hours.”

“What?” I asked, startled and taken aback by the sudden shift in the conversation. “Why?”

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