Page 34 of Not Fooling Anyone

She blinks, lips parting, and my gaze zeroes in on her mouth instinctively.

Her tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip, the action surprising me. Did she do that on purpose? There’s no way, right?

“All right, which one of you wants to go first?” Justin calls from the other room.

She steps back, whatever connection between us lost. Was it only on my part?

“I will,” she says, turning back. “What do I need to do?”

I follow her, lingering in the doorway by her side.

“First, remove anything metal. Jewelry, coins, keys, and anything with magnetic strips like credit cards.”

“I’m clear.”

“Great.” He motions to the table beside him, medical equipment laid neatly in a row on top. Behind it is an IV stand. “I’ll need to set up this IV line.”

She blinks, her face leaching of color. “What?”

“It’s a contrast medium. It helps us see more detail in the image.”

If I wasn’t paying such close attention, I’d miss the way she compulsively swallows, the tremble in her lower lip, how her gaze darts around the room.

“You never said anything about needles.”

“It’s standard procedure for an fMRI. We’ll remove the IV when we’re finished. Should be about thirty minutes total.”

The man’s clearly not picking up on her apparent anxiety. Some researcher he is.

“You have a needle phobia?” I whisper to her as Justin turns his back to grab a syringe. I admit, I’m not crazy about needles either, but after this past weekend getting poked and jabbed at the clinic for a million tests, they’ve become sort of routine.

“No,” she claims, clearly lying.

“You sure?”

She glances at me, panic in her eyes for a moment before she blinks and it disappears. “Maybe a… strong dislike.”

“You want me to go first?”

I expect her to scoff, full of bravado, but she actually takes me up on my offer, nodding. Her gaze is back on the syringe, brows pinched together.

I move in front of her, blocking her view. “Are you okay to go through with this?” I murmur. “We can say you’re sick or something.” It’s not a lie. Something’s obviously going on with her.

“I’ll be fine.” She wipes clear any kind of emotion she was just feeling. “Totally good by the time you’re done.”

My hands itch to reach out and comfort her.

But that’s not the sort of relationship we have.

“I’ll actually go first,” I announce.

“All right.”

He motions me over to him and questions me a bit more about things that could interfere with the machine, then sets up the IV, Lexie’s back to us as he does it. “The procedure itself will be painless, but you’ll need to stay still. You’ll hear some loud thumping sounds when you’re inside, but that’s normal.”

He goes over a few more things about what I should expect and leads me in the room where I lay on the fMRI table, my head wedged between two cushions.

“This will help with the noise,” he says, handing me a set of earplugs.

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