Page 37 of Homebody
It was for the best. Less complicated and far less messy for both of them. But it was hard to deny there wasn’t something more, something deeper than friendship, brewing between them.
The evidence was there.
The uptick in his heart rate this morning as he’d driven to pick up Tessa and her house had come into view. That she was the first thing he thought of when he woke today. That he’d come up with this plan as much to please her as to feed the homeless.
It all added up to insurmountable evidence. He wanted there to be more between them. More than this attraction he’d been trying and failing to deny.
“You’re Doctor William Walsh?” Tessa gasped.
The awe evident in her slightly breathless voice had Dean’s complete attention whipping to her.
“The same William Walsh who won the grant to study CTE in veterans?” she asked.
As Dean’s brows drew low, Liam flashed Tessa a dimpled smile. “I am. You’ve heard of me?”
What the hell was this now?
Dean’s gaze bounced from Tessa’s obvious hero worship to Liam’s too damn handsome face.
Had Liam’s teeth always been so perfectly straight and white? And did he always have that damn dimple? And had he been working out? Dean didn’t remember his friend looking so buff. Or maybe it was just how damn tight the man wore his shirts.
“Of course I’ve heard of you. I’ve been following your research. The work you’re doing to expose how specific military occupational specialties can cause blast brain damage that leads to an increase in troop suicide rates is critical. And how the damage is actually interface astroglial scarring and not CTE. And your study of psychedelics to rebuild neural pathways. Just amazing…”
Finally, Tessa ran out of words of praise for Liam. Lucky for him. Dean’s jaw was starting to ache from clenching his teeth as he listened to her gush over Liam’s research using terms and science-y words he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard before.
So how did she know them? All from writing a paper for a lazy college kid who’d paid her to do it?
“You’ve read my work?” Liam asked, looking tickled by the discovery.
“You’ve read his work?” Dean repeated, frowning as jealousy reared its ugly head and made him far less happy to see his old friend than he had been before.
The question visibly yanked Tessa out of the fan-girl stupor meeting Liam had put her in. Her eyes flashed wider as her gaze shot to Dean and then quickly away. Slumping a bit, she lifted one shoulder in an incongruously casual move.
“Um, yeah. Just for research…” Her gaze shot to Dean again. “You know… for that paper I was writing.”
She no doubt assumed she could dismiss the whole subject with that single statement and a half-hearted shrug. But forDean, forgetting this odd little interaction wasn’t going to be that easy.
“So,” Liam said, breaking the silence that had fallen over the group. His gaze pivoted between Dean and Tessa. “Guess I should get the rest of this food loaded, huh?”
“Yeah. That’d be great,” Dean agreed.
The sooner he could get Tessa back in the car and away from Liam’s charms the better.
Chapter Eighteen
Dean flipping on the blinker and slowly braking to a stop in front of her apartment tugged Tessa out of her own head and the kaleidoscope of emotions she was feeling.
“We’re here,” he announced needlessly.
She nodded, releasing her seat belt. Her magical day…date…whatever this was, was coming to an end and she didn’t know how to feel about that.
“Yes, we are.” Turning in her seat, she faced Dean. “Thank you. For everything today,” she said with all sincerity.
Her bad girl persona might be false but her gratitude for all he’d done was not.
“It was nothing.” He dismissed her comment with the wave of one hand.
“No. It was definitely something. I can’t believe you arranged all of that. It was amazing.”
