KeyParty (7 page)

“Tell me about you and Rachel Marsh.”

Ben’s mother handed him a tall glass of iced tea. She
settled herself on the rocking chair next to his with a sigh.

He tore his gaze away from the sun setting behind the forest
at the back of his parents’ property and looked at her, but said nothing. What
could he say?

“And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. It
was all over your face when I found the two of you coming out of that therapy
room last week.”

He propped his sunglasses on his head and looked into the
window at his back. His stepfather couldn’t be seen inside the house.

“I really hate it when you do that.”

“Guess when you’re about to lie to me?” She nodded, looking
smug. “I know.”

“I wasn’t about to lie.” He took a long drink from his tea.

“Forgive me. What I meant to say was give me some kind of
half truth and then hedge your way out of answering.”

He was thirty-one years old. He’d graduated at the top of
his class in both high school and medical school. He’d managed to make a name
for himself as an up-and-coming physician outside both of his parents’ stellar
reputations. He loved and admired his mother more than any other woman he’d
met. She’d been his rock from the first moment of his life, but she could still
make him want to shut down as though he was a reticent teenager from time to
time.

He sighed. “Like I said, we knew each other back in college.
I tutored her in chemistry until she quit school and went home. I never heard
from her again.”

“Wait a minute.” She reached over and laid her hand on his
arm. “She’s the girl you were so crazy about back then. The one you just about
worried yourself sick over when she took off and wouldn’t answer your phone
calls.”

Another deep breath and he put his sunglasses back over his
eyes.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Mother—”

“So what on earth happened to her? You must have been
thrilled to see her again.”

To say the least. “She quit school and moved home.” He
shrugged. Hadn’t they just cleared the air on that? “She didn’t answer my phone
calls because her parents took away her phone when she showed up and announced
she’d left college.”

“That seems a little harsh.”

He gave her a bland look. “What would you have done if I’d
quit?”

She met his gaze evenly. “We never had to worry about that,
now did we?”

No, they hadn’t. All his life the only thing he’d ever
wanted to be was a doctor.

She gave his wrist a gentle squeeze before she withdrew her
hand. “You’ll forgive me for being a little excited to see you looking the way
you did with her. I’ve been waiting to see that look on your face for a long
time.”

He didn’t want to know what she thought she’d seen, so he
didn’t ask.

“Did you get her the interview?”

He shook his head. “We ran into each other at a mutual
friend’s party the weekend before.” There was absolutely no reason to mention
what kind of party it had been. “She had the interview lined up long before
that.”

“You know the rules if she gets hired, Ben.”

He took another long drink of tea and wished it was whiskey.

He knew the rules. No fraternizing among employees, no
exceptions.

“I’ve only seen her a couple of times since the party.” Oh,
how he’d seen her.

They’d gone out twice since the night he’d taken her back to
his apartment. The first time they were supposed to see a movie, but they’d
talked through dinner and missed the start time. So they’d moved to the corner
bar near Jude and Petra’s and kept talking until the bartender called last
call. After a long, hot goodnight kiss on the front stoop, he’d successfully
gotten in his car and made the short drive back to his apartment alone.

They’d gone out for pizza and beer a couple of nights later,
him with the honest intention of going home alone once again, but his car
refused to go any farther than around the block. He’d circled around and found
her standing on the front stoop where he’d left her, waiting for him to come
back. So he’d parked and gone inside.

“I’ll call it off if she gets hired,” he said with zero
conviction.

His mother’s sigh echoed the way he felt. “I think that
would be sad.”

He shrugged. “It’s the way things are.”

“Well, it might be time to ease up on the rules now that
there are two centers. Or they could modify the rule that no one sitting on the
board can be involved with another board member or senior staffer. It’s Paul’s
fault that they had to add that rule in the first place. Let him suffer. The
rest of the board is happily married.”

Paul Zimmerman, along with his brother Tom and Ben’s stepdad
Tracy, was one of the founding members of the Chicago Cardiac Health and
Wellness Center. Paul’s first wife Marlene had also been a founding member.
According to legend, the center had just started to gain some momentum when
Paul and Marlene’s marriage came apart in spectacular fashion. Their divorce and
the battle over which of them would get to remain working at the center caused
an ugly divide among the staff members that nearly prompted Tom and Tracy to
close the doors and start over from scratch.

“Happily married to people who don’t work at the center,” he
amended.

She smiled at him. “I don’t believe for a moment that no one
out of the dozens of people who work there have never gotten romantically
involved. When you’re in medicine, especially when you’re fresh out of school
and working day and night, the only people you meet are your peers. It has to
be happening.”

“If it is they’re being really discreet.”

She stirred the straw in her tea distractedly. “So maybe you
could be discreet.”

He coughed up a surprised laugh. “Are you telling me I
should lie to my dad, your husband? Who you don’t keep a damn thing from, I
might add.”

She let her head drop to the back of the chair and gave him
a small smile.

“Of course I’m not.” She looked out over her backyard. “I
just like her.”

“After one handshake and ten seconds of conversation?”

She nodded. “Your dad seems to like her as well. He tells me
she has a second interview at the wellness center.”

“Does he know we’ve been seeing each other?”

She looked at him, eyebrows raised. “I wasn’t sure myself
until a few minutes ago. And it’s not my place to tell him your business. But
you will have to tell him, Ben.”

“She doesn’t date coworkers. The problem will resolve itself
if she gets the job.”

“What a passive attitude to take on the situation. And not
at all like you.”

She was right. He’d gone after everything else he’d wanted
in life with a ruthless ambition. He continued to put in long hours at the
hospital with both Dr. Li and the wellness center so he could not only continue
to learn and excel in his field, but make sure he deserved it when he
eventually took Tracy’s place on the board of directors.

But career ambition was one thing. Casual dating and sex
were another. He was familiar with dating, but he was out of his league as far
as Rachel Marsh was concerned. She’d dominated his every waking thought when he
tutored her years earlier. And when she’d left without a word, he’d chastised
himself for letting her disrupt his concentration for a long time afterward.

Now he was letting her do it again. The only problem was, he
had no idea what to do about it. Putting an end to it, whether she got the job
or not, no longer felt as if it were a viable option. After a week of her being
back in his life.

“So,” he started, needing to change the subject. “I hear
you’re going to Greece for your anniversary trip this year.”

* * * * *

Rachel turned over onto her back. She and Petra were lying
in the sun, both of them protected by a thick layer of sunscreen as they soaked
up the end of summer heat on the lounge chairs on the rooftop deck.

“Why do you do it?” she asked. “Set people up through your
parties, I mean.”

Petra didn’t move so much as a hair for a long time.

“What makes you think I’m doing that?”

“Don’t be coy with me, of all people. Ben knows about it.
Ben, but not me, your best friend. When I asked Bree, she sang like a canary.”

After the threat of bodily harm, which had led to a sharp
pang of jealousy that left Rachel wondering if she’d been gone so long she’d
managed to wedge herself outside what had once been their tight little circle
of three.

“It was obvious you’d done it to Ben and me. I still have
the little yellow sticker stuck to my dresser mirror as proof, but you never
told me about the couples before me.”

“When you set people up on a date, there’s a lot of expectation
that goes with it,” Petra said, pushing herself up and turning to sit
cross-legged facing Rachel. “Think about it. Your friend says, ‘Ooh, I think
you’d love this guy.’ What instantly goes through your mind?”

“I think she likes the guy and wants to live vicariously
through me because she can’t date him herself for whatever reason.”

“Exactly. But,” she held up one finger, “that same friend
says, ‘Hey, I throw these parties that are no pressure and all fun, you want to
play?’ What do you think?”

“I think, golly gee that sounds like swell.”

“Right again.” She shrugged. “I don’t always
know
know whether or not two people will hit it off. I get feelings. Sometimes they
work out.”

“When have they not worked out?”

“Since I started purposely setting people up?” She looked
away, thinking, then shook her head. “Never so far.”

“You know, considering my history with Ben, this could have
backfired in a big, nasty way.” Not that it still wasn’t going to. She’d gotten
the call for a second interview at the HCHWC earlier that morning.

“Yes it could have, but since you’re a bad friend, I didn’t
know the whole story, now did I?” Even though Petra’s face showed no sign of
it, Rachel knew she was joking.

After Rachel had gotten some sleep the morning after the key
party, Petra had forced her to tell the whole story about the night she’d fled
Ben’s apartment.

“I can see how that conversation would have gone, clear as
day. ‘Hey, Pete. I was making out with the hottest guy I’ll probably ever meet
and he wanted to screw me, thusly making me a twenty-year-old virgin no more,
but his cock was huge and I freaked.’ Followed by my abject humiliation as you
laughed for an hour straight.”

She cracked a smile at that. “It might have only been half
an hour.”

“One minute is an eternity when you’re waiting for the
ground to open up and swallow you whole.”

“Speaking of swallowing, I have to ask.” Petra leaned
forward and dropped her voice as though they weren’t alone. “Should they really
be called the foot-long twins?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged innocently. “I’ve never seen
Alex naked.”

“Mmm.” Petra straightened. “Good point.”

Rachel laughed. “It’s definitely not twelve inches, but
there’s more than enough. I’m sure to Bree everything seems larger than it
actually is.”

“It’s a big, big world when you’re only five feet tall,”
Petra agreed. She tilted her head to one side. “You understand I didn’t know
Ben was part of the wellness center, right? I didn’t even know there was a
wellness center. All I knew was Jude graduated med school with that hot guy
who’d waved at you when you and I got subs at that place near campus that one
time.”

Her stomach turned at the thought, but she had to ask. “And
the other times he came to one of your parties? You weren’t trying to set him
up with anyone else?”

Petra shook her head. “He was a gorgeous extra—sexy and
single. As far as I knew he was a confirmed bachelor, which made him a perfect
player. Once Jude finally talked him into coming that is. When you came home I
thought I’d give it a shot and set you up. Even if you didn’t hit it off, I
figured you’d at least get the chance to finally fuck him.”

Rachel pressed a hand to her stomach to quiet the
butterflies that took flight en masse and ignored her nipples as they
tightened.

“Are you aware you’ve made two fuck-buddy matches this last
time around?”

Petra went still.

“Apparently Alex and Bree decided to continue playing this
past week as well,” Rachel continued. “They came back to Ben’s apartment
together after work at least one morning that I know of.”

She looked away and swallowed hard, then waved dismissively.
“That won’t last long. Bree’s attention span is too short and Alex is never
going to settle down.”

“Didn’t you say the same thing about Ben once upon a time?”

“I told Bree I’d never heard about him having a serious
girlfriend. Bree was the one who turned it into him never settling down.” She
pulled the elastic out of her hair and smoothed her already perfect
ponytail—the equivalent of a nervous tic for Petra. “I don’t know Ben well
enough to say whether he’s the marrying kind or not.”

“But if we hadn’t hit it off it would be no harm, no foul,
right?”

Petra finished rewrapping her hair with a snap of the
elastic.

“You’re more combative today than usual. It’s pretty sexy.”

“So, what makes you more of an expert on Alex, anyway?”

“He’s my Lexi.” She said it as if that was all the
explanation needed. “We work together. He goes to foreign movies and eats sushi
with me when no one else will. He’s practically one of my best girls.”

“Except he’s six and a half feet of all-male redhead.”

“It’s a lot of fun to watch him eat with chopsticks.”
Petra’s eyebrows wiggled over top of her sunglasses. “He’s so big you wouldn’t
expect him to be graceful, but he has very nimble fingers.”

And just like that, evasive Pete was back.

Rachel was tempted to pry, to ask why Petra had just come as
close to playing the jealous girlfriend as Rachel had ever seen her—over a man
who was not her live-in boyfriend—but she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer.