Anatomy of a Meet Cute by Addie Woolridge
Chapter Three
“Doctor?”
Sam turned around, smiling more at being called Doctor than anything else. The sensation never got old for her, and she loved it every bit as much as she’d dreamed she would. She knew she still had more patients to see, but Sam hadn’t mastered the art of the swift exit yet, and besides, Monica was six months pregnant, had higher blood pressure than Sam would like, and had missed several appointments leading up to this one. She could find an extra three minutes for her.
“Yes?”
“You asked if I was taking any classes.” SF Central was not rich, and neither were its clients. Sam hadn’t expected her patients to have gone to every birthing specialist in the country or anything, but she was surprised by the number of people she saw who hadn’t been informed that the local YMCA offered parenting-and-delivery classes.
“Yes. The nurse has some great resources about programs in the area.” Sam nodded.
Monica twisted her hands in her lap for a moment, eyes shifting from side to side. “There is a woman who comes into my salon—she is the one who insisted I come in here to ask about my blood pressure. She isn’t a doctor, but she helps deliver babies. She said she’d help me. Does that count?”
“Oh,” Sam said, blinking rapidly as she tried to suppress her panic. There were so many charlatans attempting to profit off pregnant people with limited resources. If this woman had tried to sell Monica magic herbs for stretch marks, Sam might have to find her and wring her neck. Then again, she’d managed to get Monica to come in for a checkup, so she didn’t sound like a total menace. “Is she a nurse? A midwife?” When Monica shook her head, Sam let her brain stretch to the outer fringes of the obstetric-health world. “A doula?”
“Yes! That is the word.”
“That can be a good thing,” Sam said, searching for a diplomatic answer. Doulas had been a part of nearly every culture on the planet until recent history. Western medicine had spent the last seventy years mocking them as backwoods mystics encouraging people to give birth in kiddie-pool death traps. Or the domain of overindulged, rich white women with too much money and not enough sense. But in many parts of the world, doulas were the only care a pregnant person was likely to receive. The question was whether this woman was an actual doula or someone sketchy.
“Tell me more about her. What’s her name? How does she help you?”
Monica took a deep breath, adjusting her posture on the examination table, which had to be getting uncomfortable for her, not that there was much that was comfortable at this stage in her pregnancy. “Kaiya . . . Owens. I think it’s Owens. Anyway, she mostly just checks on my stress level, suggests stuff I can do to make myself more comfortable, because I’m feeling so hot and slow, Dr. Holbrook. It takes me forever to get anywhere. My job does not have maternity parking, so I have to hike into the salon,” Monica said, dropping her hands noisily onto the table in exasperation.
“It sounds like Kaiya knows a lot about being a new parent. I’ll have to look her up. And she is right. I know time off can be hard to come by, but please listen to her and continue to see us.” Sam smiled. “Think of me, the nurse-midwife, and Kaiya like your team. Between the three of us, we got you.”
“I can do that.” Monica nodded.
“Good. And don’t feel so bad if you have to miss an appointment that you skip the next one. We want to see you, even if you’re a little late.”
“I’ll be better about coming in, I promise.” Her face didn’t hold any of the fear or reservation that Sam’s other patients had had earlier in the morning.
“In that case, I’ll see you soon. If you have any questions in the interim, you can always call the nurse, and they will track me down. Sound good?”
“Thank you, Dr. Holbrook. It was nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too, Monica. Take care.” Sam smiled as she backed out of the shoebox of an exam room.
She waited for exactly three seconds before looking over her shoulder to find the hallway empty, then hopped from one foot to the other, grinning so hard her eyes were nearly closed as she whispered, “Yes!”
For the first time since she’d started her research fellowship, she felt like she knew what she was doing. Not once today had she had to utter the words I don’t know or let me check before dashing out of the room to find literally any other medical professional within fifty yards of her. The only upside to the last few weeks of feeling stupid was that Grant—or Dr. Gao, as she should really be calling him—wasn’t around to see her panic and ask questions. That honor belonged to the forever-patient if extremely old-school Dr. Franklin.
Shuffling toward the sky bridge that connected the clinic side of the building, where she saw patients, to the hospital side, where she would help deliver their babies, Sam began turning her visit with Monica over in her head. She wasn’t the only person Sam had met with this morning whose primary form of preparation during pregnancy had come from someone they knew. This week alone she had not one but two patients who had been asked to stay in the hospital overnight for monitoring due to abnormalities developed between their long-delayed visits. At least with Monica, the doula had enough knowledge to encourage her to see a doctor.
Sam knew it was unreasonable to expect people without sick leave, transit money, or childcare to come into the clinic anywhere between once a month and once a week. If her patients had been wealthy, they would’ve just hired midwives who made house calls or gotten fancy telehealth supplemental medical plans. As it stood, her patients were in no such position. If she could just call a meeting of the doulas, aunties, coworkers with horror stories, birth coaches, and other advice dispensers in the area, so many potential disasters could be avoided. Everyone around the person giving birth would know what problems to look for.
A community meeting would help with the Dr. Google problem too. The literature Sam was reviewing for her still-to-be-decided research agenda made it clear that people were more likely to search the internet and attempt bizarre home remedies to avoid paying to feel stupid in front of a doctor. Which explained the woman Duke had seen in clinic last week with garlic shoved up her—
Sam’s mind hiccuped. Maybe there was a way . . . in med school, she’d had an interprofessional where she’d followed around a social worker to understand how they interacted with a client. It had helped her gain a new perspective on patient care. Doulas weren’t doctors or nurses, but they could make house calls, and their sole job was to build trust with the person giving birth, so if she could—
“Yo, Sam, wait up!” Duke called, rounding a corner and jogging toward her, the same exhausted look on his face that she wore. Fellow schedules were notoriously brutal. Going into her fellowship, Sam had thought this was an exaggeration. Turned out generations of doctors were not lying. Even fellows, who in theory should spend less time seeing patients so they could conduct their research, got wrung out to the max.
“Hey, Duke. What’s up?”
“I’ve been looking for you. Got a proposition I think you’ll like.”
“If it is trading chores again because you want to fall asleep before you finish half your beer, the answer is a hard pass,” Sam snarked. Last week she and Jehan had pitched in to cover his chores because Duke had been assigned his first twenty-four-hour shift. The guy was so beat afterward that he barely said thanks before the sounds of ESPN and snoring tried to wake up their downstairs neighbors.
“Ha. Ha. Ha.” Duke’s laugh was flat, although he was still smiling. Twelve-hour days hadn’t broken either of them yet. “I was gonna ask if you would like to join the prestigious SF Central Hoopers. How ’bout it?”
“What?” Sam asked, absently setting a file into the proper slot on the nurses’ station wall.
“The hospital has an entire basketball rec league. I was recently asked to join the Hoopers. Also known as last year’s league champions.”
“If someone wants you on their team, they must be desperate.” Sam snorted. “What are they doing, asking all the Black staff to join just in case one of us is good at basketball?”
“Both of us are good at basketball.”
“Don’t tell anyone that; otherwise it’ll justify the behavior.”
Duke cackled. “Under any other circumstances, I’d say yes, that is what the teams are doing. But in this one case, no. They asked me because Raphael knew I rode the pine pony in the D-League. Did you ever read the orientation booklet?” he asked, somewhat skeptical.
“I skimmed it,” Sam lied and choked back a laugh once she saw Duke’s face.
“I hope you read charts better than you read about our peers. So you want to join the league or not?”
Sam sighed. “Look, Duke. These days are long, and I already have a ton on my plate. I’m gonna pass. But maybe next season.”
“Please,” Duke said, drawing out the e sound to impossibly long lengths. In another life, he must have been a singer. “We need at least one woman on our team to play in the league.”
Sam scoffed. “Thank you for your honesty. Did you ask Jehan?”
“Jehan would bring down the team’s average height by like five inches.” Duke rolled his eyes like Sam had asked a silly question. “I told Raphael I’d convince you to join the team before our rivals figure out there is a five-foot-eight woman in the building.”
“Jehan already said no, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, but she has a big party to plan and all that,” Duke said on an exhale. “Seriously, I know you made your high school state playoffs, so you are at least a half-decent point guard.”
“I know I didn’t put that in the orientation bio.”
“The internet is forever, Samantha. I know how to google, and I watched the clip of that last game. That was a tough loss, but you had a nice jumper in there.”
“A little tip: if you are trying to get me to join your team, maybe don’t bring up the most traumatic moments from my childhood.” Sam cringed. In some ways she’d been trying to live down that loss for over ten years.
Duke chuckled. “So will you please join us?”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve played.”
“It’s like riding a bike.” Duke shrugged at this profoundly bad lie, which Sam let slide for the sake of her living arrangement. Admittedly, she didn’t have as much time for exercise as she would like, so playing basketball with Duke would be a good forcing function. Now she could feel less guilty about all the runs she wasn’t going on. If she never made it out to the gym again, at least she’d have this.
“Fine.”
“Thank you!” Duke shouted as they rounded the corner into the staff area to pick up their bags. “First game is tonight. You won’t regret it.”
“Tonight? Bruh, we just finished a twelve-hour day. You couldn’t have mentioned that?”
“No takebacks,” Duke said, not looking the least bit sorry. “The good news is we have time to get home and get our stuff before we meet at the middle school.”
“You owe me.” Sam narrowed her eyes at him.
“I’ll do double chores next week.”
“You already owed me that.”
“Fine, double chores, and I’ll get you some of that washing tape, but not the kind with glitter.”
“Washi tape.” Sam smirked. “Anyone else play semipro ball or anything I should know about?”
“Nah. Between you and me, the SF Central Hoopers are gonna crush these other teams.”
Sam wasn’t sure if she was still in shape enough to make a layup, let alone crush anything. Duke might be confident, but she would settle for bench time and not pulling a hamstring tonight.
The giant gym bag knocked against Sam’s thigh as she tried to climb out of the heap of metal that was Duke’s car. Why on earth had she agreed to play basketball in her very limited time off when it was so painfully evident that every single bone in her body would rather be sleeping?
“Who are we playing again?” Sam called to Duke as he jogged toward the dingy gym, trying to outrun the pernicious San Francisco cold. It would never work, but that didn’t stop Duke from plodding away.
“The Central Flyers,” Duke said, yanking the door open and then waiting for her, tapping his toe in chilly impatience as she sauntered through it.
“Thank you.” Sam grinned up at him. It wasn’t Sam’s fault he was raised well enough to hold a door but not well enough to remember his own jacket. “Central Flyers. What kind of name is that? Were all the good names taken?”
“There are only four teams in the league, so I doubt it.” Duke chuckled, stomping his sock-and-sandal-clad feet as the smell of old chlorine and sweat wafted down the hallway.
“There are only four teams?”
“Yup! Basically, we play each other once a week for four months, have a championship tournament, and call it a day.”
Sam snorted. “At least it won’t be much of a time commitment.”
“That’s the spirit,” Duke said as they approached another large set of double doors, the sound of basketballs already pounding the wood floor. Sam waited for Duke to open the door, the muscles in her body beginning to vibrate with the echoes of dribble drills, the swish of nets, and the familiar sounds of people joking over the chaos. As she walked through the doors, the fluorescent lighting of the gym strained her vision and caused Sam to blink a few times at the guy shooting from the top of the key. His mechanics were excellent. If this was the Flyers point guard, she had her work cut out for her. A teammate fed him the ball as he jogged to the two spot, and Sam stopped short, causing Duke to swivel around so they wouldn’t crash into one another.
“Ugh.”
Of course the guy with excellent form had to be Grant. For the last few weeks, Sam had been congratulating herself on not having to ask him a single question. Mostly because they had not been scheduled for the same shifts, but still. And yes, she had checked the schedule for him. She needed to know when and where to avoid him.
“Why’d you stop in the mid—oh.” Duke looked down at her and began laughing before giving her a shove out of the doorway. “You still holding that grudge?”
“There is no grudge. I just don’t feel like reliving my most recent lowlights or asking for any more help from him.” Sam’s lip began to curl like a preteen’s, and she snatched the look off her face before Duke could register it.
“You are so stubborn. You have got to find a way to get over that,” Duke said as they shuffled to a set of partially extended bleachers. Sam was careful to keep herself in line with Duke’s frame. He was wiry and didn’t provide nearly as much cover as she would like, which, in this case, was a giant tent to hide under until after the game.
“Easy for you to say. The first person who thought you were a medical professional wasn’t high off of some ill-advised mushrooms at forty thousand feet in the air.”
“Technically the first person who thought you were a medical professional was Grant. Who wasn’t high at all.”
“Who wears sunglasses on a plane?” Sam hissed, pulling her basketball shoes out of her bag and slipping off her old-school Adidas slides.
“Apparently, senior fellows.” Duke shrugged, mirroring her motions as they tied their shoes.
Standing up, Sam unzipped her jacket and stuffed it in her bag before adding, “Honestly, that is the flight attendant’s fault. He should have been more specific.”
Duke shook his head. “Well, here’s your chance to beat him at something.” Looking over her head, he winced at the sound of another shot falling. “I hope you like playing defense. Come on, Raphael isn’t here yet. Let’s warm up.”
“I never should have agreed to this,” Sam said, reaching for the ball in her bag before following him to the opposite end of the court, where two other people were already warming up. She recognized one of them as a nurse named Theo from the NICU. After introducing herself, she learned the other man was a surgery tech called Alan. Both men seemed to think they would be playing post, but Sam suspected she’d have a floor full of power forwards and Duke as her only actual post. Unless Raphael had a strong three-point game, she would have to put in serious work to negate Grant’s jumper.
Sam felt her eyes flick to his side of the court. He had moved to practicing midrange jump shots, his motions fluid, as if the ball were an extension of himself. The muscles in his back rippled as he bounded off the floor, releasing the ball in a perfect arc. She tried not to stare at the flex of his shoulder blades through the practice jersey he wore. It was like staring at a perfect diagram of back muscles in motion. If she were forced to admit it, and luckily no one was forcing her, Sam could see how some people would consider him beautiful. Graceful, even.
The sound of a ball smashing into the board behind her caused Sam to jump and broke Grant’s concentration enough that he actually turned around to see what was happening. For a fleeting second their eyes met, and he smiled. Sam wanted to dive into the six inches of space between the bleachers and the floor. Did he know she’d been staring? Had he been experiencing that someone-is-watching-me sensation the whole time she was appreciating—no, scratch that—appraising his well-developed rhomboids? She was a doctor. It was basically hardwired into her to appreciate a well-defined anatomy.
The smile she offered in return was more of a baring of teeth than a friendly gesture. Adding a dramatic look left, then right, for good measure to cover her tracks, Sam turned her back on Grant just in time to catch the rest of her teammates taking turns at a running slam dunk.
Shaking her head, Sam called, “Y’all are gonna hurt yourselves with that.”
“He might.” Alan pointed at Theo before firing off a wild shot from the far corner of the court.
Sam smiled to herself, letting the ball spin in her hand for the first time. Her fingers adjusting to the feel of the leather whirling in her palms, the familiar motion intensifying her focus. Who cared if Grant was there? Duke was right: sooner or later she’d have to let the plane go. And what better way to do that than crushing a man’s pride over some good-natured intramural basketball. Sam stepped to her favorite spot just outside the free throw line and fired away. The sound of the net swishing was so satisfying that she almost wanted to turn around and yell Ha! at Grant.
Luckily, she didn’t need to, because Theo shouted, “Sweet!” then jogged over to retrieve her ball, like Sam’s personal hype man. She let off another few carefully placed shots, sinking each specifically because they were the shots she knew she could make. The kind of baskets most likely to intimidate an opponent. Not that she was trying to intimidate anyone.
“Sorry I’m late.” Raphael jogged over to where the rest of the team had gathered, including Kyle and Evan from pediatrics. “Are we ready to do this?”
“Sam’s ready. She is fire,” Theo said, smiling so big that she could see his perfectly even bottom teeth.
“Don’t believe him.” Sam smiled, shaking Raphael’s hand.
“Duke said you can play. And that’s good. We lost our point when she took a job in North Carolina at the end of last season.”
“I wouldn’t trust Duke, but I’ll try and make y’all proud.” Sam rolled her neck as the team stripped off their sweatshirts and walked toward the center of the court. On the other side, Grant stood huddled with his team, which managed to have three women, two of whom she planned to track down for coffee on a slow night, once she learned their names. The only people she recognized, besides Grant—who she wished she didn’t recognize—were a guy named Danny, an RN in the ob-gyn department, and a woman named Kelly from emergency. Giving Danny a genuine smile, Sam found her spot, a little way outside center court, farther into Flyer territory.
She was just beginning to visualize the first play she would set up when Grant walked into her space. Sam shifted a few feet away, trying to give herself a little extra room to think, but he followed. Not close enough to be guarding her tight, just close enough to talk.
“So you’re the new point guard?”
“Sure looks like it,” Sam grumbled.
Grant snorted a laugh, an odd sound for someone who looked like the TV version of a doctor. It was just dorky enough to make him seem approachable. “I guess you’re right. I should have figured it was you.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re like six feet tall. I should’ve asked you to join our team first.”
“I’m five foot eight.”
“You’re as tall as I am,” Grant needled.
Sam threw him a sideways look and got into ready position, holding her response until the ref bent his knees to release the ball. “Then you’re not six feet tall. It’s okay. Men lie about their height all the time.”
Grant took his eyes off the ball to look at her, incredulous, and Sam took off. She snatched the ball out of the air and locked it. Then she grinned at Grant, who was just realizing that she’d timed the perfect distraction. Shaking his head, he laughed it off and jogged down the court with the rest of the players.
Sam began a lazy dribble down the court, scanning the faces of her teammates. Sure, she needed to crush Grant, but she also needed to do it with style. No need to let her competitive streak get the best of her in front of her new coworkers.
Theo shoved off his defender and swung up the wing to signal that he was open. Sam read the movement but didn’t pass. Grant had stationed himself at the top of the key, hanging back with the smirk still firmly attached to his face. He looked relaxed, but the move was calculated. He would step in to fill the gap in defense if she was foolish enough to pass to Theo. No. It was better to draw Grant out of the swing spot. Crossing over, Sam took two steps to the right, forcing Grant to shift toward her as she dribbled, careful to keep herself out of arm’s reach.
“Little slow at tip-off.” Sam mumbled the words in Grant’s direction. As a rule, she wasn’t much of a trash-talker, but this was too good to pass up. Besides, her brother was a mediocre player but a professional shit-talker. Surely that was a genetic trait she could call on in times of desperation.
“Trying to distract me?” Grant’s smile spread as he sank lower into a defense stance, the muscles in his thighs flexing as he followed her across the floor. “It’s not gonna work.”
“I think it already did.” Sam smiled as her eyes flicked toward the basket while Duke cut across the key, his hand up to signal that he was open. Twisting around, she bounce passed the ball under her arm and back to Theo, who managed to catch it. Grant rotated around just in time to watch Theo lob the ball over to Duke for an easy layup.
“Good pass, Sam,” Kyle shouted from the bench.
“Ah. Lucky play,” Grant said over his shoulder as he jogged toward the sidelines to throw the ball in.
“Get ready. You’re gonna watch me get lucky all night.” Sam punctuated the last two words, letting her neck work for extra emphasis. She laughed as she jogged down the court.
Sinking into a self-satisfied defensive stance, Sam glanced over her shoulder quickly to read the court. Duke appeared to be chatting affably with Kelly, and Sam felt the urge to clap at him and yell Focus. Unless small talk was his form of defense, Duke’s chitchat was going to allow the Flyers to score.
The sounds of a basketball hitting the wood close to her brought Sam back to attention. She looked up just in time to catch Grant grinning at her. He bounced the ball through his legs to avoid Sam’s reach. “Get lucky all night?” he asked, tilting his head and raising an eyebrow.
“Yup.” Sam maintained her smile. Grant’s movements were precise but unhurried. He could try to wait her out, but she refused to lose focus. She sank her hips deeper into her stance and shifted her weight toward her toes so she could be ready to move.
“You are terrible at trash-talking.” Grant’s dark eyes scanned the court.
“I thought that was pretty good,” Sam said, scowling.
“It sounded less like trash and more like B movie dirty talk.” Grant’s smile lines deepened as he laughed, the sound mingling with the thump-thump of his dribble. “Are you gonna break out a riding crop and a feather duster next?”
Images of Grant in a leather halter, body glistening with oil and cracking a riding crop, flooded Sam’s imagination. It wasn’t a fantasy she’d known she had, but on him it was hot. He probably used flavored oil, too, but not the gross kind that tasted like chemicals. Given his attention to detail, he’d absolutely buy the good stuff for whatever he was going to do to her—
Not that he was going to do anything to her. Sam gave her head a little shake, trying to brush off the sizzling mental picture. Grant’s nose wrinkled with his mischievous smile, and Sam recognized the distraction just a fraction of a second too late as he stopped short and lobbed the ball over her head. The woman Duke had been chatting with caught it and got an easy shot off, tying the game at 2–2.
Sam turned around just in time to watch Grant backpedal down the court. Making eye contact with her, he called, “Lucky. All. Night,” his tone closer to a phone sex operator’s than an NBA trash-talker’s.
Sam waved him off and turned to retrieve the ball as a smile crept across her face. She was not going to be seen laughing at her nemesis if she could help it. No matter how well he mimicked rap-video vixens of the early nineties. If that was how Grant wanted to play, he would have to deal with the burners. Crossing the half-court line, Sam let herself get close to Grant at the top of the key. Keeping her dribble low, she leaned forward and felt the front of her baggy tank top peel away from her skin, and she said, “Okay, so my trash talk is a little rusty. But my game ain’t.”
Sam popped up out of the dribble with surgical accuracy and fired a three. If LeBron James himself had staged this play, he could not have managed a better shot. The ball rotated perfectly in the air, the spinning Wilson logo winking at her. The entire court stopped moving to follow the ball as it rocketed toward the basket with the cleanest swish Sam had ever sunk.
“Oh!” Duke yelled, holding a fist up to his mouth and rocking back and forth. “Told ya. You don’t even need me.”
From the bleachers, Evan popped up and started clapping and nodding like the revered coach Pat Summitt following a close game in a D1 playoff.
Grant’s jaw dropped as the ball bounced off the padded wall, waiting for someone to retrieve it. Eventually, he turned back to face her, surprise still scrawled across his face.
“Guess I don’t need trash talk.” Sam let a slow smile creep over her face.
By the time Grant checked the ball, the mood on the court had changed. Everything up to that point had been a warm-up, but Sam’s three-pointer was a warning volley, and it did not go unanswered. Grant was quick and precise, and if Sam let up for even a millisecond, his sharp instincts took advantage of her slack. Like three seconds ago, when he’d sunk a jumper and tied the score.
“Nice shot,” Sam called, in spite of her competitive streak, as she brought the ball down the court.
“Thanks.” The muscles in Grant’s cheeks twitched toward a smile, and then he focused again. Apparently, she had fooled him one too many times with small talk today.
Sam kept her dribble close to the ground and pivoted quickly, using her ass to back Grant closer to the hoop. Stutter-stepping three inches back, Sam could feel his sweat on her shoulder as she pressed into him and tried not to notice the smell of him. The mix of salty skin and spicy deodorant coming off a good-looking man was almost intoxicating.
Not that she was enjoying Grant. Or the way he smelled. She shoved the thoughts out of her head, focusing on Duke as he swung wide and clapped for the ball. They were four points away from winning the game. Sam stuttered back another inch, hoping Grant would give her a little more room to execute the pass. She wasn’t a tiny girl, and most guys got out of the way if she put even a quarter of her body weight on them. Unfortunately, Grant must have been into squats, because he didn’t back up. Tossing a glance over her shoulder, Sam caught him smiling at her like she could rest her weight on him all day. She growled in frustration, which seemed to heighten his enjoyment of the situation. He was laughing at her. She was going to have to fight dirty.
He was leaning over her so close that she could feel him breathing on her neck. This could work for her. Without warning, she stood up suddenly, her shoulder catching Grant in the chest and knocking him off balance. She passed the ball to Duke, who pulled up for a midrange jumper that circled the rim exactly twice before it sank with a satisfying swish.
“Ugh.” Grant let his head drop to his chest, and she felt the sheer joy of having backed him into a corner start to well inside her.
If ever there was a time to reprise trash talk, it was now. Waiting until he had the ball, she said, “Don’t feel bad, Grant. Everyone loses sometimes. Maybe you should have been more assertive?” Her tone was innocent enough, but the look on Grant’s face sagged as he remembered his crappy advice to her. On either side of them, Grant’s teammates ran up and called for the ball. Grant smirked and looked over like he was going to pass the ball to Kelly. Instinctively, Sam moved toward her, trying to fill the gap and intercept the pass. She was halfway through the movement when she realized her error. Grant hadn’t telegraphed a pass; he had faked her out and thrown a no-look pass at Danny.
Sam scrambled to get back into position as the ball whizzed toward Danny. In that moment, time seemed to stand still. Grant came to a halt as Sam ran toward him, and . . . Danny was not paying attention to the ball.
“Yo—” Grant’s face froze in horror as soon as he realized what Sam and half the court already saw. Danny turned just in time for the pass to hit him directly in the face with enough force to dent a car.
A collective yelp went around the group as Danny hit the ground with a thud, his limbs splayed like in one of da Vinci’s anatomy drawings from the fifteenth century.
“Ow,” Danny moaned from the floor as the entire court jogged over to check on him.
“Don’t move,” Theo and Kelly shouted at the same time. Sam was torn between running over to help and trying not to crowd the people in the room with actual emergency medical training.
“I’m pretty sure I’m just rattled,” Danny said. To his credit, he did obey the roomful of doctors, who were all watching him like a hawk. He wiggled his ankles but didn’t try to get up, and Sam’s neck muscles started to relax. Gratitude that someone else was there to handle the emergency flooded her senses. No repeat of the plane for her.
“Maybe. But I didn’t like the sound of that fall,” Kelly said, leaning over him. “Can you look at me?”
Sam felt Grant stand next to her before she saw him. Looking over at him, she felt instantly guilty for mocking him all night. The poor guy looked like he had accidentally punched both of his grandmothers as Kelly helped Danny sit up.
Without thinking, Sam leaned into Grant and whispered, “You all right?”
“Better than Danny. Jeez.” Grant scrubbed his hand over his face. “I hope he doesn’t have a concussion. He is supposed to work tomorrow.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine. He clearly remembers getting hit by the ball, which is a good sign,” Sam said as Danny reenacted getting socked with his hands. That knowledge did not seem to have any effect on Grant’s mood. Sam sighed. “For what it’s worth. That was a really good pass.”
Grant blinked at her for a few moments, the corners of his mouth lifting. “Thanks.”
“Maybe you were a touch too assertive for poor Danny,” Sam said, watching Grant’s smile broaden as he shook his head.
“I earned that,” Grant said, shrugging at her. Something stretched between them, and she wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it. She’d liked it better when she’d just wanted to avoid speaking to him ever again.
“We went to elementary school together, and I gave that guy a concussion when we were like ten. Apparently, he is still holding a grudge,” Danny shouted, getting slowly to his feet and drawing Grant’s attention.
“I waited twenty-four years to pay you back,” Grant called, making his way through the group of people to get to Danny’s side. “Sorry, man.”
“I’m all right, really. We could finish the game.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. I said you could probably get up, not you can get your head knocked again.” Kelly chuckled.
“It’s their possession anyway. I think they won this one. I’m not trying to let Duke dunk on you again.” Grant laughed.
“I’m willing to call it a draw, given the loss of one of your star players,” Raphael said, with a magnanimous bow.
“You’re too kind,” Kelly said, rolling her eyes.
“Draw it is,” Grant said, nodding to Raphael. “Good game, everyone.”
“Good game,” Sam said, shaking hands and nudging shoulders with different players as she ambled off the court toward the bench. She could already feel her thighs starting to scream from all the defensive squats.
“For someone who had to be dragged here, you sure played like you cared,” Duke said, sidling up beside her and taking in her sweat-soaked jersey.
“Ha. Ha. For someone who said they wanted to play, you sure spent a lot of time chitchatting.”
Duke snorted and grabbed his bag. “Fine. But if I see you chatting and jogging at the next game, then I know that you are on some petty hustle shit.”
“Oh. That hustle was absolutely about being petty.” Sam laughed as she slipped into her sandals. “You don’t even need to wait for next week. I just had to put Grant on notice.”
“You played that game like it was the 1996 Bulls versus the Sonics playoffs. ‘Back That Azz Up’ was basically your theme music,” Duke said, hoisting his bag to his shoulder and waiting for her to stand up.
Sam chuckled and shoved herself off the bench, feeling her muscles whine. “That’s just a hazard of playing close defense. Grant knew.”
“Grant knew something,” Duke said, smirking.
“What are you saying?” Sam asked, arching an eyebrow at him as she scooped up her bag.
“All I’m saying is y’all were awful close.”
“How far away am I supposed to be when you have Evan playing clown defense and Theo shooting moon balls?”
“I don’t know, but what I do know is—”
“Hey, Sam.” Grant’s voice cut down the hallway, echoing off the concrete floors.
Sam was irritated with herself for not feeling more irritation over being interrupted by him. This person was not her friend. No matter how pained he’d looked over knocking Danny out. “Hey, Grant. What’s up?”
Grant pulled even with them, and keeping one hand wrapped around the strap of his gym bag, he extended the other to Duke. “Good game.”
“You’re pretty good,” Duke said, shaking his hand.
“Not as good as her.” Grant nodded at Sam, and Duke laughed.
“Sam didn’t even want to play. I had to beg her to join. Next thing you know, she is all competitive. I played with guys in the D-League who had less hustle.” Duke snorted.
“I don’t see the point in playing unless I’m gonna play to win,” Sam said, glancing over at Grant as they began walking to the parking lot.
“Fun,” Duke deadpanned.
“Winning is fun.” The laughter in her tone betrayed her. It was hard to be petty when Duke was cracking jokes and Grant had just nailed a guy in the face like a stunt in a Three Stooges movie.
“Intense much?” Duke asked.
“Says the guy who lives and dies by our cleaning schedule.” Sam rolled her eyes.
“Housemate rules are a different thing. You gotta be intense about those.”
Grant laughed at the pair of them as they reached Duke’s busted car. Belatedly, Sam remembered her lie about the car being a two-seater, then decided to tuck her shame into her pocket. For all Grant knew, Jehan had an equally shitty car that only held two. At least, he would think that until he saw Jehan in the hospital parking lot with her bicycle.
“Anyway, I just wanted to say good game to you.” Grant held out his hand to Sam and smiled. San Francisco was absolutely frigid that evening, but his smile could have warmed up half the parking lot. It was the kind of smile that made her feel like he meant the gesture just for her . . . which Sam knew was absolutely not true. Exhaling a chilly breath, Sam shook his hand, the sureness of his grip matching the confidence he exuded. His hands were warm but not clammy with sweat like she would expect from someone who’d just played a basketball game. It was funny: she had brushed, pushed, and even once elbowed him all night, and she had never noticed the static that buzzed off his smooth skin. It was disarming but not altogether unpleasant. Sam released his hand before she could think any more about it.
“If you care for your patients with as much heart as you play pickup basketball, you are gonna be a great addition to SF Central.”
“Oh. Thanks,” Sam said, wishing her surprise hadn’t rendered her so ineloquent. It wasn’t that she had expected a repeat of the plane incident or anything. But she hadn’t expected to give someone the full-court press and walk away with a new friend. Not that this was friendship. Grant’s eyebrow twitched up, and Sam remembered to smile. “I’m sure you’re at least as good a doctor as you are a basketball player.”
“Let’s hope. Seeing as I concussed a guy tonight.” Grant half smiled at her, then pulled out a set of keys from his sweatshirt pocket. “See you both tomorrow.”
Sam watched Grant slide into a sleek luxury SUV while Duke reached across to unlock the passenger-side door. Sliding into the car seat, she looked over at Duke as she buckled her seat belt and caught him grinning at her.
“What?” she asked, trying to tighten the overused belt strap. Duke continued to smirk, raised an eyebrow, and said nothing, so Sam made a face at him.
“I don’t think he got the message about your petty revenge.” Duke chuckled as he began easing out of the parking lot.
“I mean, I caused him to concuss someone, so I think he knows I’m not a fan,” Sam said, tilting her head against the headrest as much in exasperation as in exhaustion.
“You sure about that?” Duke said, nodding his head toward her window and lifting his steering wheel hand in a classic driver’s salute. Sam looked over in time to catch Grant waving at them with a big goofy gesture. “Like I said, I’m not sure he got your message.”
Holding her posture ramrod straight, she looked back at Duke. “That was just unfortunate timing. He hasn’t had a moment to reflect on how I destroyed his midrange game. It’ll hit him later tonight. The grief will probably wake him up.”
“I’ll let you keep believing that,” Duke said, still grinning as he turned left out of the parking lot.