Changing Lanes (The Lone Stars Book 3) (3 page)

“That’s perfect. I’ll pick you up at six in the lobby.” He cocked his head to the left and his smile turned plastic. “So you’re really a doctor?”

“I’m a pediatric oncologist.” Laney got ready for the onslaught of oohs and ahs. Most people tripped over themselves to celebrate her career choice making her into some humanitarian healer, all the while asking how she could handle such a depressing job.

His smile faded, the twinkle in his eyes cooled, and five nearly even lines cut across his brow. “I see.”

She hadn’t experienced this before. Was it her, or did he seem a little angry? Did he want to break their date because she was a pediatric oncologist? Men had broken dates with her for all sorts of reasons, but that had never been one of them.

“That’s how I met Laney.” Grace gently patted Luke’s back. She was always touching her children—both her biological son and her three stepchildren. She made motherhood look easy. “I was working in the music lab with some of the kids, and Laney wheeled in the cutest five–year–old I’ve ever seen.”

“Lara. She’s adorable.” And not doing well. Her leukemia wasn’t responding to treatment. Every evening, Laney stopped by her room for a game of Uno. “Have you ever been to the Dell Children’s Music lab? The patients love it, and it gives them a much needed distraction while they’re in the hospital.”

“No, sorry.” He hung his head. All of the enthusiasm he’s had for their date gone.

“Devon doesn’t do hospitals.” Grace touched his arm. “According to his mother, the only times he’s stepped foot in one were his birth and his shoulder surgery.”

“Do you have nosocomephobia—the fear of hospitals?” Laney’s heart melted. He had a fear, and he was willing to overcome it because he wanted to go out with her. The caregiver side of her needed to make it all better. “Why don’t we meet at the restaurant? What did you have in mind?”

“Dell Children’s is fine. I don’t have a fear of hospitals exactly, I just don’t like them. Just like I don’t like dentist’s offices and the DMV.” He smiled and his brown eyes twinkled in the sunlight.

How had he managed that? Did her eyes ever twinkle? She didn’t ever remember twinkling.

“Six o’clock in the lobby.” She smiled at him, and his eyes twinkled again. She tried to twinkle her eyes but blinked instead. When she got home, she was working on that twinkling thing.

“Ladies, come here.” It was Charisma. “Coach Robbins wants us to talk about our last Ironman.”

Since it had been on the local news, that’s all everyone wanted to talk about. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Teams worked together.

Laney kissed Luke’s soft mass of blond curls, nodded at Devon, and gave Grace a little wave. She made it down the couple of steps and stood next to Nina.

“Guys, these women are incredible. Besides the fact that they can each swim almost two and a half miles, bike one–hundred and twelve miles, and run an entire marathon all in the same day without taking a break, they also care about their team.” Coach Robbins looked at Charisma. “Ladies, please tell my team what you did for yours.”

Charisma stepped forward. “We are one Tough Lady short today, but our teammate, Susie, is still recovering from surgery. Last month in Cozumel, ten miles from the finish line, she tripped and broke three bones in her foot. This was her first triathlon, and she’d trained so hard. We couldn’t leave her.”

Nina took a deep breath. “More than anything she wanted to cross the finish line. Susie couldn’t walk on her own, so we took turns carrying her.”

Charisma turned around so that the quote on the back of her Touch Ladies T–shirt could be seen.

January read it out loud. “
If you can’t run, you crawl. If you can’t crawl—you find someone to carry you.”

“Joss Whedon wrote that. It was
Firefly
episode twelve.” Devon called from the stands.

The fact that he knew that made him a thousand times more interesting. Laney’s greatest passion outside of medicine was Sci–Fi. Especially, anything touched by Joss Whedon and Tim Minear.

Their eyes locked and a few small butterflies danced in her stomach. Well, not actual butterflies, she knew the sensation was caused by a rush of adrenaline and cortisol through her system due to arousal. As blood rushed to deep tissue, it shut down digestion and increased the heart rate resulting in the flutter in the stomach. For once, she wished that she didn’t know the physiological reason and could just enjoy the fluttering.

Devon winked and blew her a kiss.

Laney felt all of the blood that should have been on the way to her brain rush to her face, breasts, and vag—she needed to stop the clinical analysis now and enjoy the arousal.

Nina elbowed her in the ribs and whispered, “Stop eye flirting with the hot offensive tackle. The chemistry between the two of you is starting to turn me on.”

“Pervert.” Laney whispered back.

Nina put her arm around Laney. “Everyone’s got to have a hobby.”

“Susie … well all of us, crossed the finish line together. While swimming, running, and biking aren’t exactly team sports, we choose to be a team. If one of us stumbles,” Charisma swept her arms wide meaning all of them, “we all catch her.”

“What about your times? Weren’t you a little pissed because you finished with longer times?” It was a large African American player with giant pecs and a gold front tooth.

“While it wasn’t my best personal time, it was the best time I’ve ever had running ten miles.” January smiled.

They’d taken turns telling ghost stories, making up poems, singing songs, and doing impressions to keep Susie’s mind off of the pain.

“Wasn’t she disqualified?” The guy hunched his shoulders. “Sure, she crossed the finish line, but it didn’t mean anything.”

Charisma arched an eyebrow and pulled herself up to her full height of four–foot–nine. “Her score might not have counted, but all of her hard work paid off. She didn’t quit, didn’t give up, and she didn’t give in to the pain. She wanted to finish and she did. Winning isn’t the only goal, sometimes finishing is more important.”

The football player sat back in his chair. He’d backed down, just like everyone else who came up against Charisma.

“See guys, this is what’s missing from our team.” Coach Robbins pointed to the back of Charisma’s T–shirt. “You need to be willing to carry your fellow teammate—”

“Coach, it’s not that we don’t want to carry our fellow players, it’s more like we can’t lift them. Keshaun, what do you weigh?” A lanky white man asked from the front row.

“Two ninety.” He snarled. “If you can’t lift two–ninety you need to find an easier sport like say, kickball or synchronized swimming.” He pulled out his smartphone. “It says right here that the YMCA is putting together a belly dancing team. You’d be perfect.”

“Kiss my ass.” The first guy jumped up and onto the track. “I don’t need belly dancing lessons.” He ripped off his shirt and danced around.

Several of the players threw empty cups at him. She glanced up at Devon. He was watching her like a thirsty man drinking his fill—feature by feature—he was drinking her in. Her entire life, she’d only ever had one person look at her that way, and he’d been all of seventeen years old. Back then it had been worshipful and tender and a little overwhelming, and now, it was no different. She looked away.

Dinner tonight with him would be something completely out of her element.

Usually the unknown made her nervous, but this time she was excited. A new reckless experience. Maybe she’d even have a one–night stand.

Thirty minutes later, she and the other Tough Ladies made their way back out to the parking lot.

“Did you see how that Devon guy eye–flirted with Laney the whole time we were on the track?” January put her arm around Laney. “You should go for it. Have some fun and some raunchy gorilla sex.”

Laney sucked on her bottom lip. “How is that different from regular sex? There are only so many places he can insert his—”

“Stop issuing a medical opinion. Just strip down and let him play with your girl parts. He looks like he’d be good in bed.” Nina nudged her with her elbow.

“He had really big hands.” January nodded. “You know what that means?”

“That’s a myth.” At least she thought it was a myth. Now that she thought about it, she remembered something about finger size. “Actually, I believe there is some research out of Korea that suggests that men with smaller index fingers in comparison to their ring fingers do have a larger than average penis.”

“Crap, I didn’t get a good look at his fingers.” Nina’s mouth pinched. “Did you?”

“No, he was too far away.” January shrugged. “I guess Lanes here will need to fill us in.”

Charisma opened her giant Louis Vuitton purse and dug through it. “You need to think about safety.” She rooted around some more and came up with a handful of condoms. “Wait. Do you think he uses anabolic steroids? These maybe too big.”

She stuffed the condoms back in her purse.

“Research suggests that anabolic steroids don’t shrink the penis but the scrotum—”

“Lanes, promise me that tonight you won’t use the words, research suggests, penis, or vagina.” Nina pointed at Laney. “I need for you to have crazy, hot sex with this football player so that I can live vicariously through you. My current boyfriend is pink, vibrates, sounds like a lawn mower, and runs on D batteries.”

“Please tell me you’re practicing environmentally safe sex.” January turned to Nina. Recycling was January’s religion—some people worshipped Jesus and some people worshipped Buddha—January recycled.

“Duh, I use rechargeable batteries.” Nina probably didn’t, but if she admitted to using regular batteries, January would launch into a lecture that usually took at least two rounds of margaritas to finish.

Charisma pulled out the condoms again. “Here. I hope you use them all.”

There must have been twenty condoms. “I don’t think that’s likely. According to the Kinsey Institute, couples between the ages of eighteen and twenty–nine only have sex one hundred and twelve times a year. That’s a little over twice a week.”

“Do you just spout this shit because you know we’re not going to check it?” Nina smiled. “And if so, can you come up with some better statistics because I need to believe that if I’m ever part of a couple, I get to have sex more than twice a week.”

“It’s interesting. Research shows that on any given day over a hundred thousand couples have sex. So right now, sixty–thousand people are doing it.” Laney loved to bore them with statistics. In fact sometimes she looked up completely useless info just to piss them off.

“Now you’re just being mean. Sixty–thousand people are going at it right now while I’m left to dream about Leo the battery—oops sorry—the rechargeable battery operated love machine.” Nina shook her head. “I feel so lonely.”

“Don’t worry, we’re all lonely except Laney.” Charisma slid her enormous bag back on her shoulder. “Tomorrow morning … five–thirty. We’re doing sprints, and we’re expecting details. Since we all hate sprints, a good, long sexy story should take our minds off of them.”

“Leave it to baby Hitler to come up with a way to combine sex and working out.” January snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it. You should start a new workout routine that involves sex. You could do an entire line of DVDs and downloads.”

Nina shook her head. “They already have that. It’s called porn.” Her phone beeped. She pulled it out. “Crap, I’m going to be late. I’ve got a laser hair removal appointment in ten minutes. Unfortunately it’s on the other side of town.”

She clicked her car alarm and jumped in her Corvette.

There was no doubt in Laney’s mind that Nina would be there on time. It didn’t matter that Austin didn’t have a loop or that it would take a normal person in no traffic at least thirty minutes to get there. Nina was going to make it in ten minutes.

Laney took the condoms, stuffed them in her purse, and headed to her car. She had some shopping to do. Tonight, reckless was her middle name.

Chapter 3

Devon wasn’t exactly nervous, he was excited and anxious, and well … a little nervous. Tonight had to be perfect. All EJ needed was a little alone time with him, and she’d remember him. She was special and classy and so different than she’d been fourteen years ago. She probably loved art museums and the ballet and read War and Peace. It’s not that he didn’t like those things—he’d never read War and Peace—it’s just that he well … didn’t like those things. But he could learn to like them, even love them for Laney.

His plan was to spend as much time with her as she’d let him. Did they still have common interests? He let out a long, slow breath. Besides football, he liked cooking, Sci–Fi especially anything done by Joss Whedon. He was a simple guy. His idea of a perfect evening was a pizza and a
Farscape
Marathon.

He was a beer and barbecue guy, and she was probably a fancy champagne and French cuisine kind of girl. Years ago, her parents had been big on culture and society functions. They took her to art exhibits, the theater, and had forced her into years of cotillion where she’d claimed to have learned how to use all those little forks he’d only seen at fancy restaurants. He shrugged. He’d make it work.