Lauren shrugged. “I’ve got too much going on to travel to Oklahoma, so I’m hanging around here. I’ll enjoy having an afternoon and evening off.”
“You should come to my house,” Jeni said.
Andrew raised an eyebrow at his sister.
“That’s…very nice of you,” Lauren said slowly.
“It’s just going to be Andrew and me. We were going to order pizza and watch Parks and Recreation reruns all night.”
Seriously? She loved Parks and Rec.
“Doesn’t that sound wonderful?” Jeni continued.
“It does, actually,” Lauren said. “But I don’t think I shou—”
“Just think about it, okay?” Jeni interrupted. “If you want to enjoy some time alone, I totally get it. But if you decide you want company, you’re welcome to come hang out.”
Lauren shifted on her feet and rubbed one forearm with the opposite hand as she considered how to politely decline.
“Don’t decide right now,” Andrew added. He rubbed the back of his neck, the muscles in his forearm rippling. “See how you feel after you get off work on Thursday and let me know. No big deal either way.”
It would be a lot easier to say no via text message. “Okay. I’ll let you know.” She realized she still held his scan report in her hand. “Here’s the PET scan report you asked for. Emma told me to bring it by.”
Andrew took the papers. “Thanks. My mom insisted I get copies of everything.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Lauren agreed. “It makes things easier if you ever decide you want a second opinion about something.”
“I’m not going anywhere else.”
The infusion pump beeped, and Mandi promptly walked over, allowing Lauren to excuse herself.
She wove through the infusion center toward the back stairway that would take her back to clinic. Fridays were the slowest day of the week for the infusion center, and the section of chairs near the corner was empty.
Thinking she was alone as she walked through, she jumped when a voice came from behind her.
“Hey, Lauren.”
Her hand flew to her chest and she spun around to find Gavin standing near the window. He unhooked an empty saline bag from an IV pole and stuffed it into one of the bright yellow disposal buckets placed throughout the room.
“Gavin. You startled me,” she said on a long exhale.
“Sorry.” Finished with his task, he took three steps in her direction. “We missed you the other night. On the Plaza.”
His expression was calm, but his voice held an edge. He was cocky, sure…but usually not intimidating, A tingle of unease spread down Lauren’s spine at the look in his eye as he watched her.
“Oh, yeah. Did you have fun?”
“It was a blast.” He paused for a beat. “What were you up to? Studying, you said?”
Lauren sensed something hinged on her response to this question, but she didn’t know what else to say. “Yeah.” That is what she’d planned on doing, before Logan/Andrew had asked her to dinner.
“Huh. That’s weird, because I could have sworn I saw you that night.”
Bob Barker.
“You were by the fountain with someone. He looked an awful lot like that big guy with Hodgkin’s we’ve been treating.”
Lauren’s mind kicked into overdrive. How should she respond? Did it matter that she and Andrew were there together? Should she lie and say it hadn’t been her? Or it hadn’t been Andrew? She’d been so focused on Andrew, Gavin could have passed right by them and she wouldn’t have noticed. If she tried to play it off like she hadn’t been there with Andrew, and Gavin had been nearby and saw them—especially right at the almost kiss—things would look even worse.