“They are all whiners,” he said. “And I haven’t done anything in your office lately.”
At least once a month he’d go into Sam’s office and move stuff around. Leave food hidden somewhere so it’d get spoiled in a drawer and stink. Sticky notes all over his chair. Glitter in multiple places so it took months before it wasn’t on Sam’s scrubs or clothes somewhere. Yeah, that one was great.
“It’s been a little over a month. I’m expecting something soon. Maybe you are just putting me on edge for no reason.”
“You’re not nervous over the wedding, are you?” he asked.
“No,” Sam said. “I can’t wait for it. I think that’s it more than anything. I can’t wait to be married and start the next chapter in my life. Speaking of chapters. The little hottie that left the table before me. What was that about? I still say you struck out.”
“Again, we didn’t get far enough for me to even ask about a date. I barely got to tell her my last name.”
“So you’d like to ask her out?” Sam said, laughing.
“You saw her. She’s smoking even in her scrubs. Wish I could see how long her hair was but it was up in the bun.”
Adriana had olive-colored skin, almond-shaped eyes that were brown with flecks of gold in them. Her lips were bare of any gloss or color, but they were nice and plump.
She didn’t have much makeup on, but she didn’t need it. Not one bit.
“She sat here at the table with you and you barely got her last name. That’s rich.”
“Ha ha. There were no empty tables. She’s new. I know that. I know who she is now. My mother told me about her.”
“Really?” he asked. “And how does Aunt Carolyn know about her? What’s her name, by the way?”
“Adriana Lopez. Her father married a teacher that works with my mom. I guess she moved here from San Diego a few months ago. That is what my mother told me and asked if I saw her to show her around. That she was kind of quiet and could use a friend.”
“She didn’t look all that shy or quiet to me,” Sam said. “She didn’t talk much, but most people who could use a friend tend to be loners or lacking self-confidence.”
His cousin was right. Adriana didn’t talk much to him, but she had no problem talking during the surgery when needed. There was an air of confidence with her doing her job too.
Even talking with him...she had no problem telling him what was on her mind. Being straightforward and in his face.
That is, until she found out their mothers knew each other.
Then she softened her approach a touch. Not much, but enough that he saw it. Until she stood up and pretty much raced away from the table.
“Well, there are more fish in the sea. So I’m ready for the wedding. The question is, are you?”
“I’m fine. I don’t have much to do but stand up there looking hotter than the groom.”
“Not happening,” Sam said. “No date, right? I’m not keeping track of things. I’m leaving that to my mother and Dani’s mom, but I thought I heard none of the single guys had dates.”
“Since Ryder and I are the only two single guys in the wedding, it wouldn’t make sense to bring dates and have them sitting with people they didn’t know,” he said.
Sam’s brother Bryce was the best man, his other brother, Ryder, another groomsman, and Wyatt was the only cousin in the wedding party. They didn’t want a big wedding party and Wyatt was closer to Sam than Noah and Drake since they did work together.
“True. But this is the first wedding you’ve been in. You might have gotten nervous and wanted to ditch everyone to go be with a date.”
“Please,” he said, looking at Sam’s grin. “In our family weddings are second nature at this point. Yep, it’s the first one I’ve been in, but now it’s like white doves and wedding gowns are showing up everywhere. I’ve got two more to be in soon enough with Drake and Noah.”
“No best man duties for you there. They’ll be each other’s,” Sam said.
“Thank God,” he said back. But the truth was he always felt like he didn’t belong as much as some of the others.
Drake and Noah were twins and had each other. He knew what it was like to be a twin as he had one too. His sister, Jade. But it wasn’t the same as having a twin brother. There were just some things he wasn’t sharing with his sister.
He’d always heard the middle child was the one that got the least attention but not in his family.
Or was that because he was a nuisance half the time like his siblings always said?
“We aren’t falling as fast as the five did, but it does seem to be a domino effect. Thank God our parents had nothing to do with any of it. Could you imagine the type of women they would have tried to set us up with?” Sam asked.
Wyatt laughed. Their aunt and uncle in Charlotte had set their five cousins up with their spouses without them knowing until Ella, the baby, figured it out. Little did she know she’d been the first to be set up, she just took the longest to fall.
“The Five don’t seem to be complaining.”
“That’s true,” Sam said. “Either way, I’m glad I picked Dani out on my own. She’s nothing like anyone else I’ve ever dated.”
“That’s true. Total opposites there. The same with Bryce and Payton and Drake and Kara. I’m not sure Noah and Paige are opposites, but they don’t have a ton in common either.”
Drake and Kara worked together at his family’s engineering firm. Kara in finance and Drake an engineer. The two butted heads nonstop over Drake’s spending. Not only that, nothing ever ruffled his laid back brother’s feathers...until he met Kara.
Then Noah, a high school principal who
