Mind Games Read Online Free

other side of the table and dived into his food.
    “So tell me why you came back here. You could have gone anywhere and practiced medicine.”
    “I wanted to start a mobile health clinic in a city that I felt needed services the most. Hundreds if not thousands of teenagers flee to LA with delusions of grandeur, and most of them end up on the streets homeless, addicted to drugs, and prostituting themselves to survive.”
    “Derrick, it’s a noble cause, but you can’t save them all.” She picked up a piece of chicken with her chopstick and then dropped it clumsily onto her lap. She looked down at the soggy mass resting between her thighs and then up at him and shook her head.
    “I can try.” He jutted his chopsticks out at her, clicking them together. “Would you like me to get that for you?”
    “Uh, no thanks, I’ve got it.” She plucked the chicken from her lap and tossed it onto the table, wiping the remnants with a soggy napkin.
    “I can appreciate the work you’re doing, but have you considered that for each one you save another one flocks to the city that same day?”
    The tight look on his face told her she’d hit a nerve.
    “That doesn’t mean we just give up.”
    “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to sound insensitive.” She smiled at him. “I was just hoping that maybe tonight we could spend more time together.”
    She understood why he invested so much time and money into the Mobile Health Clinic. She admired his cause, but she sensed his deeply personal involvement. Yet he hadn’t opened up to her about why, and he wasn’t going to. That was obvious. She took comfort in knowing she wasn’t the only one keeping secrets. What a way to start a relationship.
    He smiled back. “No one said we couldn’t.”
    She hitched a brow at him in question. “Really?”
    “Really.”
    Her heart skipped a beat. She had such a crush on him the couple of summers he was in Crystal Cove. Back then, he hardly noticed her, since she was three years his junior. What would a hottie like him have wanted with a fourteen-year-old girl? A gawky, plain fourteen-year-old girl.
    Throughout dinner she attempted to use the chopsticks, and little did he know the food would have tasted just fine with a spoon or fork. Rats. She dropped another piece of chicken before making it to her mouth. At least this time it landed on her plate.
    “Want another lesson?” He mocked her by clicking his chopsticks together.
    “No thanks, I’ll get the hang of it.” She clicked her chopsticks back at him. “Aha, see, I’m catching on. Are your parents still living in Colorado?”
    “Yep, in the same house for the last, gee, it must be twelve years.”
    “Why didn’t they buy a place in Crystal Cove after the community build-out was finished?”
    Derrick chewed and took a quick swallow of his iced tea before answering. She watched the dimple in the left side of his cheek pop. She found his dimples incredibly sexy.
    “It’s complicated. In short, Crystal Cove was built for the elite, for those who wanted safety away from the city and suburbs of Los Angeles. It was a place where the residents were creating their perfect utopia, but you had to be among the very rich to own a home there.”
    “Oh, I knew we were considered snobs, but you make us sound horrible.” She shook her head at him and squinted her eyes, disagreeing with his assessment of the place she called home.
    “Now I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m not calling you a snob. My dad was a top-rate civil engineer. When his firm bid on the project, the next thing he and my mom knew, they were staying in California for at least another couple of years. My mom was not happy. They wanted to move and raise me and my sister in a normal place.”
    “And yet here you are.”
    “I have the best of both worlds. I can earn money as a concierge doctor to the wealthy, and that’s what helps me run the Mobile Health Clinic.”
    “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured