“You’re like a dog,” she says. “The dog who licks his food dish when he finishes just in case there’s a nugget he missed.”

I drop my face into the red bowl and lick.

She grabs it from me and sets it on the coffee table. “I’m cutting you off.” She puts her feet on the coffee table. Then she shifts a little and moves them onto me.

I stare at her feet. Her toenails are painted sapphire blue. Her feet are little and slender. My eyes land on the top of her foot, and they nearly pop out of my head when I spy the bounty. “You have really beautiful veins in your feet.”

She gives me the biggest side-eye glare in the world. “What?”

I stretch forward, grab her foot, and hold it up. “Look at this. It’s fucking beautiful,” I say, running my finger along the top. The vein there is thick and blue. “I could draw so much blood from here.”

She blinks. “Are you a vampire?”

“No. I’m just an aficionado of all the systems in the body. You could give blood from your fucking foot.” I yank it toward my mouth.

She squeals, wriggling as I pretend to gnaw on her arch. “You’re crazy.”

I let go, dropping it across my thigh. “What other glorious life-giving veins are you hiding? Let me see your arms.”

“Is this some kind of doctor porn?”

I nod, and my eyes are surely sparkling. “You have the cupcake tin and icing smoother. Hell, I saw the way you eyed that rolling pin, too. You had your fun. Let me have mine.”

“Fine.” She shrugs off a little flimsy sweater and sticks out her arm.

I wrap my hand around her wrist and roam my eyes up and down her arm. “This,” I say, tapping a vein in her forearm. “You could save countries with this limb.”

“Are you really serious?”

“Yes. This is a world-class vein, Josie. This is like a diamond mine. Man, if I didn’t already think you were the cat’s meow, just seeing your veins would seal the deal. Please tell me you’re a blood donor.”

She nods. “Of course. Want to take mine some time?”

I draw a sharp breath and close my eyes. “Don’t get me excited.”

When I open my eyes, she kicks me in the belly. “You’re the worst.”

“I know.”

She sits up and asks, “What was the hardest part about being in Africa?”

“Besides missing pizza?”

She smiles. “Besides pizza, though I do understand that kind of empty ache.”

“Especially for a cheese pie with mushrooms.”

“Your favorite,” she says.

Absently, I rub my hand over her arm as I cycle back to the days in the Central African Republic. “Obviously, the suffering that we witnessed.”

“Of course,” she says, her tone serious. “That must have been so hard.”

“It was. But on a more personal level, since I think that’s what you’re asking, I would say it was missing friends,” I say with a sigh. “I missed Max, even though he’s a pain, and Wyatt, too. I missed talking to friends who aren’t in medicine. Just chatting about something other than work or doctor stuff.”

“You’re a social person,” she says, her voice soft.

I nod. “Always have been. I loved your emails, though,” I say, remembering how Josie kept in touch with me. She consistently sent me updates, more than anyone else. “I’d get excited just seeing your name in my Gmail inbox.”

She smiles widely. “Really?”

I nod. “Yeah. It was an amazing experience being there, but I did miss home, and getting your notes was like receiving a little piece of New York every time you wrote. Like the time you told me about the woman who ordered a cake for herself from her dogs. How when she picked it up, she said, ‘My dogs ordered me a cake.’”

Josie laughs. “She was adorable. She was a writer. She’d just hit a bestseller list, and she said her dogs wanted to congratulate her with a cake.”

“What a lovable nut. And you totally went along with it.”

Josie juts up a shoulder. “Of course. I said, ‘Satchel and Lulu are so very proud of you. Here’s the chocolate layer cake they ordered just for you.’”

“You probably made her day. Hell, that story alone made mine. What didn’t help was the picture you sent along of the cake, you temptress,” I say, narrowing my eyes.

“You missed my cake. So sweet.”

A smile tugs at my lips. A wistful one. “I missed you, too.”

“You did?” she asks, her voice softer than usual, less teasing.

“Of course. You’re one of my best friends.”

“Right. Totally. Same here.” She clears her throat. “Did you make new friends in Africa?”

“Definitely. I became friends with some of the other doctors and nurses.”

“Nurses?” A tightness threads through her voice. I haven’t heard that tone before. For a flicker of a second it sounds almost like jealousy. But that’s ridiculous. We’ve been friends for too long for things to change between us.

“A group of us became close. Camila, this hip nurse from Spain with crazy tattoos down her arms, was awesome.”

“A Spanish nurse? Covered in ink?” she asks, like this is the most difficult concept, or the most annoying.

“Yes. She was a riot. Always telling funny stories about the guys back home. And a doctor from England, George. And another doc from New Zealand. His name was Dominic, and he had the perfect deadpan sense of humor. That was our crew.”