Just One Thing (The Alexanders 6)

Ridley took a seat on the other side of Katie on the couch. “Special project? What does Bennett have you working on? Nothing crazy I hope? He mixes all those chemicals in his lab and thinks that’s totally normal so I don’t think

he perceives danger the same way we do.”

Katie smiled thinking of all the random mishaps she’d already had in the lab. She’d been extra careful handling things since then. It would be just her luck to drop the wrong thing and end up blowing up the whole lab or something.

“Well, this is a project that I’m working on to help Bennett. It’s a personal project.”

Ridley smiled. “Personal, huh?”

“It’s not like that. He’s trying to be more social and asked for help. So I’ve been coming up with ideas to help him learn to talk to people.”

Mara clapped her hands in excitement. “This is so cool. Kind of like My Fair Lady but you get to be Dr. Doolittle.”

“I guess so. Although it’s weird trying to teach Bennett anything when he’s pretty much a savant with everything else.”

Ridley observed her with slightly narrowed eyes. She stared so long that Katie started to fidget under her gaze. Finally she couldn’t take it anymore.

“What? Just say it, Ri. You think this is weird, right?”

Katie couldn’t explain it but even though she wanted their help, she also didn’t want anyone making fun of Bennett. She thought it was really brave that he was willing to put himself out there, even in spite of possible ridicule, to learn something new.

“No! I actually think it’s sweet that he asked you for help. He has so many people he could have asked and yet, he chose you. You guys must be getting along really well.”

Oh boy. Now Katie understood why Ridley was staring at her. Her friend thought every situation was a possible love connection. Then she thought about the picture she’d seen of Bennett smiling. Just remembering it was enough to send a flush of heat to her face. Well, just because she was attracted to him didn’t mean anything. He was handsome. Hell, the man was an Alexander so it would have been stranger if he wasn’t good-looking. The whole family had been blessed with golden genetics. But that didn’t mean anything was going to happen between them.

Ri finally gave her a break and reached over to the side table. “Maybe I can help. This should loosen him up.”

Katie accepted the book her friend held out. When Mara saw the cover, she laughed so hard she almost snorted up a strand of her hair. Even Penny tried to cover her mouth to hide her smile.

“What? Why are you guys laughing?” Katie examined the book cover. It looked innocuous enough, kind of boring actually. It was all black with the words Silent Surrender on the front. The author name wasn’t familiar.

“Oh nothing. It’s just the latest book craze.” Ri blinked at her innocently.

With no small amount of fear, Katie cracked the book open and started reading. The beginning seemed pretty tame, just some guy in a meeting ordering everyone around. Then a girl came in and spilled coffee on him and …

Katie’s mouth fell open as she kept reading. The main character’s thoughts about what he wanted to do to the girl were … explicit. And sexy as hell.

“What is this?” Katie clutched the book to her chest when Mara tried to take it from her. “You want me to give this to Bennett?”

The others finally lost it, exploding into laughter. Ridley wiped tears from her cheek before she could catch her breath long enough to talk.

“Could you imagine? The poor guy would probably have a heart attack!”

Katie bit her lip imagining Bennett reading something like this. Would he be offended or would he like it? She blushed again and tried to put that thought out of her mind. There was no way she was suggesting to her boss to read a sexy book.

“Actually you guys just gave me an idea.”

Mara’s eyebrows flew up into her hair. “You’re not actually going to give him that, are you?”

“Oh no. I would die instantly if I even tried. I mean, well, whatever. But that doesn’t mean I can’t recommend something else for him to read. There’s a really great fantasy series that I just finished that he might like. It has a lot of suspense and was a fast-paced read. Maybe I’ll suggest that.”

Ridley nodded. “It’s great that you’re helping him. Bennett is such a sweetheart. He needs to learn to have fun. Jackson worries about him a lot, I can tell.”

Katie could understand that. She envied how close the Alexander siblings were. Whenever she saw them together, it made her miss her own family.

They spent the next hour talking and laughing while the kids played upstairs and by the time she was ready to go home, Katie felt a lot better about her plan to help Bennett. The girls had given her some other great suggestions of places she could take Bennett to help him relax, everything from going to the movies to see the newest comedy in theaters to taking him to the beach for the day. But Katie was pretty sure that starting off simply was best. Reading a book after work was a great way to ease him into the idea of relaxing more.

On the way out, Ridley finally noticed that she was still carrying the racy book from earlier.