"Wouldn't hurt to be a couple more minutes later then, would it?" I cup her chin and draw her toward me, into a deep, slow kiss. She tilts her head, parts her lips beneath mine, submitting... if only for a moment. Far too short of one. Then she plants her palms on my chest and gently pushes me backward.
"Sadly, it would." She sighs, her eyes full of regret. Then she leans up to kiss my lips, one last quick, sweet touch, before she peels away and grabs her purse from the couch. "I'm heading in. See you there." At the elevator, as she pushes the call button, she pauses to glance over her shoulder at me one last time. "Feel Chris out. See if he thinks Lacy's cute, if he'd be into something casual." She lifts a finger and shakes it at me. "But don't let on that she said anything. Got it?"
I salute. "Aye, aye, captain."
She smirks. "Good. Hey, maybe if he is into it, we can all go out tonight somewhere."
I grin back at her. "Perfect. Been a while since I had a chance to kick your ass in darts."
She snorts. "In your dreams," she calls out just before the elevator doors ding shut behind her.
I lean against the counter, slowly draining the rest of my coffee, and fantasizing about what I would have done if she wasn't running late for her meeting this morning.
"So what did I miss last week, anything exciting?" I study my friend as he picks through a cheeseburger and fries at the crappy little corner joint we frequent on days like these—days when the workload is blessedly light for once, and both of our bosses are working from home and we have a little breathing room. And a little leeway on how long we take for our lunch hour.
"The usual crap. Andrews being a shit, Johnson being late with every damn deliverable he promised..."
"Any after school extracurricular fun?" I keep one eyebrow raised.
Chris glares at me anyway, suddenly suspicious. It's not like us to pry into each other's stuff. I remind myself yet again that I'm doing this for Rina. Because she asked me to. Because Lacy is her friend.
Even if I think this is a bad idea.
What is this girl doing to me? Why do I want to do whatever she wants me to, appease her any way I can?
"Bowling," he said. "Happy Hour night at Michael's. The usual."
"Nothing unusual happen after happy hour, then?" I smirk.
Chris scowls. "What have you heard."
"Nothing. Just rumors a little bar-birdie spread."
"I'm going to kill Jordy, I swear to god."
Jordy, our usual bartender at Michael's, is normally the tight-lipped, secret-keeping sort. I feel a little bad throwing him under the bus like this, pretending that he's the one who broke professional bartender code to tell me about the hookup. But I can't think of another way to bring up Chris's interest in Lacy without revealing why I'm doing it. So here we are.
I'll make it up to Jordy some day.
"Hey, I don't blame you. Lacy's hot." I shrug. "Just thought you had a policy about that whole shitting where you eat thing."
"Are you really telling me off for that?" He laughs. "That's rich."
I narrow my eyes. "What do you mean?"
"Come on. There's nothing going on with you and that sexy roommate of yours?"
I roll my eyes now. "Chris, if something was going to happen between me and Rina, it would have happened seven years ago in law school. Now come on, spill. What's up with Lacy?"
"It was nothing. Drunk hookup. A bad idea." He glances past me, a sudden faraway look in his eye that, to my shock, I recognize.
"Holy shit." My eyebrows shoot up toward my hairline. "You actually like her."
"What? No I don't!" he snaps, defensive. But he clenches a fist around his coffee mug as he says that, and he won't quite meet my eye.
I haven't hung out with Chris nearly every day for the last three years for nothing. "Dude, you so do. You're doing that defensive shoulder hunch thing you do when you don't want to fess up to something."
"So maybe I think she's hot. So what? It's a terrible idea. We work together. And you know me, I'm not into serious shit."
"Neither is she from what I hear." I shrug a shoulder.
Chris frowns. "You know things?"
"I do live with her best friend," I point out.
"She said something about me?" His voice shoots up a level.
God, he's so transparent. It's all I can do to keep from laughing. "No, she didn't say anything. But Rina hangs out with her all the time. Lacy's casual, she doesn't do serious." I lift my shoulders, let them drop. "You probably have a shot, if you're interested in a hookup, that's all I'm saying."
He stares off over my shoulder, thinking now. "We do work in totally different departments..."
"That's the spirit," I tell him, with a slap on his shoulder as I rise to head toward the bar and pay our bill. "Hey, why don't we all go out after work tonight? Another happy hour somewhere. I'll ask Rina to bring her."
He pushes out of his chair and follows me to the counter as we work out the bill. "Okay," he says, after a minute of silent deliberation, which I could practically see playing out all over his face. "But don't tell her I agreed to it or anything."
I laugh. "Your secret hard-on for her is safe with me."
He glares, but I just smirk and lean across him to pick up the tab.
Tonight should be interesting.
Michael's is especially packed, given it's only Wednesday.
"What are all these teenagers doing here?" Chris grumbles as we make our way through the crowd toward the bar.
Over the head of a girl who cannot possibly be old enough to drink, I signal for three JD and Cokes, and one just Coke. JD and Cokes are our usual poison at this place. Everything else is pretty much undrinkable, and yet we keep coming back here, day after day, anytime the office wants to blow off some steam.
The girls are off elbowing into the crowd around the dart boards to get us a spot. We pick up the drinks and then weave our way through the sea of children toward them.
"I swear twenty-one-year-olds look younger every year I get older," Rina comments as she accepts the Coke I hand her with a smile and a wink that only she catches.
I grin right back at her. "Pretty soon we're going to turn into those old weirdos at bars that we were warned of when we were their age," I agree.
"Never," Lacy swears, accepting her drink from Chris and side-stepping in her heels, swaying just a little bit closer to him. They've been doing that ever since we left the office, orbiting around one another, neither one quite touching, neither one ready to be the sucker who makes the first move.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I can't believe I never thought about how compatible those two would be before. They're both chill, laid-back, easygoing... And both totally stubborn about never putting themselves in danger by being the first person to declare they like someone else.
It's exhausting.
But it's also kind of endearing. Especially when it means that Rina keeps shooting me flirty looks on the side, grinning and winking and eyeballing the two of them every time we get a moment to ourselves to share a glance. This whole matchmaking game is kind of fun, when I play it with her.
Then again, everything is more fun with Rina at my side.
"Finally," Rina announces, as one of the dart boards frees up. We sidle over to start the game, and I shoot her a challenging smirk.
"Ready to lose spectacularly, Smith?"
"Ready to kick your ass whenever you're ready to have it kicked, Rogers."
I bow sarcastically in her direction. "Ladies first," I say.
As expected, it's a close game. Lacy and Chris are both tragically aim-impaired, but Rina and I are pretty much on par with our aim, so our doubles game remains neck and neck. Lacy and Chris, by about halfway through the rounds, seem more interested in bumping one another's hips and elbowing each other as they toss flirty banter back and forth, oblivious to the rest of the pub around them.
Also oblivious to Rina and me, which frees us up to trade a few flirty teases of our own. At one p
oint Chris goes to get us all drink refills, and Lacy swirls off toward the bathroom, so I take the opportunity to tug Rina against my side, one hand dropping to squeeze her ass tightly, drag her toward me until our hips grind together for a brief instant.
She rests her hands on my chest, but doesn't quite push me away. She can't bring herself to do it, much as I know she thinks she should. "People might see," she hisses, craning her neck to peer around me.
But there's no one else from the office in here tonight. Just the sea of young drinkers none of us recognize. Which allows me the perfect amount of anonymity to lean down and plant a slow kiss just below her ear, in the soft spot that always makes her gasp. I'm rewarded again now, with the soft sound of her breath against my cheek.
"That's cheating," she protests breathily.