Best Served Cold

Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.

Kisses that meant something. Kisses that told him I didn’t hate him, that I wanted him, that I wasn’t closing a door.

Kisses that told him I was leaving the door ajar.

Leaving it open until I had it all figured out for myself.

Kisses that asked him for more time, that asked him to see if this would grow by itself, to see if we weren’t done after all.

Kisses that I meant from the deepest part of me, no matter what I asked of him.

CHAPTER TWENTY – RAELYNN

Chase dragged his lips from mine with one gentle tug on my lower lip. Our noses touched, our breath mingling. My heart was going so fast that it was all I could do to regulate my breathing into something that didn’t sound like I’d run a marathon.

That was what it felt like. I felt like I’d run ten marathons back-to-back and come out the other end gasping for air.

Chase rested his forehead against mine, taking a deep breath. “Rae.”

“Chase, I—”

I was cut off by the ringing of the phone. Neither of us moved for a second, both of us frozen in place by the kiss we’d just shared. The phone cut off, sending an uncomfortable silence through the air, but it lasted only a second before it started up again.

“I have to get that,” I breathed, sliding out of his grip. I snatched up the phone. “Best Served Cold, Raelynn speaking,” I answered, doing my best to get control over my voice.

“Raelynn Marie Fortune! Where the devil are you?” Grandma shouted down the phone. “You’re late. You didn’t call. You didn’t text. You—”

“I’m at the store,” I replied. “Or I wouldn’t be answering the phone here, would I?”

“Don’t you sass me, young lady!” Grandma was still a few decibels too loud, so I held the phone an inch or two away from my ear. “I asked you where you were!”

“I’m at Best Served Cold!” I shouted back. “The phone you called me on!”

Chase buried his face in his hands to hide his laughter.

Grandma paused. “Oh. Of course. What have you been doing?”

“Working. Then I had dinner and came back here. Why?”

“Your mother is driving me insane.”

“You gave birth to her.”

“And somehow got stuck with you,” Grandma continued. “I think I finally knocked her out with some hot soup.”

Oh no.

“You drugged her, didn’t you?”

Silence.

“Grandma!” I snapped, ignoring Chase’s laughter.

“Is that Chase? Are you together?”

“Answer the damn question!”

“Yes, I drugged her!” she spat out quickly. “She was hysterical. I slipped her a Dramamine, and she passed out on the sofa.”

Jesus. Help me.

I slumped onto the counter. “Grandma, you can’t drug her to make her stop talking.”

“That’s what parents do to their children. Don’t you know how good Benadryl is at making tiny humans sleep?”

“Grandma!”

“What?” she asked at the same time Chase did.

I tilted it so the voice piece wasn’t near my mouth and looked at him. “She drugged my mother with Dramamine because she was irritating her.”

That did it for him. He burst out laughing and collapsed on top of the counter. He didn’t even care that his half-eaten sundae had melted into a warm, gloopy mess that had brownie bits floating on top.

All I could deduce was that he was high as fuck on kissing.

You could be high on worse things.

“That was Chase! You’re with him!” Grandma’s voice was shrill.

She’d been drinking. Dear Lord.

“Where’s Grandpa?” I asked. “I have a question for him.”

“You don’t need your grandpa,” she replied. “I can tell—dammit!”

“Hey, pumpkin,” Grandpa’s dulcet tones came through the line. “What’s up?”

I cut to the chase. “Should I come home, or should I find a place to stay tonight?”

“Depends,” he answered. “Are you with Chase? Because I’m workin’ on this birdhouse and I’ll be damned if I can get the damn thing to go right.”

That wasn’t what I was looking for.

“Fine. But you make sure Mom is asleep, and Grandma is shackled before we get there. Did you let her drink?”

“Which one?”

“Either one.”

“Oh, I gave them both a glass of wine with some herbal calming crap in it. I guess it worked a little too well.”

Great. Mom had Dramamine and herbal stuff. No wonder she was out of it.

“Jesus, Grandpa!”

“It’s fine. It was lavender. They’re fine.” He paused. “Are you coming back?”

“Hold on.” I pressed the phone against my shoulder. “Grandpa wants to know if you can come over and take a look at a birdhouse.”

Chase held out his hands. “I’m here, aren’t I? Tell him we’ll be right there.”

“We will, will we?”

“We will.” His eyes sparkled, and the curve of his lips made my stomach flutter. He reached out and took the phone from me before I could consider that he was talking about us in a couple term. “Hey,” he said into the phone. “We’re on our way. Give us fifteen minutes, and we’ll be there…. Sure…. You got it.” He finished with a laugh and handed the phone back to me. “We have to go.”