Best Served Cold

“It means I’ll never recommend sex in a cleaning closet.” I uncapped the water Chase handed to me. “I think I have a lump on the top of my head from that shelf.”

“Rae! You know what I mean!”

I sighed and sipped the water.

“No,” Chase said so I didn’t have to. “It doesn’t mean we’re back together.”

That seemed to shake her out of whatever haze she’d been in because she snorted and quirked an eyebrow. “Please. You’re in love with her, and she’s obviously in love with you. Not to mention you just banged in a cleaning closet. You’re back together, no matter how much you deny it.”

I wasn’t going to have this conversation with someone else involved. “Did you come for a reason?”

“Did you?” A wicked glint flashed in her eyes.

“What?”

“I came for a reason. Did you?”

Chase laughed, and it hit me what she meant.

I flipped her the bird. “What did you want?”

“I have no idea, but now I want you to call me later and tell me about this little tryst.” She wriggled her fingers, grinning and backed toward the door. “I’ll leave you to whatever it is you’re going to do now.”

She left as quickly as she’d arrived, but not without shooting more than one awkward wink over her shoulder in our direction.

The door shut behind her, and I shoved the bottle at Chase. I stalked to the door and locked it just in case she decided to come back.

Chase laughed, putting the bottles on the counter and leaning forward, resting his hands flat on it. “She’s discreet, isn’t she?”

I grunted and grabbed my water. “She’s something.”

“Are you going to call her?”

“No. I’m going to be inexplicably busy washing my hair or something.”

He grinned. “I can help with that.”

“Seriously? Already? My legs are only just normal again.”

He pulled me into him, still grinning. “Already. And I swear not to bang your head against the shelf this time.”

I huffed. “That hurt.”

“Not enough for you to stop.”

Flattening my hands on his chest, I looked up at him. “What do you want me to do? Push you away and not have sex when we were already doing it? I think not.”

What did he think I was? Stupid? No. If you’re as far as we got, you don’t stop because you bumped your head.

I mean, you usually did that on a headboard anyway.

He shook his head. “Come to my place. We’ll have dinner. We’ll hang out like we used to.”

“Chase, that means we’ll eat McDonald’s in our underwear, watch trashy TV, and have sex.”

“Yeah? What’s the problem with that? Sounds like a good night, if you ask me.”

My lips twisted to the side. “Fine, but you’re going to get the food.”

“Why?”

“Because Molly Walker still works there and she always gives you extra fries.”

“Are you pimping me out for fries?”

“I’d pimp you out for a cheeseburger if I could.” I grinned and escaped his hold. “Let’s get the lights up. Get to work.” I reached around and slapped his ass.

He laughed, grabbing my hand before I could escape. He spun me into him and pressed a quick but firm kiss to my lips. “Okay. Let’s do the lights. Also, your hair looks like a squirrel is nesting in it.”

I reached up to pat it down. “You could have told me that before I came out here.”

He walked backward with a grin. “I know.”

Then he stumbled over the drill and fell onto the window seat.

I laughed.

Hard.

“You could have told me that was there,” he grumbled, getting back up.

I twirled some hair around my finger, smiling slightly. “I know.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR – RAELYNN

“Okay, but in what circumstance would otters come to rule the world?” I flicked my hair over my shoulder and met Chase’s blue-green eyes. “That’s like saying koalas can run a country or sloths could win a sprint at the Olympics.”

“Otters are smart. I watched this program on the Discovery Channel about them.”

“Since when did you watch nature documentaries?”

Chase shrugged one shoulder, crossing his arms behind his head. “Sometimes you get drawn in. But they’re smart. They pick a rock that becomes their favorite rock—”

“You’re not convincing me of their intelligence with that sentence.”

“Hush. Let me finish.”

I didn’t see how a creature picking a rock to be their favorite forever made them intelligent.

“So they pick this rock, and they use it as both a toy and a tool. They use it to break open shellfish.” He quirked a brow. “And they have huge pockets under their arms that they use to store the rock and their food. Plus, they hold hands while they sleep so they don’t get lost.”

I blinked at him. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak about anything as passionately as you just did about otters. What on Earth makes you retain that information?”

“You never know when you’ll need random information.”