Page 20 of Not Dating Material

I reach out blindly and pinch Xander’s thigh. “No, you little snot.”

“You should.”

“We have a rule, which we all agreed to.”

“It’s a stupid rule.”

“No, it’s to make sure things don’t get messy. We’ve got it good here. It’s the first place that’s ever felt like home. Even if I wanted to sleep with him, I wouldn’t risk all that.”

“True.” He yawns widely.

“Don’t you have work to do?”

“Maybe later.”

I laugh and sit up, ripping the sheets off him again. “You know later is never a guarantee. Get to it. Your paintings aren’t going to make themselves.”

“You didn’t tell me what you were talking about.” His voice is sulky as he climbs out of the bed and stretches.

“I offered to help him out with this dating stuff. That’s it.”

“Wow.”

“What?”

He whacks the side of my head. “That’s stupidly thoughtful. Who would have ever known you had it in you? Well, with anyone but me.”

Chapter 6

MOLLY

There’s a light groan behind me, and I glance over to see Seven walk into our shared office. He’s nursing a mug in one hand, flicking through his phone in the other, and isn’t wearing anything other than the headphones around his neck and the sweats sitting low on his hips. Ink covers his abs, his chest, his neck, and creeps halfway up his head.

I’ve always had a thing for tattoos.

I tear my gaze away from shamelessly ogling him just as he glances up. He sets his mug down on his desk that’s against the opposite wall of the room to mine and then approaches, gaze on my screen.

“That your work?”

It takes me a moment to follow what he’s talking about.

I’d been taking a break between the web design I’m working on for one client and the logo for another to fuck around on my web comic, and an image I’m halfway through working on is sitting on my screen. “Yeah, I’m just playing around.”

“Tentacle porn.” He nods. “Hot.”

“What? No!” I hurry to look back at my image to see how he got that impression, but Seven just laughs and ruffles my hair.

“I’m not going to kink shame.”

“It’s not tentacle porn, dammit.”

“So what are those?” He points at the squiggly lines at the bottom of the screen.

“I’m not finished it.”

“Riiight …”

I huff, clicking back over to the coffee house logo. “You’re annoying.”

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