Page 64 of Advanced Chemistry

Who knew Puzzles and Pizza night could be legit fun?

“Here’s a window piece for the town section.” I pushed it over to Sebastian.

“I think that’s part of the sun,” Chase said.

“Shit.”

“Don’t give up. This isn’t an easy puzzle.” Chase rubbed my back.

“I never give up,” I declared with all the seriousness of a locker room pep talk.

Sebastian snickered to himself. Yeah, I was getting into it. I played to win, no matter the game. We were going to finish this puzzle tonight.

“Girl, don’t you even dare.” I narrowed my eyes at Einstein, who hopped on the table, my warning meaning nothing to her. She locked eyes with me as she lounged across my puzzle section.

“Einstein. Off!” Chase said.

She stretched out her legs, pushing into the piles of pieces, not a care in the world. Chase grabbed her and moved to the floor. Two seconds later, she was back.

“Einstein is a chaos agent,” Sebastian declared.

Chase grabbed her again and put her in the bedroom. “Say goodnight, Einstein.”

She gave us the saddest eyes on the planet before disappearing into his room.

I stood up and stretched my back.

“What are you doing?” Sebastian asked as I went into a round of pushups.

“I’m getting the blood flowing.”

“You are cracked out.”

But he got on the floor and joined me, too. We kept going to see who’d stop first.

“This is Puzzles and Pizza night. Not Puzzles and Pushups,” Chase said, standing over us.

“Regaining our strength,” I said through strained breath. I hopped to my feet, letting Sebastian have the win this time. “What do you do for exercise?”

“Um, nothing?”

“Chase, you might be naturally slim,” I put my hands around his waist, loving how easily he fit there. “But you still need to exercise. You should come with us to the gym tomorrow.”

“You’re going to the gym tomorrow? On a Saturday?”

“Yeah. Why not?” Sebastian looked at him cock-eyed. “Fitness doesn’t take weekends off.”

“Come with us! We’ll get you in shape.” I rubbed a hand over his chest and arms. “Get you nice and jacked.”

“I don’t need nor want to be jacked. I like my body as is. Though I suppose some resistance training with weights can help improve bone density.”

We hunkered back down to the puzzle. Even though we were all super focused, there were still opportunities for touching here and there. I had a hard time keeping my hands to myself. But it wasn’t about getting us closer to the bedroom. I just wanted to feel their heat, inhale their natural scents, and comfort them.

Was I the odd man out, though? I tried keeping up while Chase was talking about that article on greenhouse gasses. For years, I thought that greenhouses were emitting toxic chemicals into the air. I didn’t realize the greenhouse part was just a metaphor for our thinning atmosphere. And what happened to protecting the ozone layer? How was that going? I kept my opinions and questions to myself so I didn’t make myself look like a total idiot.

We made more progress, and when I looked up, two hours had passed. It was almost midnight. My eyes were heavy, weighted with the desire to sleep. Puzzling took a lot out of us.

“I don’t think this puzzle is going to happen tonight,” Sebastian said. We were maybe a third finished.

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