Page 57 of Shift Change

“Not in front of her or the guys.” His eyes were soft, searching for something. “Whatisthis? What’s happening with us?”

That was a damn good question. We had sex. We kissed and held each other. We slept in the same bed almost every night, and when we weren’t together, I missed him like hell. No wonder we were both confused.

“I don’t understand it either,” I said. “But this thing is big.”

Our eyes locked, and something shifted—something real I couldn’t ignore, no matter how much it scared me. My voice came out rough. “I like you more than I’ve ever liked anyone, Nate. I don’t know what the hell to do with that except keep on liking you.”

“More than anyone, huh?” He smiled. “I feel the same. No one’s ever understood me like you do or made me feel this way. What does that make us?”

I swallowed hard. “When this started, we said we didn’t need a label, but that’s changed. Now, I think we do.”

“Agreed. I believe I could relax if I had something to hang my hat on.”

The answer came to me in a rush, and I squeezed his shoulder. “What if we make up our own label?”

He chuckled. “Sounds like something we would do. Got anything in mind?”

“Yeah.” My heart was pounding, but I pushed on. “If we’ve never felt this way about anyone before, why not say we’re RD friends?”

His brow furrowed. “RD?”

“‘Ride or die,’” I said, grinning. “Because that’s what you are to me. That’s what we are.”

“RD friends? Not ROD friends?”

I laughed so hard I had to put my hand over my mouth. “ROD friends? As in ‘rod’?”

“Hey.” He bounced his eyebrows and pointed at my crotch. “You’ve got one hell of a rod there, so why not?”

“Yours is bigger than mine.”

He snorted. “Let’s just say we’ve both got big rods, so ROD friends sounds about right.”

I shook my head. “You’re on, my irresistible ROD friend.”

We laughed, and I couldn’t help thinking how this was such a Nate and Chuck thing to do. “Our own category. It fits perfectly.”

“I like that,” he said. “It gives us room to figure everything out.”

I gave him a little smirk. “One condition, though.” He raised an eyebrow, so I went on. “You call me ‘babe’ when you want to, and I’ll call you ‘sweets.’”

“And we only do the ‘babe’ and ‘sweets’ in private?”

“Absolutely.”

He held out a hand. “To being ROD friends.”

“ROD friends it is, but ROD friends don’t shake on things.”

“We don’t?”

“Nope.” I leaned toward him. “We kiss, sweets.”

His lips were the warm reassurance I needed. We wrapped our arms around each other for a bone-crushing hug, and when we broke for air, he showed me a crooked smile. “I know another way we could celebrate our new label.”

“I’ve thought of that already, but Nana’s right across the hall.”

“No worries,” he whispered. “I can be quiet when I jerk off.”

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