Page 28 of Hold Me Down

And if not, there was more than enough food for Dave to try again tomorrow.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"These are unbelievable," Travis announced after swallowing the first bite of the tamale. "Seriously, he should be a professional chef."

"I told him that once, and apparently that's his backup plan once he's too old to work in the field."

"He won't be too old for a long time yet, and the world should know about these tamales."

Seriously, they were delicious, and Travis never wanted to eat anything else from now on.

"Once the world knows, there might not be enough for the two of us," Dave pointed out, which made Travis grunt in protest as he chewed another bite.

"He can never be a professional chef, then," he finally said. "Tough luck."

Dave chuckled.

"Maybe we can talk him into cooking for us full-time—all of us at the KRK, I mean."

Travis, who had already been imagining the two of them sitting down for dinner years from now, was momentarily thrown by the mention of the whole team.

Damn, the therapy had really messed with his head today. And that was only the first consultation! If the next ones were going to be this intense, he might not make it through. He was barely holding it together as it were.

"I bet we could talk the boss into switching lunch providers if Ian was an option," he said, staring at his plate. "At the last barbeque, Kalei devoured his burrito in three bites."

"And only gave up that last one because it was Vic who went looking for it."

"Yeah, nobody else would have pried it out of his cold, dead hands."

Dave shook his head. "These two, I swear. If Kalei wasn't so stubborn, they'd be ridiculously happy."

Travis felt his throat constrict, unease tingling at the base of his spine.

"Not everyone needs a relationship to be happy," he heard himself say, only to watch the light dim in Dave's eyes.

Or maybe Travis was reading too much into things.

After an entire hour of blood-letting earlier, that was a very real possibility.

"Of course, but I meant specifically these two," Dave said. "Everyone but Kalei knows that Vic is head over heels."

"Kalei's not, though."

Watching Dave's face, Travis could almost see him sifting through the responses, fromwhat the hell, you've been moaning about these two at least once month yourselftowhat crawled up your ass, until finally landing on:

"Kalei doesn't want to admit it, and that's a huge difference. But anyway, I have some truly juicy gossip," Dave redirected, clearly not wanting to delve deeper into Kalei's inner life. "Guess who's proposing soon."

Travis frowned, whiplashed from all the quick and sharp turns in the conversation. He bought himself some time by taking another bite of the tamale, despite having lost what little appetite he'd had.

"Pascal wouldn't spoil the surprise, so disqualifying those two, everyone other than Martinez and the Judge is fair game, really." Travis mentally went over the available candidates. "Okay, I'm guessing James is the one jumping the gun."

"Nope." Dave shook his head with a triumphant smile. "Jeremy."

Travis almost dropped the food in his hand.

"No way."

"Everyone's shocked and out of luck with their bet, aside from Martinez who's about to be rolling in cash and planning a bachelor party of Jeremy's worst nightmares."

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