Page 93 of Thrown for a Loop
He does. But he can’t answer, because she tugs him down into a kiss that goes on and on. Then, finally, he lets himself move.
And neither one of them is too surprised when they are sweetly in sync now, too.
Chapter 32
Present Day
So this meeting you had with Chase,” Darcy says, eyeing me from the other end of her sofa during a commercial break in the hockey game we’re watching. “The two of you… alone? Why didn’t you call and give me the blow by blow?”
“Nobody came to blows, luckily. We were very civil. He even walked me home.”
“Still! I’m not sure you know how this friend thing works.” She picks up the bottle of wine I brought over and tops up both our glasses. “I expect a full report every time you and Chase are alone together.”
“I’m trying not to read too much into every little interaction we have,” I admit. “He seems a lot less angry with me now, which is a good thing. But every time we’re in the same room, I’m still a wreck.”
“Oh, honey.” She flinches. “At least the scenery is top-notch.”
“In every possible way,” I point out. “Forget his abs. The view from his apartment made me feel weak in the knees.”
Her eyes widen. “Wait—you went to TheLair?”
I take a sip of my wine. “You realize that’s a stupid name, right?”
She waves away this objection. “We’ve been over this. There’s too much testosterone around here to call things by ordinary names. I was up there just once, when all three of them hosted aholiday open house and invited all the front office staff. It’s wild, right? Chase’s bedroom has a view of the Empire State Building.”
“I didn’t spend any time in that room. We talked.”
“Youtalked.” She gives me a cheeky smile. “You went up to The Lair, where Chase has a sofa the size of New Jersey and a bed the size of New York. And you just…conversed?”
“We also ate some fantastic enchiladas and went over our rehearsal schedule.” I don’t mention the hug, even if it’s playing on repeat in my brain. Or the way Chase implied that he still liked feeding me. Those details are confusing, and they really shouldn’t be. “We’re colleagues working on a charity event. What about this is so hard to understand?”
She shakes her head. “Devil’s advocate. Why didn’t you meet at, say, yourdesk? It’s a nice spot, which I know because I kitted you up with a Legends pencil cup and an ergonomic chair. Just curious.”
“Oh, I would have. But it was his idea to have dinner.”
“Mmm,” she says with a sly smile. “I wonder why? And at his place, too?”
“Stop it,” I say, poking her in the arm. “You’re going to confuse my dumb little heart. And the game is back on anyway.”
We stop chatting to watch our boys play. They took last night’s game against Philly to overtime but then lost it on a freakish rebound. Tonight looks good, though. We’re up by a goal against Pittsburgh.
“Let’s go!” Darcy claps her hands toward the television. “One more! Let’s seal the deal!”
Chase has the puck, and as I watch, he outskates a defenseman to move the puck down the ice to Tremaine. “He’s skating so well,” I murmur after I watch his whole shift.
“You should know. You only have eyes for him.”
“It’s my job to watch him skate,” I insist, and she laughs. “Like you should talk.”
“I have no idea what you could mean.” But at the next commercial break, she turns to me and asks, “Did you see Tremaine’s place, too? He’s right next door.”
An image of Tremaine and his date mauling each other bursts into my brain, and I give my head a quick shake. “I didn’t speak to him.”
Her eyes narrow. “You didn’t speak to him. But did you see him?”
I shrug, but my face flames, because I’m the worst kind of liar. “I passed him on my way into the elevator. He was with some people.”
“People,” she whispers. “Like Mona?”
