Page 16 of Under the Lights
Chase took a swig of soda, hoping to cool himself off a bit as she went around to the passenger door. He needed to stop thinking of her as Officer McDonnell, which brought to mind that fruity cop smell of hers, and think of her as Coach’s daughter. That was better than a cold shower or a cool drink any day of the week.
05
Kelly took a deep breath before opening the passenger door of the truck. She’d already proven she could handle a little close proximity to Chase without making a fool of herself, but she needed to stop tempting herself like this. She should have begged off and let somebody else help him lug stuff back to the Walker farm.
She opened the door and then laughed. “Did somebody dump their garbage in your truck as a prank?”
He looked around, not seeming to grasp what she was talking about. “Where?”
“Seriously? Chase, it looks like a Dumpster exploded in here.”
He frowned and then brushed a straw wrapper from the passenger seat onto the floor. “Sorry. I should probably clean it out.”
“Or you could just set it on fire and start over.”
He rolled his eyes and gestured for her to get in. “It’s a few papers. I suppose you’re one of those people who alphabetizes their spices.”
“Of course not. They’re shelved near my stove in order of how frequently I use them.”
“But they have an order.”
She climbed up into the seat and rested her feet on a pile of bank slips, torn notebook pages and who knew what else. “You’re a very messy person.”
“You have no idea,” he muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
She kicked at the pile of crap under her feet. “Did you lose your dog under here?”
“What dog?” He glanced over his shoulder and then pulled the truck away from the curb. “I don’t have a dog.”
“The first time I called you, you said you were talking to your dog.”
“Oh.” He gave her a look of chagrin before turning back to the road. “I was having a bad day and was mostly talking to myself, but I didn’t want you to think I was crazy, so I lied. Rina wouldn’t let me have a dog.”
“Rina?”
“My ex. She really hated dog hair, for some reason.”
His ex, but ex what? Fiancée? Wife? “Your ex...?”
“Girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. When you called me, I’d already been on the phone with her new boyfriend and also with some people who were really unhappy with my business partner, so I wasn’t at my best.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a bad day.”
As he drove, he told her about how things had gone to crap for him, from business being slow to his girlfriend cheating to his business partner absconding with their money. While his tone didn’t really change, offering up his story in a nonchalant, no-big-deal kind of way, she didn’t miss the way his fingers tightened on the steering wheel.
She guessed this all had something to do with theyou have no ideawhen she’d said he was a messy person. His entire life was a mess.
“How about you?” he asked. “I’ve heard there’s an ex in your life, too.”
“Ex-husband,” she said, wishing she could pull off his casual tone. “We got married, discovered we had irreconcilable differences and then went our separate ways.”
“That’s it?”
No, that was far from it, but she didn’t care to dissect her failed marriage for Chase. “He was too charming for his own good, or formyown good. Kind of like you, actually.”
