His hand was on the open door of his car, and he was leaning slightly on it. “What kind?”
“A good one,” I said.
He didn’t say anything for a count of three; then he said, “Can I kiss you?”
I’d practiced answers to that question. I’d practiced them in my kitchen in the morning, and in the car to the studio, and on the lane between frames when nobody was looking.
“Yes,” I said.
He stepped in and didn’t rush. He put his hand—the rough one, the one that had carried me, the one that had stirred coffee clockwise three times and counterclockwise once—gently along the side of my jaw, tipped his head, and kissed me.
It was warm. That was the first thing. The second thing was that it was patient, in a way I hadn’t planned for because I had planned for fast, and he had given me slow. The third thing was the breath he let out against my mouth when he pulled half an inch back to check on me.
I leaned in and kissed him again. Usually, numbers stayed. Timing stayed. Structure stayed. But Dane’s hand on my jaw had overridden all of it so completely that for several seconds, I had no idea how long we’d been standing there. The math of it stopped working halfway through, and that had never happened to me before in any context I could remember. I let the math stop and let the kiss keep going for another count I didn’t catch.
When he pulled away, his hand stayed on my jaw for one extra second.
Sable thumped her tail once against my shin.
“Okay,” Dane said, quietly.
“Okay,” I replied.
“Get home safe, Chip Cornish.”
“You too.”
He waited until I waved him away, then he drove out of the Strike Zone lot. I headed over to Bob, who was playing games on his phone, and didn’t seem to mind it had taken me a while to get over to him.
“Good kiss?” he asked with a smirk.
“Very good.”
Chapter 8
Dane
There werea thousand things right about a Sunday afternoon spent indoors with someone who made you feel so happy. And God, Chip made me happy.
At bowling, something clicked. Chip was counting the lane markers. I could tell when his lips moved slightly, just for a second, before he stopped and looked satisfied. I watched him do it and thought, well. There it is. I was in serious trouble.
I was falling for Chip in a big way. The Copperheads had played last night, leaving Chip in a tremendously wired mood. Not bad wired. Good wired. When we texted after the game, I told him to come over, and I’d feed him butter cookies and warm milk to help him relax. He arrived with Sable around 12:30. I’d bought oat milk that morning without thinking about it because the regular kind upset Chip’s stomach. I hadn’t even realized why I was standing in the grocery aisle holding two cartons until I was already putting the other one back. I was ready for them, having changed the sheets on the guest bed in case he was too tired to drive home, dug out the blue tin of butter cookies, and warmed milk on the stove. Just as Mom used to do for Devon and me when we’d been bound in nightmares after losing our dad.
He settled into my arms on the sofa, chattering away, dunking his cookies into his mug of milk. The lights were muted. Soft music was playing on the stereo. He filled me in on every detail of the game between cookies and tender kisses. We turned in around two after a fast piddle run for Sable in my postage-stamp-sized yard. Chip was in the guest room even though I was tempted to invite him into my bed. I didnotwant to push him in any way. This whole crazy relationship was a delicate dance between desire and professionalism. Jumping into sex—as wonderful as it would surely be as I found him so damn attractive—would muddy the already riled waters. Slow and steady. I wanted him badly enough that it scared me a little. But if this went wrong, if I pushed too fast, I’d never forgive myself.
Cold showers were going to be my norm for some time, I assumed. I wanted him with an intensity that sometimes made me feel ashamed. Wanting him was easy, but making sure I deserved him was harder.
Waking up on a brisk but clear Sunday knowing Chip was just across the hallway was a mishmash of sentiments. Temptation warred with responsibility. Instead of creeping to his door to beg permission to come in and taste his lips, I took a frigid shower, which did little to cool my libido, before padding downstairs to start breakfast. I’d not been in the kitchen ten minutes when I heard the jingle of dog tags followed by the creak of the fourth step from the top. I was whipping eggs to make an omelet fit for a king when Sable and her master arrived, both looking as if they’d just woken up. Chip gave me a kiss on the cheek then went out with Sable to supervise her morning pee. Once back inside, we ate, sipped coffee, and decided to crash on the sofa for the rest of the day to watch movies, hold hands, and kiss. By noon, Sable was getting antsy and pacing at the front door with tiny little whines tossed in every few seconds.
“I think she has to poop,” Chip said as he rose from the sofa, my side cooling off instantly. He stretched. I got a tempting glimpse of skin on a pale back before his hoodie slid back down as his arms lowered.
“We could take a walk around Cobb’s Hill Park. It’s just a block over. The sun’s out, so it shouldn’t be too bitter. Oh, and there’s a tiny gourmet café near the park that serves some great brunches. We can stop and do lunch and then come back home to pick up on ourAlienmarathon.”
“Yes, sounds good. I’ve never seen the third and fourth ones with Sigourney Weaver. She’s quite a dynamic female lead. I think she should be cloned so humans can better fight the xenomorphs. She’s had practical experience. Why no one ever listens to her, I don’t grasp.”
I smiled slightly as I stood before rocking side to side to work out the kinks from sitting for hours. “Maybe someone will do that.” I’d not ruin the storyline of the fourth movie for him by blathering. “Let’s get our coats.”
Five minutes later, we were strolling down neatly shoveled sidewalks, Sable on her lead, and the January sun smiling down on us. It was almost reaching freezing temperatures, so it was a nice day for Rochester for this time of year. Sadly, it wouldn’t last, but for this Sunday, I’d drink in the blue skies and the charming company. Cobb’s Hill Park was a large public space; at this time of year, the water was frozen, the sports fields were coated with snow, and the view of the city was still spectacular. We walked past a large playground that was empty of little kids but was alive with tiny people and their parents in the summer. Sable met a few dogs as we walked. Chip ran into a fan who asked for his autograph while checking me over to see if I was on the Copperheads. He even asked. When I told him no, I was a firefighter, he went back to fussing over Chip.
