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“I could serenade you instead.” Chase sang the first few stanzas of “Twisted Transistor” by Korn, in the sweetest baritone ever.
“Hauntingly disturbing.” I did like his voice, though. In fact, everything about this evening was pretty much perfect.
****
THE FAINT STRAINS OF“Heathens” by Twenty-One Pilots infiltrated my dreams and dragged me awake. I forced myself to sit. The only custom ringtone I had, because Lyn, Sadie, and I all had the same songs for each other.
“’S’wrong?” Sleep lined Luke’s question.
“Nothing. Call from my friends. I need to get this.” What was I supposed to tell them? Would they hear the shower running in the background? Oh yeah, that’s Chase. No big deal. Hey, did you know your brother is hung like—
No reason to give them that level of detail. I’d be surface-level honest.
I raked my fingers through my hair, and pulled on a camisole as I dug my phone out of my purse. “Hey,” I finally answered.
My best friends’ faces smiled back at me. “We wake you?” Sadie asked.
“It’s only six here. I’m surprised you’re up before ten,” I teased.
She stuck her tongue out. “We were promised secrets. Now that we’re face-to-face, spill.”
“It’s not a big deal.” Saying that, instead of telling them made it sound exactly the opposite, didn’t it?
A door squeaked behind me.
“Do you want to build it up some more?” Lyn asked. “Add a few more qualifiers?” Her tone was light.
I let out a nervous laugh. “No. So here’s the thing—”
“Hey, guys.” Chase pressed into my back. His chest was hot against my exposed shoulder blades.
My stomach dropped into my shoes, as I stared at two faces working their jaws. This wasn’t the way I wanted to tell them. “There was a fuckup with our reservations, so Chase let us crash with him.”
That was innocent enough. Except the memories summoned by his fingers dancing along my waist were anything but.
“That was why you forgot to tell us you landed?” Was Sadie’s tone flatter, or was I just expecting it to be?
The tiny image of me in the bottom right corner of my screen showed Chase, waving. “That was our fault.” His tone was light and casual. “We distracted her by telling her how desperately we want her.”
Really?
“God, could you not?” Sadie’s retort reminded me this was normal for us. Chase had been doing this to me for years. He’d make a flirty comment, she’d tell him to stop, and I’d write it all off as Chase being Chase.
Except I knew better now. They hadn’t been throwaway comments on his part.
“Wait. We?” Lyn said.
I glanced at Luke, who was sitting in bed, watching the whole exchange silently.
“Do you... Should I...?” I didn’t know how to phrase my question.
Luke nodded. “I trust them to be discreet.” Rinslet had a barely-existent fraternization policy, but a manager fucking a direct report was still frowned upon.
I turned my camera toward him, and he wiggled his fingers.
“Is that... Score.” Lyn’s enthusiasm sent pleased embarrassment rushing through me. “Is this a dating thing?”
This was awkward from both directions. My friends had metaphorically walked into the bedroom the morning after, before the guys left, and plopped down on the bed to ask for details. And the guys stuck around to listen. “Kind of. Yes. I mean, not like Sadie’s thing.”
