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“Well, let’s hurry up then.”
“I will take the first half,” Barry said once he was done strapping up the trunk. He put the rope over his shoulder, and tried to pull.
Operative word being tried.
The damn tree didn’t budge an inch.
“How about I get the tree?” I said, moving forward to take the rope. “And actually knot this thing,” I said when I noticed he’d pretty much just wrapped the trunk instead of tying the rope on.
With that, the two of them took off ahead of me, music blasting again, and they sang with more gusto.
Admittedly, it was the more Christmasy fucking day in my entire adult life.
When we got back to the lot, they wrapped the tree for us, and helped me put it on the top of the car.
With that, we were off back to Navesink Bank.
Shale and Barry sang along with holiday music for the first hour before they lost their enthusiasm.
Before long, Barry was passed out against the window.
And my hand reached out to grab her thigh, giving it a squeeze. She shot me a soft smile that had that damn warm feeling spreading across my chest again.
“After tonight,” she said after a minute, “what happens?”
“We go back to work on your case,” I told her. “So you can get your life back.”
“Oh,” she said, gaze sliding away.
“Hey,” I called, giving her thigh a squeeze. “Back to your life doesn’t mean out of my life.” Then, because that felt weird to admit, I added, “There’s at least fifteen different ways I need to fuck you still.”
“Shh!” she said, smile big, as she glanced back at Barry.
“Maybe you can help get him laid,” I said. “I struck out.”
“Hey, you got him to leave with a woman. He’ll find someone,” she said, sounding a lot more certain than I was. “And he might not be great at picking up on social clues—namely, when to leave—but you’ve got a loyal friend in him.”
That was fair.
And maybe if I worked to expand his social circle somehow, he would be a little less clingy.
For the rest of the drive, conversation was sporadic and not related to what was going on between us. Though that was something that stayed at the forefront of my mind the entire time.
Because it was impossible to deny that something was happening. Something more than sex.
I could say that I’d had more than enough casual sex in my life to recognize when something felt… different. What I had with Shale was deeper than that.
Was that simply because she was living with me?
Or because I knew her previously?
Some part of me wanted to cling to that, to say that was all it was.
But the reality was, I knew better.
Because the more time I spent with her, the more I wanted to spend with her.
I found myself entertaining the idea of her in my life, in my loft… indefinitely.
