“Why don’t you go answer that while I, uh—” he motions to his bulge in the sweats, making me wish I didn’t have to answer the door, but I leave the kitchen anyway.
“Delivery for Bree?” the doorman from downstairs asks when I answer the door.
“Yes, thank you.” I smile and take the massive bouquet of red roses from them and kick the door closed behind me.
“Chase... what did you do?”
“How do you know it was me?” He takes the heavy glass vase from me when I round the corner and sets it in the center of the island. Normally, I have fresh flowers in my house, but we’ve barely come up for air the past few days, so I haven’t replaced the dead ones from last week yet. I’m reveling in every minute we have together before he leaves tomorrow night for another away series. Real life can wait a few more days.
“You’re the only one who calls me Bree, no one sends me flowers, and this is your house.”
“I like that.” He hums approvingly, kissing the crook of my shoulder.
“So, the flowers, a date, and roses. You’re being very romantic.” The red petals in full bloom are vibrant against the white countertop. It’s an impressive arrangement that likely cost a pretty penny.
“Am I? I just noticed you had them in your house before so thought they might be your favorite.” He pecks my lips, downplaying his sweet gesture.
“You remembered that?” He’s been to my house a total of one time and that was a month ago.
“I remember everything about you.” He reaches around meand plucks the card out from the middle of the bouquet and passes it to me. “You should read the card.”
“Or you could just tell me.” I laugh, but take the card from him. Sliding open the thick card stock envelope, I pull out the embossed card and read it aloud.
“Congratulations, you deserve it. Proud of you, Princess.”
“Heard you got a promotion,” he says when I glance up at him.
“How did you hear?” I freeze, sensing a deeper conversation about to happen.
“Miller told me.” He drops his hands on either side of me, caging me in. “The question is, why didn’t you?” Though he speaks calmly and doesn’t appear angry, I can’t help but feel like I’ve upset him. Dropping my head, I quietly apologize.
“Hey, look at me.” He lifts my chin with one finger until I meet his eyes. “I’m not mad. More curious why you didn’t say anything while we’ve spent the last few days together when I haven’t been at the stadium or community service.” The last couple of days have been amazing. We’ve hung out together, talked, laughed, watched movies, had marathon sex, making up for lost time while tangled in sheets.
“This is just new for me, you know? I didn’t want to spoil what little time we have together talking about work.”
“It’s new for me too, but work is important to you. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t share it with me.” After freaking out on him during our first time being intimate again, I didn’t want to mention the black cloud hanging over our head and ruin it while we were having fun.
“It’s only temporary anyways, so it’s not a big deal.”
“It is a big deal. You’ve earned this chance. Mark was an asshole who shouldn’t have been in charge to begin with. From what I’ve heard, you’ve been running the department for a long time now. It’s only right you get the promotion permanently.”
“And what do you think they’ll say when they find out thefirst thing I did after getting the interim spot was jump into bed with the rookie?” I snap.
He steps back like I slapped him, and I may as well have with how harshly I spoke.
“Listen, I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. I meant we’re blurring the lines so much I can hardly see the line right now.”
“Do you want to stop this?” He motions between us with his fingers.
“No,” I loop my arms around his neck and close the distance between us. “That’s not what I’m saying either. I like this. I just didn’t want to bring work into this because it’s hard for me to think about how we can havethis, and I can have that. Does that make sense?”
“I just want to be here for you, Bree.” He tucks a stray hair behind my ear and frames my face with his palm. “In all the ways. I can’t do that if you don’t let me in.” He kisses me and I latch onto him, pouring everything into the kiss and basking in the feel of him against me, hoping I can keep this feeling long after he’s gone.
This is why I suck at relationships. Even my friendships suffer because I don’t do the emotions and all the things well. I don’t have an example of a healthy relationship. The give and take required to make a partnership work. My best example is Ivory and Preston, and their situation isn’t even remotely comparable to what I’m dealing with. I also can’t talk to her about it without bringing more people into our secret. It’s complicated enough.
“I’ll try to be more open,” I agree and try to pull away, but he keeps me in his embrace.
"That’s all I ask.” Running his hands under my shirt, teasing along the curve of my hip, he continues, “Now, as much as I love you in nothing but my T-shirt, why don’t you go shower and get dressed while I finish prepping lunch and then we can have our date?”
