If only he knew.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Just once. Pulling it out, my heart seizes in my chest as I see whose name flashes on my screen.
A man who has no business texting me while I’m sitting ten feet from his son. Who has actually never texted me before, unless I initiated it.
Daddy Moore: Does Lukas have any food allergies?
I bite back a grin as I read the message three times over.
Me: Holy shit, Daddy Moore is texting ME?! Are you feeling okay?
Daddy Moore: Just answer the damn question, Remington. I want to make sure there’s food here for him when y’all come over for the tour.
My body vibrates. It’s such a small thing—a simple, polite question—but it seems so much bigger coming from Gentry. He’s never gone out of his way to text me before, and now—after the other night—he’s messaging me to ask aboutallergies? He could’ve easily asked Hollis to ask me. It’s what he’s always done.
So why now? Why this question?
I try not to read too much into it, but I can’t help it.
Me: No allergies. Big fan of Hot Cheetos, though.
Hollis cranes his neck, kicking my boot with his. “Who’s that?”
“Work,” I say automatically, flipping the phone face down on my thigh.
He eyes me. “You’re off shift.”
“Yeah, well, fires don’t always respect my schedule.”
Hollis narrows his gaze like he knows I’m deflecting, but then he lets it go. “You ever think about datin’ again?”
There it is. The universe is testing me.
“Why?” I ask carefully.
“Because you’re an early-thirties bachelor and, out of the both of us, have always wanted something like that.”
“Something like what? Consistent sex?”
“Love,” he corrects, looking like he regrets the word the second it rolls off his tongue.
“Love? Gettin’ soft on me, Moore,” I tease.
He tosses a chip at me, and I make a show of shoving it in my mouth and chewing it.
“I don’t know,” I finally offer. “It’s complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
I think about the lessons in my studio. The flirting. About the line we’re walking and how thin it is.
“Just…timing,” I settle on.
Hollis studies me for a moment. “You’d tell me if somethin’ big was goin’ on, right?”
The question is easy, but the answer isn’t. “Yeah. Of course.”
I wonder if this is how Hollis felt when he was fucking my boss in secret. If so, I really feel for him now.
