“I’m a cop, Moon. It couldn’t possibly be worse than the coffee at the station.”
“I don’t know about that. They’re the little five-buck off-brand cups you shove into the coffee maker that makes a singleserving. They’re pretty bad, but I should have some milk or something.”
“Have you gone shopping in the last two weeks?”
“A little.”
“If you didn’t pick up milk then, you don’t have any. I saw your fridge when I was cooking Star breakfast.”
Okay, maybe I didn’t have milk. But Emerson needed to let go of me before we had a problem. A big problem. One that involved either me freaking the fuck out because he was so close to me, or my dick getting the totally wrong impression of the situation at hand. It was always a gamble with sex—a will I, won’t I sort of situation. Or, rather, will my heart start to hammer, my fingertips go numb, all while a sense of impending doom hovers over my head, or will I be perfectly fine, ready to go from even the slightest touch so long as I called the shots?
I fucking hated it. I hated always being so confused. I hated never understanding what would come next from my own body and fucked-up head.
“Well, go get some coffee. I need to piss.”
Emerson removed his arms quickly, as if he’d just realized what was happening. “Oh, shit. Yeah. I probably don’t smell good, huh? I didn’t get a chance to shower. Sorry.” He was laughing his way through it, though it sounded strained and unnatural. Almost nervous.
I rolled to the other side of the bed, keeping my back to him so he wouldn’t see the blush that’d started to creep up on my face. “No, no, you’re fine. But you can use the shower if you’d like. I still have the sweatpants and shirt you borrowed last time you can wear.”
“Cool. Sounds good to me. Thanks.”
I let him leave first, not totally sure I could handle facing him as it stood. Once I knew he was in the kitchen, I found my way to the bathroom, using the short time to calm myself down. Mycoffee maker was old and loud. I could hear it all the way from the bathroom, gurgling as it tried to use the last of its life to pour a single cup of coffee. I really needed to replace it once I had a job.
Speaking of jobs… I made my way into the kitchen, where Emerson stood with a coffee mug in his hand, sipping it gently in his white undershirt and work pants. I was always surprised when I saw him without his uniform on. He somehow hid all of his muscles away under his clothes.
He grimaced, looking my way. “This coffee is awful.”
Pulling a chair from the table, I laughed. “I told you! You just didn’t believe me. It’s awful, Em.”
“No, there was no way to prepare me properly for how horrific this is. Maybe we need to stop by Muffin Haven later.”
I had my phone turned on, looking at the various job listings, most of which I’d already applied to and been denied for. Some of them, I needed a car. But to get a car, I needed money. To get money, I needed a job, and I couldn’t get a job; therefore, I couldn’t get a car. My old job was so close, I never had the need to buy one and now, I had to use a lot of money to survive on six months unemployed and counting, so I didn’t have the savings for it. What a wonderful time.
“Does that sound good to you?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry, I got lost in my own world for a second there. Um, yeah, we could. Were you planning on staying or something?” There was no way he wanted to hang around after last night. No way in hell would he want to be seen with me in public after what he’d witnessed.
Emerson poured the cup of coffee down the sink drain, rinsing the cup out afterward. “Mhm. We can hang out, fool around. I know you go see Crescent on his lunch break, so we could pick something up from there around then. I may be groggier than usual until we get that coffee, but I’m willing towait if it means I don’t have to taste that awful shit you’ve got in your cupboard. And no, you didn’t have milk.”
From the second he said “fool around,” I’d turned all my attention to him. “Um, Em, hate to break it to you, but you don’t seem to know what ‘fool around’ means in context.”
His brows pulled down as he thought for a moment. “What? I meant just do whatever. Watch TV or go for a walk or something.”
“I know what you meant.”
“Well, what’d I say unintentionally?”
“It’s usually meant when you’re saying, like…” I tried to think of the best way to explain it to him. It was kind of hard, especially when I’d woken up with his dick against my ass. “When you’re making out with someone and getting all hot and steamy, you’d say you were fooling around. Or if someone has, you know, sex, they might say it then too.”
To his credit, he looked positively shocked. “When the fuck did that meaning change? When I was in school, the teachers would say it when we were wasting time or talking with someone when we should’ve been working. Granted, that was a very long time ago.”
I looked at the gray starting to take over his hair and beard. “How old are you again?”
“Forty-three. Why? Am I too old to hang out and be your friend now?”
“No, I was just curious.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re looking at my beard, aren’t you?”
