“To take the tour with her. With us,” she replied.
“To take the tour. Right, because she’s moving out because we’re—” Jase coughed.
Awkward silence settled over the room.
“Together. That’s the word you’re looking for,” Eli supplied.
“It’s at four. If you want to come, you can. And I’ll just wait and see what you decide.” Heather was breathing funny and her cheeks were redder than normal. “I’m going to go now.”
She turned and practically bolted through the shop.
“I have no idea what just happened,” Jase said to the air she’d vacated.
“This would be the part where you go after her.” Dean crossed his arms and nodded toward the front of the shop.
And do what?
“You gonna go after her?” Eli asked in his best ten-year-old-duhvoice.
Was he?
Eli started to raise from his stool. “Or I can go?”
“Every second counts.” Brek shoved a hand on Eli’s shoulder, pushing him back down.
“What am I supposed to say?” Jase asked.
“Start with an apology, that usually works for me.” Brek shrugged.
See? This was why Jase didn’t do relationships. He always ended up apologizing for shit he didn’t understand.
Eli started making aticktocksound by clicking his tongue.
Fine, so he’d go find out what that was about without the audience around making shit uncomfortable.
He tossed off his rubber apron and hurried after Heather. What the hell was he going to say?
Somehow, he made it to the sidewalk. She was halfway across the street.
“Heather,” he called.
She turned and paused. Frowned. Then she walked back toward him.
He jogged the distance between them, stopping in front of her. “I…”
She frowned deeper.
He tried again. “This whole thing…”
She raised her eyebrows.
“What I mean is…” He fixated on her lips and the words disappeared from his brain.
In the Navy, they’d taught Jase to control his emotions. Subdue his physiological responses to stress. He could enter a room with enough dynamite they wouldn’t even find traces of his DNA. He never batted an eye. Throw him in the frigid waters of the Atlantic? He controlled his pulse to stay alive long enough for an extraction. But now? Every time he was around Heather, all the training Uncle Sam could throw at him went down the toilet. He couldn’t control shit.
She was frowning, and that was unacceptable. That he’d made her frown. So, he did the one thing he could actually think of in that moment. He kissed her. Tongue and fire and his hands totally wrecking her ponytail. She fisted her hands in his tee and held on, kissing him back with everything he knew she had.
And they were on the sidewalk. In the middle of the day.
