“Travis.” She turned to face him, squaring her shoulders.
“Yes, Rachel?” he drawled.
“Knock it off.” She used her mom tone. The one that, generally, got her what she wanted.
Molly smiled. “You two, this is great.”
Rachel scowled. She gave up on her sunglasses search and went back to marching toward the benches.
Molly let well-timed laughter tumble over the thick air among them. “What would you suggest, then?”
“I suggest we go be adults and watch the baseball warm-ups,” Rachel said. Fine, it was more of a huff.
Travis stood, thoughtful. Too thoughtful.
Travis didn’t do thoughtful. This was new.
“There are so many other things you can do down there—don’t go squeezing around. Do you want me to start a list of things men enjoy?” he said to Rachel with another hefty dose of charisma.
Rachel’s stomach did the flippy good, but also bad, thing. “I know what men enjoy.”
She didn’t, not really. But she could probably make a few good guesses.
“I’d love to hear what you think Travis would enjoy,” Molly said.
“I can start at the waistband and work my way down?” Travis continued.
Gah. This, right there, was why Travis drove her up the wall.
“I think I’ll stick with the squeezing thing Molly suggested.” Truly, Rachel just wanted him to stop talking about it. “Hard. With fingernails.”
Did she imagine it or did he cross his legs just a touch?
“Nope.” Travis pinched his lips closed and shook his head. “Don’t squeeze the boys. I can speak for all men when we say ‘no’ on this one.”
“You speak for all men on this subject?” Rachel asked without adding even the thinnest coffee filter to her thoughts before they vocalized right from her lips. “Literally, all of them?”
“Of course not,” Travis said lightly. “Just every man I’ve ever met and every one I’ll ever meet.”
“The produce manager will get upset if I lick the lemons.” The words tumbled from Rachel’s lips before she fully processed their meaning.
She couldn’t help it, her cheeks burned, and she was pretty sure she’d turned the color of the red accent wall in her living room as her mind played a film reel of licking Travis’s lemons.
Yikes. No. Nada on a banana. That would not happen.
“Rach.” He grinned, the slow way he drawled her nickname making her cheeks burn brighter. “You never cease to surprise me.”
One-hundred-percent inappropriate, that’s what this was. Because, first of all, his brand of irresponsible didn’t just land on the playboy square of the game. His misguided style landed every-freaking-where. Taking nothing seriously was literally his thing.
What was the second of all? Oh, right, right, right, he wasGavin’sbrother. Okay, fine, they were only friendly co-parents who shared a couple of kids, but he wasGavin. Her ex Gavin. She was Rachel. His ex Rachel. This definitely went on the list of reasons.
The fact was,thiswas Travis, and he drove her bonkers 99.9 percent of the time, and that was plenty of reason for her to force her mind to not think of his lemons or zucchini or…you know what? Rachel was going to go full carnivore and just avoid the produce aisle from here on out.
If she needed vegetables or fruit, she’d just hit up the frozen variety in the freezer section.
“You can’t just walk in here and say something’s a bad idea without a suggestion as to whatwouldbe a good idea.” Molly’s eyes danced in the way that Rachel just knew she was plotting yet another not-so-subtle shove in her direction.
“I promise, any suggestions I give will have nothing to do with produce,” Travis said, slow and deliberate. “I shop at the supermarket, too. I don’t want to have to explain to my nephews what their mama is doing to the pineapple.”
