Me:Fine. Apology accepted. But I’m not quite ready to talk.
The half-truth set my belly ablaze. Part of me wanted to talk, longed to get everything officially out in the open, evaporate the cloud of awkwardness destined to linger over us forevermore.
Lucas: No talking. Just ice cream. I picked up a gallon of our favorite from CreamWorks.
Me: Mocha Mania?
Lucas: You know it. Meet me in the kitchen in five? I need to start a load of laundry first.
He knew I’d cave, clever to coax me with my favorite ice cream as though I were Eve, unable to resist forbidden fruit.
Me: Okay, but you’re still a duck.
Of course, I typed duck on purpose, knowing damn well he’d have some smart-ass reply.
Lucas: Quack, quack.
Jerk.
Inside the kitchen, Lucas had his head in the fridge, tightly corded muscles along his back taunting me through his T-shirt. Also taunting me was a gallon of CreamWorks Mocha Mania on the table beside two plastic spoons, a pile of napkins, and my missing laptop.
“Has this laptop been here the whole time? I could’ve sworn the kitchen was the first place I searched.”
Lucas spun around to face me, armed with a can of whipped cream, and a turned-up mouth that could beguile bras and panties off a group of cloistered nuns. Tall, at least six-foot-two to my five-foot-three, dark and beyond yummy, he’d always been desirable, and similar to times before, one glance at his beautiful, triangular visage, those narcotic moon-blues—which were coequally responsible for some of my most indecent fantasies—there I was willing my stubborn heart to refrain from having a full-blown swoon attack.
“Nope.” The clarification flowed out of his mouth bedazzled with a smirk. “I found your laptop in the laundry room next to an empty wineglass on top of the dryer.” Typically, Lucas had an authoritative voice that commanded attention. Yet, in that instance his timbre sounded smooth, chill enough to chase away the day’s worries, like a night at the beach illuminated by a crescent moon and a thousand stars.
Practically mush, I pulled out a chair, then eased onto it, freeing my gaze from the man who made my whole body flutter.
“Laundry room? Wineglass?” I bobbed my head, coming to terms with how and where bloggergate was conceived. “Can’t remember taking it into the laundry room, much less pouring myself a glass of wine.” I removed the lid off the gallon of ice cream, the aroma of mocha flirting with my nose. “Pretty sure drinking a glass of wine after chugging Cosmos goes against all FDA warning labels.”
Lucas closed the fridge, then took two, long-legged strides over to the table, setting the can of whipped cream beside the ice cream. “Cosmos, huh?” He plopped onto the chair beside me, his knee brushing against mine. “Sounds a bit too Sex and the Cityish for you.”
Ignoring the fact it only took an innocent Lucas Stone knee brush to make my breath hitch, I smiled calmly then said, “Sage and Chloe’s idea.”
Lucas chuckled as he plucked the whipped cream off the table, shaking the can as if he were a bartender mixing a drink. Flicking the lid off, he dipped the can, then squirted dollops of velvety goodness on top of the ice cream before setting the can back down. Handing me a plastic spoon, he flashed a semi-wicked grin. “Before we obliterate Mocha Mania, let’s go over the rules.”
I snatched the spoon out of his hand, eyes rolling because with Lucas there were always nitwitted rules to games he made up on the fly. “Wow,obliterate?” I raised a mocking brow. “Such a smart word for an ass.” I dipped my spoon in a cloud of whipped cream, retrieving it to my mouth for a taste.
“Well, they don’t call mea smart-assfor nothin’.”
Banter Camp. Seriously, it’s what I signed up for when I decided to live with Lucas. “Shut up and bark out the rules.”
“All right,” he said, shifting in his seat, the adjustment stealing his knee from mine. But, as if he too craved the reconnection, Lucas shifted back, giving us that subtle yet satisfying contact once more. “I may have agreed to no talking in my text message, but how about for every five spoonfuls of ice cream consumed, we spit out one word that describes how we’re feeling right now.”
I blinked, weighing whether or not a gallon of Mocha Mania was really worth it. Lucas loved mind-analysis games, likely picking up the trait from his psychologist mother. “Fine. But absolutely no elaborating,” I insisted, eyes narrowed, spoon pointed in his direction. “No trying to get me to add more details to accompany any of my one-word descriptions.”
We savored our first spoonfuls of sinfully good ice cream in silence, and once Lucas finished his fifth bite, he kicked off the shenanigans. “Optimistic.”
I swallowed, then begrudgingly offered my first contribution to the word-game madness. “Embarrassed.”
We ate more Mocha Mania, our spoons colliding at every dip back into the tub of too-good-to-be-real indulgence.
“Content,” Lucas said without a flinch.
“Moronic.”
Minutes later, Lucas unleashed his next word, husky and soft. “Relieved.”
