Page 74 of The Right Kind of Wrong

Monroe Lockhart - 8:10 a.m.

Did Denny put you up to this?

Blake could say, without reservation, that she had no idea what Monroe was talking about. But the fact that she was talking to Blake at all made her heart beat a little faster.

She replied quickly.

Blake Bettencourt - 8:10 a.m.

I’m not even at the shop yet so . . . no?

Attraction was a hell of a potent drug, and Blake felt like she was being led around like a dog chasing a bone.

Monroe Lockhart - 8:11 a.m.

I have been receiving a lot of, shall we say, feedback on my abandonment of my coffee duties last week

Blake Bettencourt - 8:11 a.m.

Denny can kick rocks

She almost dropped her empty coffee cup when her phone started ringing, and she grabbed it so fast that she wondered if she’d jammed her finger while accepting the call.

“Hello?” she said, a little breathless.

“Why do you always sound like you’ve just run to the phone whenever I call you?” Monroe teased, her voice light and still a little sleep-soaked.

Probably because I did, Blake thought, though she wasn’t going to tell Monroe that.

“Was just on my way out the door,” Blake lied. Monroe didn’t need to know exactly how much of an impact she was having on her.

She stared at her coffee machine, trying not to get her hopes up.

Especially until she decided what she was going to do about it.

Blake had fantasies about how this could go—god, did she ever—but she’d always been a practical person.

One possible instance of Blake wondering if Monroe had been checking her out did not constitute reciprocity. Plus, Blake had never been the instigator in a relationship. She had absolutely no idea how any of this should work.

That was the big question: Did Monroe feel this thing, too?

Or was Blake alone in this wild, ungovernable stirring that made her long to feel the press of Monroe’s body against hers? The taste of her lips? The touch of her fingers?

“So, Slider’s?” Monroe’s voice floated through her phone, the idea of her and their present reality mingling into more than Blake’s already overcaffeinated brain knew what to do with.

Blake nodded. “Right, Slider’s. Do you want to go? With me?” She added lamely, her face heating as she awaited a response.

She could hear Monroe walking around her house, and Blake tried her damnedest to tamp down her excitement.

Possibility was also a potent drug, and once she’d gotten a taste, it was hard not to keep chasing the feeling.

“Give me ten minutes to drop her majesty off, and then we can go? One sec.” Blake listened as Monroe’s voice, sounding farther away, called, “Mais! Car in thirty seconds.”

Blake wanted to take that to mean that Monroe was excited, which sent a flurry of excitement through her, but it also could be something as simple as Maisie having already drawn their morning out far longer than it should have gone on.

“Sorry about that,” Monroe said. Blake could hear the front door opening, both through the receiver and if she strained her ear toward her own door. “I can drop her and come back, and then we can take your truck?”

“Is my noble steed growing on you?” She smiled because she just knew that Monroe was rolling her eyes.