Page 50 of Base Block

“I hope he choked on it,” I said and Callum laughed.

“That’s what I mean. All of this could get jerked out of my hands but I think that you’d be there.”

“Well, I would be.” He had given me that bottle of orange juice and as far as I was concerned, it was as good as a diamond ring. I didn’t need a jeweler’s loupe to tell me how much it was worth.

“You don’t have to prove that you’re a good person, or worthy, or whatever you think that adopting Maverick will mean. Ok?”

I nodded. I leaned up a little and very carefully, I kissed his neck. It was tickly around his beard area so I aimed lower and kissed him again, and then I watched his chest rise and fall steadily. He didn’t tell me no, or to stop, or that he liked it, either. But I did it again and again, because I wanted to so much.

“Do you like this chair?” he asked.

I kissed him one more time and thought about it. “It’s not bad.”

“Have you ever owned a piece of furniture, just yours?”

“No. I’ve never had very much of my own,” I said. “It always made it hard for me to throw things away but also, when I lose stuff, it feels normal. Like, that was what always happened anyway.”

“I know what you mean,” Callum told me. “You got those pots. Maybe we should start upgrading more than that. I don’t love this chair.”

“It’s not yours,” I reminded him. “This is all rented.”

“I owned the shit in my grandparents’ house and I didn’t like any of that. I don’t like anything about the place.”

“We could think about new furniture. Beau could give us advice,” I suggested. Kiss, kiss. It was fun and he smelled so good, kind of like his soap but mostly like himself.

“I don’t want that guy’s help but I would like yours. Let’s buy a chair,” he said. “Then we’ll decide what to do about the house in Indianapolis. No matter what happens with the Woodsmen, we’ll need a place to call home.”

Now I put my arms around his neck and squeezed, hard enough that it might have been difficult for him to breathe. He didn’t object or pull me off, though. He hugged me back.

The next day at the office, I spent the time that was allocated for lunch doing something other than working (which was what I usually did). “Seating?” Beau Gowan asked when he came out of his office and saw the images on my screen.

“We need a big chair,” I said.

“Your boyfriend is a large man,” he agreed.

“He is, and the chair has to fit both of us.” I saved the portfolio I’d created so that I could show Callum later.

“One of my favorite things to do is to sit with my son in the chair in his bedroom at my house and read together,” he said, smiling. He usually did when he talked about Finley. “What was your favorite book as a child?”

I had no memory of reading with anyone, ever. “Oh, it was one about rabbits,” I said. “I loved it.”

“Did your dad read it to you?”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “I had a great dad and that’s so important for kids. Can you look at a few things with me?” The one client that I’d found in his inbox was having what Sage would have called a wardrobe crisis, and what I called an annoying fit. She had always refused to leave her room, which got both Millie and Damian very angry, but this client was lashing out and saying that I’d done a bad job with my selections and he wanted a refund of his fees.

“I have a lunch appointment but I’ll look when I come back,” my boss told me. He quickly adjusted his tie in the reflection of the glass door and then hurried through it. I was pretty sure that his appointment was with his girlfriend, who worked at the local library. I had met her once and she was really nice, and it was also nice for him that he had someone to go out with. But I could have used his help, and I wished that I’d prepared questions and discussion points rather than looking at the chairs.

Since he was gone and since I wasn’t sure what to write back to the client who was angry about everything, I took a few more moments avoiding work and checked to see if I needed to respond to anyone on our socials. Yes, there were several things to answer, and there were several comments to ignore (comments about the size of my butt, although I’d tried to avoid that issue by shooting the latest video with me seated at the kitchen table).

And there was another message from another account with no followers and zero posts. “Roxy, you’re pissing me off. You better get back to me. Girl, I know a lot of shit that other people shouldn’t.”

I felt my heart start to pound and my face immediately got hot. What did Sage really know? She had shared things with me about her sad childhood, about the sex she was having behind Damian’s back, and about all the stuff she’d lifted from the houses where we’d partied. She’d had quite a side business in the resale of accessories, jewelry, and prescription drugs from their medicine cabinets—but I had never said a word about what she was doing. Not about any of it! And what did she have on me?

Too much. I hadn’t told her anything but she had eyes. She had seen a lot, just as much as Millie and Damian’s bodyguard Matheus. I put my fingers over my own eyes, pressing hard so that eventually, spots started jumping.

“Rainey?”

I quickly moved away my hands and forced a smile for my boss. “Hi. How was lunch?”