Page 39 of Blueline Baby

She opens her mouth to argue with me, but I take her hand and pull her forward.

“Get in the fort, Chloe.”

It’s a tight fit. We’re folded together on a heap of pillows with the TV light coming through the blankets in patches. She reaches up and flicks the hockey stick holding up the middle of the roof.

“Is this the stick from your closet?”

“Careful with that. That’s my juniors stick.”

“You’re using your juniors stick as a tent pole.”

“It’s structural.” I’ve dragged that thing around for years. It’s older than my contract and I’ve never once been able to make myself throw it out, and tonight it’s finally earning its keep. “It’s the most important stick I own and it’s currently holding up the entire roof, so show some respect.”

“It’s holding up a blanket.”

“Show. Some. Respect.”

She laughs and lets it go. We settle in with the ice cream between us and her movie playing, which is, for the record, basically just two people who could fix their entire lives by talking for five seconds and flatly refusing to.

About twenty minutes in, she stops watching the movie. She sets the ice cream down and turns into me instead. She tucks herself under my arm and places her hand flat on my chest.

“I thought you wanted to watch your kissing movie,” I say.

“I’d rather kiss you.”

Then, before I can do a single thing about that, she reaches back for the ice cream. She digs out a spoonful, and very deliberately tips it so a piece slides off right onto the center of my bare chest.

“Oops,” she says. She's not sorry in the slightest.

She leans down and licks it off slowly, and absolutely every plan I had about tonight goes straight out of my head.

She looks up at me through her lashes, entirely too pleased with herself. Then she’s setting the spoon aside and dragging her hand down my stomach toward the waistband of my shorts. She's rushing. I want to let her—God, I want to let her—but I have exactly one job tonight. And I know for an absolute fact that if I let this go one more minute, I will not do it. I’ll wake up tomorrow having said nothing.

“Wait.” I catch her wrist. “Wait, hang on.”

She lifts her head and raises her eyebrows at me like I’ve grown a second head. “Are you legitimately turning down me licking ice cream off every part of your body right now?”

“Temporarily. Yes. I have to ask you something first.”

Her eyes go wide. She sits up off my chest so fast the spoon vanishes somewhere deep into the blankets. Every bit of the fun drops out of her face, and something a lot closer to absolute panic moves in to take its place.

“Jack.” She says it slowly. “If you’re about to propose to me right now, with ice cream in one hand and your shorts in the other, buddy, you need to seriously rethink your strategy.”

“What? No!” It bursts out of me as a loud laugh. “No. No ring. I told you. I’m not—” I drag a hand down my face. “I was going to ask you to come to my parents’ lake house this summer. That’s it. That’s all I was going to ask.”

She sags a little with relief and drops her forehead heavy onto my shoulder. “Oh, thank God.”

“Wow.”

“I was a little worried it was going to be a proposal.”

“That makes me feel like you don’t actually like me, Chloe.”

She picks her head up, grinning, and there’s a smear of ice cream on her cheek. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anyone the way I want her right now.

“I like you a lot. I genuinely thought you’d misread this entire situation and this was the peak of your romantic grand gesture.”

I grin. “Chloe. Don’t you know me yet? When it’s a proposal, you’ll know.” I catch her hand and pull it up to kiss the inside of her wrist. “So you’ll come to the lake?”