Page 22 of The Fake Out

“You don’t seem like you’re fine.” He opened the Styrofoam container in front of him. Ollie outsourced to Juana Fernandez who made the best tamales this side of the border for Tamale Thursday. “Wow.”

“I got you a double serving,” I said, my eyes drifting to his arms. “Because you’re big.”

He almost smirked but seemed to change his mind when he saw my face. “You sure you’re okay? You seem grumpy.”

I arched an eyebrow.

“Grumpier than usual,” he amended and dug into his tamales with relish.

“It’s nothing.” I poked at my lunch. “Maybe you’re too dang happy. Like a puppy.”

He brushed the top of my hand, which was resting on the table. Such a small touch but my skin grew warm right in that very spot. “If you need someone to talk to, I have four sisters. I’m pretty good at listening, I won’t ever tell you to calm down—I learned that lesson the hard way, and I can kick someone’s ass if you need me to, no questions asked.”

The kindness in his voice gave me pause. Sometimes it was easier to wallow in anger. Anger had done well for me—kept me fight-ready and that helped me survive. But it was also so exhausting. Which was the last thought I had before I opened my mouth and blurted it all out.

“Fine,” I huffed. “Your good friend Peter—”

Chris shook his head. “Don’t lump me in with him. I went to college with the guy. We’re barely acquaintances.”

“Fine. Your not-friend Peter has informed me that he plans to cut the library budget yet again. If he succeeds, it will affect my salary and decimate our book budget among many other things.” I picked up my straw, tore the wrapping off like it was one of Peter’s limbs, and shoved it in my cup. “That man is the absolute worst.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No, it’s my problem. I’ll fix it,” I said firmly and pushed around the rice on my plate. “But thanks. For, you know…”

My voice trailed off, not exactly sure what I wanted to say, but strangely grateful he was here.

“No problem. Now, this book. I have questions.” From his belt bag he pulled out our sexy pirate romance novel. Sticky notes dotted the edges and the cover looked used and abused.

I tugged it from his hand and flipped through the pages. “You highlighted? You took notes in the margins?”

“I even committed most of chapter ten to memory.”

I flipped to the chapter and discovered a scene that left very little to the imagination. With a huff, I tossed the book on the table. Chris picked it up and began thumbing through it. My eyes moved back to his arms. His muscles tensed with each motion he made. I had a strange desire to touch them, just to see what they felt like. Were they warm? Would they give under my hands?

I bit back a groan. Completely and totally inappropriate. I needed to get more sleep. That must be the reason for all this.

“You okay? You look like you’re a little warm,” Chris asked, sounding concerned.

Mortified, I jerked my eyes back to his face. “Sorry. I was lost in thought.”

“About?”

“Ah, octopuses.” Smooth, Mae. Smooth.

“Octopuses?”

“Yep. Lot of tentacles. Think they get in the way sometimes?” I didn’t let him answer that because I sounded like an idiot, and inside I was panicking a little and I wasn’t quite sure why. I snatched my copy of the book from my desk. “I have thirty more minutes left of lunch; we should probably…”

“Of course.” He cracked open his book. “Now, after reading the first ten chapters, I had a question. Do you think the character of the first mate is the author’s commentary on the struggle of the everyday man in the early nineteenth century?”

I blinked. Twice.

“And can we talk about chapter fourteen? Doing the deed in a crow’s nest? Sounds kind of uncomfortable. At the very least, there’d be a whole lot of splinters in places you do not want splinters. What are your thoughts?”

EIGHT

If you were an open fire and I wanted to cook over you, so I had to adjust the grate to the right height and do the hand test and see how hot it was, I would only be able to hold my hand there for one or two seconds.