Page 15 of F*ck You

He nodded. “Yeah. If you want, I can give you a couple lessons on me. We can start tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Great, it’s settled then, I’ll see you at six.”

I paused. “In the morning?”

“Of course in the morning. It’s my favorite time to get out on the water. I had just finished giving a lesson this morning when I saw you lying on the sand in agony.”

Before I could object, his phone started ringing, and he pulled it from his pocket to answer. He stood up, turned slightly, and had a hushed conversation. I thought I heard him say the name Larsen, which was the name of the guy I’d unintentionally flashed, but I could be wrong. Whoever he was talking to was saying something he didn’t seem to want to hear.

His hand lifted to brush through his hair and his shirt rode up, exposing a sliver of smooth flesh stretching over his hip bones. Despite having just eaten a full meal to last me a week, I felt the urge to bite it.

Down, Lee. If you go around biting people who feed you, they might not want to do it again.

Chase hung up the phone and turned back around.

“Everything good?”

“Yeah, just a buddy of mine who had an encounter with someone and there’s this thing.” He waved his hand around, indicating something that wasn’t there.

“Things aren’t always good. Do you have to go or something?”

He braced his hands on the back of his chair, leaning forward as he looked at me. “Kind of, but I don’t really have to. I can stay if you need me to.”

My brows scrunched in confusion. “I’m good, you don’t need to stay on my account. Go off and deal with what you need to.”

He looked at me for a moment as he tried to figure out how to reply, then a few strands of dark brown hair fell into his eyes as he nodded. “Let’s at least get this cleaned up first.”

I stood up and helped him put the food away so he could get to whatever it was he needed to deal with. As it turned out, Miss Morris had left behind a drawer full of food containers, so we put the leftovers in those. It seemed as though I was going to have something good to eat for tomorrow, and for once, my leftovers weren’t going to come from a pizza box.

After everything was put away, he moved over toward the front door and then turned around to say goodbye. “I’ll see you in the morning. Take care of yourself, Natalee.”

I cringed. I wasn’t the biggest fan of my full name. Todd was the only one who ever called me that, and I’d like to forget it if possible. “You can call me Lee.”

His mouth quirked up. “Lee.”

“Yeah.” I pushed against his chest to try and wipe off his smirk, and he caught me around the wrist. For a second we stood there, both of us frozen in that one awkward moment where we waited to see if the other person would do something. A strange expression flashed over his face, and then it was gone before I could look too much into it.

“Don’t overuse it though. If you piss me off, you’ll be going back to the full name.”

“Do people piss you off often?”

I nodded. “Oh, hell yeah. Pissed off is my default setting.”

His smile broadened. “So, don’t piss off the pretty girl then. Challenge accepted.”

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