Page 51 of Snared

“Okay, so what are you watching?” I asked.

“I don’t think I want to tell you now.” He plucked my used coffee pod out of the machine and put in a new one.

“Fine. Sorry I asked. I’m low on sleep and grouchy,” I said.

“Then I hope you get a nap in before your radio interview after lunch,” he said, calm as you please. How the hell was he functioning so well?

I tried to tamp down my defensiveness. “Can we not do this this early in the morning?”

He sighed. “I was being nice. You started this.”

I pushed my hair behind my ears. “Ugh. Okay. Fine.”

“I’m not a bad guy, Charlie,” he said with a small smile.

“Then tell me what you were watching,” I replied, not ready to respond to his last comment. It was easier to make him be the bad guy. To bicker with him instead of thinking about why I wanted to kiss him again.

“The Thin Man,” he said, fixing up his coffee. He pursed his lips and blew over the top of the cup.

He had fantastic lips, and I knew exactly how they tasted. How they felt against mine—firm but still pillowy soft, if that was possible. I bit the side of my mouth.

Dammit.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You’ve never seen it? It’s a classic. The entire series is,” he said. “You want to watch it with me? I just started it.”

I’m not sure who was more shocked, him that he offered or me that I agreed. But as I sat down on the bench seat, I decided to blame my acceptance of the invitation on my exhaustion.

JOSH

Her hair tickled my bare arm as I slid in next to her and set the laptop on the table. My gut tightened, and I was glad the table hid my hardening dick. She’d thrown me for a complete loop this morning. First abrasive, then apologetic, now agreeing to watch a movie with me.

My head spun.

“I can put this up on the TV. I doubt the guys will wake up,” I said.

I both wanted her to agree in order to put more space between us and disagree so I could feel her brush up against me.

Get it together, man.

“Um, sure,” she said, nudging me with her hip as we moved back out of the bench seat. “So, tell me about this classic.”

I’d already linked my laptop to the TV at the beginning of the tour because most streaming services didn’t get the classics I loved, so it was easy to pull up the movies I’d downloaded.

“Action, adventure, screwball comedy. Husband-and-wife detective team. Well, he’s the detective, she tries to help. And Asta, the best dog in film,” I said, unable to stop a small smile from appearing on my face. I’d always loved the antics of Nick and Nora Charles and their little white dog. My grandmother had gotten me hooked on them when I was a kid.

But I’d never shared how much I loved these movies with any of the guys, so I wasn’t sure why I’d offered to watch one with her.

The opening music started and Nick Charles came on the screen. I turned to look at Charlie, who stared at me like I had two heads or something.

“What?”

“Screwball comedy? Old black-and-white movies? I never would have thought that was your thing,” she said.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Charlie,” I said, hearing the slight bite in my words.

She looked at me over the rim of herI like bangingcoffee cup—a gift from Jax when she officially joined the band—but didn’t say a word as she took a long sip. After, she turned her attention back to the TV on the wall across from us.

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