Page 68 of Where There's Smoke

“With me,” I added.

“Fuck. You. Though I have to say, aside from all the—” She paused, looking me up and down. “Hmm. Still a bit formal. Ah, roll your sleeves to the elbows. It’ll look more casual.”

I unbuttoned the cuff. “Glad one of us has some fashion sense.”

“Well, as long as they don’t put the governor in charge of the fashion police, there might be hope for California.”

I laughed and rolled up my sleeve. “Anyway, you were saying?”

“About?”

“Aside from all the…”

“Oh right.” She folded her arms across her chest, watching me roll my other sleeve. “I was just going to say that aside from all the squicky mental images your unholy union with Anthony has produced, I had a feeling from day one that if you guys didn’t kill each other, you’d eventually end up fucking each other.”

I laughed. “Guess this is the lesser of two evils, then.”

“Absolutely,” she said. “Considering the alternative would leave me unemployed.”

“Heaven forbid.”

“Exactly. But hey, when it comes to Anthony, I can’t really blame you. The man’s smoking hot.” She paused. “Literally smoking, in his case.”

“Glad he meets your approval.”

“Well, aside from the smoking.”

“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “I usually don’t like it, but when he does it, it’s kind of…” Sexy. Distracting. Hypnotic.

“Man, you’ve really got it bad, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Liar. Everything he does makes you swoon. You’d probably get turned on watching him do dishes.” She paused, her eyes losing focus. “Though I admit, a man doing dishesispretty sexy.”

I laughed. “Let me guess, you also like them shirtless and doing yard work?”

“Absolutely.”

“Shallow much?”

“I didn’t say those were theonlythings I liked a guy doing. Jesus, Jesse. But I have my purely shallow fantasies just like the next person.”

“Apparently.” I chuckled.

“I just can’t believe you like it when he smokes.” She wrinkled her nose. “That is so gross.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know why. He just makes it look good.”

“Now I’m the shallow one?”

“Did I say that’s the only thing I like him doing?”

“No, and I don’t want you to elaborate.” She put up both her hands. “Please, for the love of all that’s holy.”

“I wasn’t going to go into detail, but I’ll have you know, it’s not just the shallow stuff. He’s a pretty good guy too.”

“D’aww.” She grinned. “Someone’s not just in it for the hot booty.”

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