Page 58 of Chasing You

Bowen pouted harder, so Lane got up from his seat andtipped his head back, laying a soft kiss on his lips. “Stop being a goddamn baby.”

Everyone laughed, and Bowen tried to look angry, but he was clearly mollified by Lane’s attention. “Whatever,” he eventually muttered as Lane went back to his seat.

“Look, we came to an understanding. He knows how I feel, I know how he feels. Right now, he’s going to focus on healing as much as he can and figuring out the rest that he can’t.”

There was a collective silence, like they’d all momentarily forgotten what Kash was facing, and everyone looked apologetic.

“So,” Dallas said after a beat, startling Audra, who was resting on his shoulder, “tell us about this new guy.”

Adele didn’t have Frankie’s number, but he did know where to find him. Fenton had told him he worked downtown part-time at the art museum. And at the very least, it was a nice distraction from the things that were driving him absolutely up the wall.

“Guess what time it iiiiisssss!” A voice rang through a megaphone in the station, and Adele slapped his hands over his face, groaning against his palms before he stood up and walked out of his office and peered over the balcony.

Antonio—one of the guys Adele had worked with the longest—was standing on the snack table, which was bowed precariously in the center, holding the megaphone against his lips.

Adele knew what it was about. The guys had been bugging him to do a fundraising calendar for the last twoyears. He’d run out of excuses, and since he’d been dealing with a depression cycle, he okayed the project.

Now, he was regretting it, and he was kind of hoping he could plead temporary insanity.

“Please get down. I do not have the energy for the paperwork if you fall,” Adele called out, heading for the stairs.

Everyone booed him, but Antonio hopped off the table and set the megaphone down. “You cannot rain on my parade today, boss. It’s time to assign months, and I’m taking March because I want to be full-on Dionysus. Naked, covered in flowers and drunk off my ass.”

“You definitely won’t be drunk,” Adele said, “and you cannot be completely nude.”

“I won’t be. I bought a dick sock on Amazon,” Antonio said with a smirk.

Christ, this was going to be a mess. He approached the table where Antonio had the sign-up sheet, and he felt a presence at his side. He turned, unsurprised to find Ridge sliding up to him, looking worried.

“Did I miss something? Was I supposed to buy stuff for this?”

Adele sighed. “No. We haven’t done this in a few years, and I forgot this asshole caught me at a moment of weakness and I okayed the calendar. I mean, they sell well,” Adele said, rubbing the back of his neck. “We have twenty-two full-timers, so two guys go twice, and we do two editions. Last time we did this, we were able to fund the repairs we needed to the mechanic bay and enough to donate to the children’s hospital here.”

Ridge softened. “Oh. And, uh, do we have to get naked, or…”

“No one’s getting naked,” Adele said again. He pinchedthe bridge of his nose. “You also don’t have to go tube-sock or whatever Antonio’s bragging about. Just…show some skin, make it hot. Your old station didn’t do this?”

Ridge’s cheeks pinked. “Big-city funding.”

“Right.” Adele glowered when he was handed the sign-up sheet, but he jotted his name down on the form, not giving a shit what month he’d chosen. As long as he didn’t have to put a bunch of effort into what he was going to wear, he didn’t much care what he was dressed up as.

He looked down and saw he’d picked September.

“Hmm,” Ridge said when he took the form from him. “Both Octobers are already gone.”

Adele snorted. “Are you really surprised?”

“August seems nice,” Ridge said after a beat. He put his name down, then handed the form off. “God, do you think one day my kid’s going to find this hanging in her friend’s creepy dad’s garage?”

“Well, avoid that by not letting her go over to friends’ houses with creepy dads,” Adele said, walking over to the fridge for a bottle of juice. “That’ll solve one problem.”

Ridge laughed. “Yeah, good point. I can already tell I’m going to be one of those annoying-as-fuck parents who never lets her go anywhere.”

“You’re preaching to the choir. I did the same thing: no sleepovers until junior year. Gage’s only just forgiving me for robbing him of late-night horror marathons or whatever. But if it saved him a lifetime of trauma, I’m gonna live with that anger.” He took a long gulp of the juice and sighed. “Anyway, make sure you get—Antonio! What’s the date on the shoot? And who’s doing it?”

“Uh…my cousin’s doing the shoot. And it’s in three Fridays.”

“Friday’s our worst day,” Adele said.

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