Page 34 of Last Chance Love

“Did…did he call you Alice?” Dylan asked as I followed Reed through the door and into the hallway.

“He did,” I heard as I closed the door behind me. “But if you try calling me that, I might forget how to aim, and when I’m putting staples in, you don’t want that. Do you?”

“Ahh,” but that was all I heard as I walked off snickering.

Reed was heading toward the back, and considering I had been assigned to him, I followed. I followed him into what looked like a mix between a laundry room and a break room, with two washers and dryers in one corner and a small table next to a counter with a microwave on top, next to which stood a refrigerator. Which made some sense, but the opaque glass-covered shower in the other corner was kind of strange.

“Interior decorating at its finest,” I said, raising a brow. “Not a whole lot of room.”

I saw the corner of his lips curl up as he approached the cabinet next to the shower. “They ran out of budget. It was either make the accommodation for the staff better or make the exam rooms easier to use. Dr. Greenway decided to go for the latter, and from what I’m told, that old coot Dr. Gideonbegrudginglyagreed with her. He only wanted a better place to nap if you ask me.”

“You and your grudge against Dr. Gideon,” I said with a laugh as I listened to him grumble. “Are you still mad that he told you you needed to wear shirts that fit you better?”

Reed stopped rummaging and peered at me curiously. “You remember that story?”

“Yes, Reed, I remember the stories you tell me. It happens once in a blue moon,” I said with an irritated roll of my eyes. Just because things between us were odd didn’t mean I didn’t care about what happened to him or what he had to say. Plus, it wasn’t all that often he got ruffled by something; it was strangely amusing to see the older doctor get on his nerves so easily.

He watched me for a moment before grabbing the bottom of his stained shirt and yanking it over his head. All my irritation disappeared in the wake of the flash of heat that shot through me instantly. For the past couple of years, all I’d seen of Reed was him completely dressed, save for the occasional flash of skin.

But here he was, upper body bared to the world. Despite not being out on the ranch doing manual labor, he certainly hadn’t been slacking. Admittedly, he wasn’t as toned or built as some of the other guys, but there was still plenty of skin to admire. His chest glistened under the overhead lights from the blond hairs that speckled it, marred only by the blood that had leaked through onto his skin. That was quickly alleviated when he walked over to a nearby sink and began scrubbing until the blood was gone.

“Wow,” he said as he scrubbed the last of it off. “I didn’t realize you were that upset.”

“What?” I asked, feeling my face warm as I forced myself to stop staring at him and imagining what I could do with him and his half-naked body if I had a little more privacy. Nothing I hadn’t already done with him, but that was hardly the point. “I’m not upset.”

He glanced at me as he dropped the rag he’d been using into a bin. “I couldn’t tell if you were upset about what happened or because I acted surprised that you remembered a story I told you.”

“I was annoyed for a moment,” I admitted with a shrug. “But it passed.”

“Went away just like that?”

“I don’t hold onto little irritations.”

“Leon, you always hold onto small irritations. It’s kind of a miracle you even admitted you were irritated in the first place.”

“Some things change.”

“Yeah, kind of like how you were irritated, then that changed right after I started to change,” he said with a snort as he walked over to grab the shirt he’d pulled out and began putting it on.

If my face hadn’t been red before, it certainly was now. “Shut the hell up.”

He laughed as he pulled the shirt down and straightened it. I could see what Dr. Gideon meant; Reedcouldget away with wearing a bigger size. Not that I was ever going to tell him that, of course. I might not know what to do with the feelings I still had for him, but that didn’t mean I was going to willingly shoot myself in the foot and rid myself of good eye candy.

“Don’t you get enough of shirtless, sweaty men working here?” he asked as he closed the cabinet and tossed his soiled shirt away.

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not walking around treating this place like a meat market, Reed. I’m a fucking mentor, for fuck’s sake. Do you know how fucked up it would be for a mentor to screw around with their mentees? Not to mention how much trouble I’d get in for something like that.”

There were plenty of rules at the ranch, not nearly as many as prison, but they still existed. And one of them wasdefinitelyno screwing around with people when you were a mentor. You could get away with it if you were dealing with another Tier One, there were no moral ramifications there, and you wouldn’t get strung up by Mona. Of course, if therewerethings like that going on, people didn’t talk about it much.

The fact that people teased Reed and me about our awkwardness told me they didn’t believe anything was happening. I would even bet that a good chunk, probably most of them, didn’t think we wanted anything to do with one another in a romantic or sexual sense, just two awkward people. Sex in prison was an open secret, you didn’t talk about it, but you knew it happened. Some people paired up, and others were open season or free agents looking to keep themselves out of trouble. That kind of attitude created a very strange view of guy-on-guy interactions.

Reed chuckled. “I wasn’t talking about your mentees, Reed. Plus, I’m pretty sure you could enjoy looking without ever touching.”

I raised a brow. “Oh? You enjoy getting a look at guys in here, then?”

“Okay, point made,” he said with a soft laugh as he went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. “But hey, Tier One’s are still open. I’d be surprised if someone like Dane didn’t get propositioned when no one was looking.”

I hated the ugly feeling of jealousy that bubbled up at the sound of Reed admitting someone else was attractive. It wasn’t like I had a claim on him, for fuck’s sake. We had broken up when we were nineteen. Neither of us had ever tried to reignite anything between then and when I’d finally faded into my…mess. There was nothing there for me to hold onto, but I still felt the squirm.

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