Page 5 of Cocoa

Shrugging, Lucas explained. “At the dog park the other night. The idea came to me after that, from seeing how much you and he had fun together. Every animal deserves that kind of attention and care.”

Ryder hesitated, something softening in his deep blue eyes, and that’s when Larrabee struck. “Well, damn. If Lucas here says you’re the inspiration, I guess you don’t have a choice. Congratulations. You’re our official volunteer for this thing. Try not to break the camera.”

Standing there as shocked as he’d looked when he plowed into Lucas and knocked his cocoa to the ground, Ryder gaped at his chief.

Lucas couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. Maybe his luck was finally turning around. Or maybe he was just desperate for something to go right. Either way, he wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip away. Something in the universe had to like him if it brought him into contact with this hot EMT again.

Chapter 4

Ryder

The warm air in the café blasted Ryder in the face when he pushed in through the doors. It had been a long damn day with two back-to-back calls and barely time for lunch. Midnight Mysteries was having a special chupacabra special, and Ryder really wasn’t interested in hearing about stray dogs with mange. He didn’t even have that to look forward to if this meeting with the attractive photographer didn’t go well.

The temperatures outside had dropped in the past twenty-four hours, and any ventures outside brought pink noses and wind-chapped cheeks with it. The small space filled with the smell of roasted espresso and cinnamon sugar, and the windows fogged from the difference.

Lucas sat at one booth on the far side of the café, one hand raised to wave Ryder over, and a hint of a smile on his angular face. When Ryder slipped into the seat across from him and pulled off his beanie, the smile widened. “I’m glad you didn’t ghost me.”

Ryder’s eyes shot wide. “Why would I do that?”

Shrugging, Lucas huffed out a laugh. “Cocoa guilt.”

“I said I’d make it up to you.” His own smile grew. They’d texted back and forth a few times since the unexpected meeting at the EMT station, mostly about the fundraising calendar. Yet, there was an undercurrent of humor and maybe even some flirting that did strange things to Ryder’s imagination.

The server came by, and Lucas ordered them both a cup of the premium Belgian cocoa. When she walked off, he nodded. “They use real milk and chocolate, none of that powdered crap. You’ll love it.”

As a rule, first responders ran on coffee, or really any heavily caffeinated drink that woke them up quickly for sudden callouts and kept them on their A-game no matter how long they had to help. Ryder’s memories of hot chocolate were vague childhood things that featured packets from a box with desiccated marshmallows floating in them.

The server set two steaming mugs in front of them.

“This is the good stuff,” Lucas said and raised the mug to his lips. He pursed them and blew, the fragrant steam wafting across the table.

It smelled good, sure, but most of Ryder’s attention focused on the plush pink lips highlighted by a mere shadow of dark stubble. He shifted on the vinyl bench seat and tore his attention back to the mug in front of him. Carefully, he lifted it and took a sip of his own. The rich, creamy chocolate flavor filled his senses, and he couldn’t help but moan a little deep in his throat. It was really damn good.

Lucas’s dark eyes locked onto his for a long moment, before he took another sip and pushed the mug to the side. “Okay,” he said and pulled a laptop from his bag. He opened it at the end of the table and clicked over to a file. “So, I did a mock-up of the potential calendar layout. We can have a traditional twelve-month wall option and maybe a desk calendar or planner, too. That would depend on how many volunteers we get for the photos.”

Sample pages flowed across the screen, and Ryder stroked his beard. He was used to traffic patterns and triage charts, well-organized information focused on data more than design. This whirlwind of artistic energy overwhelmed his senses as much as the rich chocolate and delicious man sitting across from him.

He refocused on the computer screen. Color-coded thumbnails sat between typed notes, some dog and cat clipart designs, and even a few stock photos of smiling people with their pets. “You planned all this already?”

Shrugging, Lucas sat back and looked at Ryder again. “It’s a good idea. Plus, I couldn’t sleep last night, so I fell down a design rabbit hole.” Despite the lingering smile, something sadder, darker, filled Lucas’s gaze. He looked down too quickly for Ryder to get a bead on it, however. “My photos will look better than these, of course.”

Ryder watched him lean over the screen, hands moving expressively as he explained why certain angles would work best for different times or day, or why something called golden hour would really ramp up the emotive quality of… Ryder shook his head. It was a lot of fast, creative, and chaotic information, and he wasn’t keeping up at all. He knew one thing, though. Lucas’s enthusiasm was endearing.

“I’m still asking around. I have two volunteers for sure, but I’ll work on getting more.”

Smirking with those delicious pink lips, Lucas leaned forward and tilted his head. “And you, of course. I can’t wait to take pictures of you.”

Ryder gave him a flat look, fighting the urge to smile with everything he had.

Lucas burst out laughing. “You’re fun to tease,” he said.

“The fun works for a very limited audience,” Ryder muttered. Flirting was dangerous. Friendly was manageable, but keeping things professional would be easier. If he met Lucas at a club, he’d hit on him, hook up, and move on like he usually did. He couldn’t let sex get involved when he had to work with him on this calendar project. It would make things complicated, and he didn’t have time or energy for that… no matter how much the smile on those pink lips made him want to.

When their eyes met that time, whatever dark gleam Lucas tried to hide before had disappeared. “Well,” he said quietly, “Lucky me.”

***

A few days later, Ryder stood outside a small ranch house where an electric heater had charred some of the curtains. The fire department put things out quickly, and no one got injured. Ryder and his ambulance partner, Eva, were on standby just in case anyone started coughing up smoke or tripped on their way out of the house.