Page 61 of Chips & Checks
“I’m not worried about Eric!” I lean over her so that she has to meet my gaze. “I mean, that’s smart, but it’s also a Band-Aid. This is getting out of hand.”
“Nothing surprises me anymore,” she says.
“Did you tell anyone about the fact that he went to your place the other night?”
“I emailed Renee.” Violet holds up her phone and waggles it back and forth. “I’m documenting everything, remember?”
“I’m still worried about how desperate he is to spend time with you. Want me to come with you? I could hang out in the room… ice bath or something.”
Violet grins up at me. “Now,who’s desperate to spend time with me?”
I purse my lips, and not just because Violet’s avoiding the topic again. Truth be told, she’s maybe a little tiny bit correct. Idowant to spend more time with her, though I’d rather do so at dinner or a show than while icing my balls in the therapy room.
Violet’s smile fades as the silence stretches on. “Would you really do that for me?”
Thank God, it looks like she’s taken my silence as a rebuke rather than an admission of infatuation. “Don’t act so shocked. You know I would. Who else would I volunteer to shrivel my junk for?”
She laughs, and the way every cell in my body lights up at her joy is breathtaking. She was miserable a second ago, and now she’s smiling.Idid that.
“I’m touched. And just for that, maybe I’ll touch you later.” She reaches up to pat my cheek, then sits up, forcing me to move backward out of her way. “For now, I think I should go alone, considering I heard you threatening to give him a head injury. But I promise I’ll get Eric to come in early. Even if I can’t have Chad reassigned, I can make sure I’m not left alone in a room with him.”
My hands ball into fists around the sheets. None of this is fair. If Dante was a real fucking man, he’d make sure that everyone who works for him feels safe on the job. Then again, that’s probably not fair. I doubt Dante even knows about this yet with the investigation ongoing.
I sit back against the headboard. “Fine, but I’m a phone call away. A text.”
“Stop before you offer up a carrier pigeon.” Violet snaps on her bra, and my day gets five percent worse.
“I’m fresh out of pigeons,” I say. “Maybe I can send a sweet-ass delivery hawk? Is that a thing?”
“I think people have trained rats to carry messages.”
“I am not sending you arat.”
She laughs again. “Wouldn’t I be the one sendingyouthe rat?”
“No rats,” I insist. “I have unresolved rat-related trauma from my childhood.”
Violet raises her eyebrows. “Do tell?”
“The class pet bit me when I was in second grade.” I hold up one finger as evidence. “I still have the scar.”
“Poor baby.” Violet leans forward to kiss my fingertip. I shiver at the press of her lips to my skin, and my groin tightens beneath the blankets. She wiggles her eyebrows and licks my finger, guiding it into her mouth.
I could go right now, but Violet pulls away a moment later, her hair tumbling around her shoulders. “I need to go home and take a shower. See you at the arena.”
“Uh-huh.” I keep my finger extended with my eyes glazed over, still hot for Violet until the bloodflow resumes its normal course, and my upstairs brain processes that she’s leaving. I rocket out of bed and pull on a pair of sweats. “I can drive you back…”
“I’m fine,” Violet promises. “I’m practically next door.”
“I could make you breakfast?”
Violet blows me a kiss. “Needy, much? I’ve got this handled, Bowen. I’m okay.”
Damn, Idosound needy. I’m only trying to protect her from Chad, but I can see, from a certain angle, how my altruism might be taken for desperation. I walk her to the door and kiss her temple before she leaves. I want to go with her. Ishouldgo with her.
But I’ve broken too many rules already, and she’s now made multiple comments about how I’m not respecting the boundaries of our… friendship? Situationship? Neither of those adequately describe what’s going on for me, as far as feelings are concerned. But Violet doesn’t date guys like me, and I don’t date atall, so what are we even doing here?
This is a big deal. Too big to process on my own, but too personal to process with any of my teammates. It’s time to call out the big guns.
