Page 72 of Sugarlips
“That happy to see me, huh?” he said, his voice dry and emotionless. That was Dan for you. I slid a quick glance at my face reflected back to me in the hallway mirror and quickly dropped the ruse. My “smile,” if you could call it that, was basically a sneer. Not that he didn’t deserve it.
I observed my ex closely, taking inventory of his thick, dark brown hair that was trimmed neatly and fell in a straight line to his collar. Well-groomed, clean, and tidy. Handsome… but not the kind of guy you wanted to tear the necktie off and ravage.
Basically, my libido gave a lazy yawn.
“What do you want, Dan?” I glared at him. Since we were dropping the pretenses, I had no need to keep pretending I was anything but annoyed to see him here at our—or rather,myhouse.
He rolled his dark brown eyes as I glared harder and pointed out the obvious. “It’s 8:00 a.m. … a bit early for a house call, wouldn’t you say?”
His shoulders slumped with a sigh and damn if he didn’t look defeated. “I have an early filling at the office and wanted to come by for my chair.”
My brows quirked. “You’re going to take your chairnow?” I glanced behind him to see if he’d brought anyone to help, but it was just Dan. “Alone?”
The chair was not only heavy, but also awkward to lift, especially with only one person. I should know… I tried to heave that thing out of my house the day after I took a knife to it. Unsuccessfully. But after a few days, I’d grown to enjoy the presence of it, sitting there in the center of my room like a defaced statue; a warning to men everywhere what can happen to their precious leather massage chair if you fuck with Chloe Dyker.
“I got it in the house alone,” he said.
I snorted. “Hardly. You needed my help getting it in and out of your truck.”
“Your help? Chloe…” He chuckled and shook his head. “If I remember, you’d just had a manicure and the most you did was help me hoist it off the truck bed and balance it on the dolly.”
“Well once it’s on the dolly, you don’t actuallyneedhelp, do you?”
Another sigh. Dan sighed a lot, I noticed—at least he did when he was around me. Liam didn’t sigh like that. Not in a way that suggested I was exhausting.
Dan tugged the metal dolly into view from where it was leaning on my stoop. “Don’t worry. I brought reinforcements.”
I stepped to the side, allowing him to enter, and shut the door behind him. “It’s right where you left it.”
He paused as we walked through the kitchen and his brows creased in the center of his face. “Are youcooking?”
“Yep,” I said, popping the ‘P’ at the end of the word, and set the coffees onto the counter. “Birds in a nest.”
“It doesn’t smell burnt,” he said, shock written across his face.
I could have been insulted, but it was no great secret that I sucked at cooking. “Yeah, yeah. Chloe Dyker learned to fry an egg.” I waved a dismissive hand through the air and guided him toward the TV room. Only, he didn’t follow me. His gaze was locked onto the plate of cookies I had made last night for practice. Even though it was my night off, I wanted to try to bake them all on my own without Liam’s help.
“And… youbake.” Again, with the incredulous tone. I should be insulted.
“Well, yeah. YouknowI own a food truck, right?”
He paused and ran his hand through his neatly combed hair. “Yeah. I guess I just thought you were… I don’t know… less hands on.”
“Well, let me show you how hands on I’ve been lately.” Especially when it came to his damn chair. He finally followed me into the TV room, where his chair still sat right where he’d left it two and a half months ago.
God, I was going to enjoy this. A blanket draped over the damage, and with an inward smile, I tugged it free, revealing the stabbed and broken leather and fluff that was spilling out like guts.
“What the—goddammit, Chloe!” Dan cried. “This chair wasexpensive.”
“I know.” I said simply. “But so was our wedding and I’m not really getting a refund onthat.”
“So you took it out on mychair?” He gaped at the wreckage, jaw slack, and I braced myself for the wrath of Dan; the explosive yelling and the expletives from his sailor mouth that I knew would come.
Oh, he may look like a prep-student, goody-two-shoes, but that man had a temper and a mouth on him.
But instead of yelling, his scowl slipped into a smile. Then a chuckle. Then the chuckle developed into laughter that shook his shoulders as he lifted his hand to his eyes and rubbed at the weary lines.
Taken aback, I didn’t know what to do. The way he laughed with wild abandon was bizarrely incongruous with his normally rigid demeanor.
