Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Giddy pleasure shot straight down to her toes. “I used a beach waver . . .” You’re being had. “Hey, you’re just trying to distract me from the fact that you’re ambushing this poor guy.”
“Poor guy, Chloe?” Sig snorted. “That’s a bichon frise.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” half shouted Elton. “Whatever. You think baseball is so easy, why don’t we have a little matchup?” Elton stepped toe-to-toe with Corrigan. “Your team versus mine.”
Mailer and Corrigan fist-bumped. “Done, son. Name the place and time.”
“Oh, my goodness,” Chloe burst out, throwing up her hands. “This is exactly like the Sandlot, except you’re full-grown men, so it’s not a rite of passage, it’s just toxic behavior.” She shook her head at the man in front of her. “And in front of Pierre, too, Sig. You’re setting a bad example.”
Elton craned his neck to smile at Chloe. “You like the Sandlot?”
“You’re finished speaking to her,” Sig growled, sidestepping again to block Elton’s view. “Consider yourself lucky you were allowed to do it once.”
“Allowed?” Chloe sputtered.
“Yeah,” Corrigan piped up. “We didn’t even get one shot.”
“Okay, I think I’m done here. Pierre!” She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled, but the bulldog only sunk deeper into the grass, forcing Chloe to march over to the grassy patch near the water fountain and hook the leash to Pierre’s collar. “Seriously, Pierre? You barfed this morning when a pigeon landed on the fire escape, but you managed to keep your breakfast down around all this male posturing? That’s called selective barfing.”
She snapped the leash into place and the sound must have rattled something to life inside of the bulldog, because he rolled to his feet and snarfed, apparently as ready to go home as Chloe. She sent the group of men one final, disappointed look, then let herself out of the rear gate so she wouldn’t have to wade through all their egos by leaving through the front.
They’d only made it about a block when she sensed Sig trailing behind her.
“Chloe.”
She made sure he heard her gasp. “Don’t say my name.”
“Ah, come on. It’s my favorite word.” Silence fell as she walked faster, shocked when Pierre matched her speed. “I hate when you’re mad at me.”
“Good.”
“Chloe.”
“No.”
“What are you saying ‘no’ to?”
“Your presumed ownership over me. If I want to give a man my number, I’m allowed to do that. We agreed to see other people—”
“No, we didn’t.”
“—because our relationship is complicated and that’s all it will ever be.” Chloe’s building was only a block away now and she couldn’t wait to get inside, slam the door, and scream at the ceiling. On behalf of her confused heart, battered hormones, and womankind for having to exist in the same universe as hockey players. Who she actually really loved, but God. What gave them the right to swoop in like that and treat her like a piece of property? “I don’t want to talk to you anymore, Sig!” she shouted over her shoulder.
Pierre yipped and she gave him a grateful look for being the goodest boy/hype man.
“What? You don’t want to talk to me ever again?” Sig shouted back. “I just saved you from a baseball player.”
“I don’t need saving. And I didn’t say I never wanted to talk to you again forever. I just meant, I don’t know . . . until next week, at least.”
He caught up with her at the door of the building, pressing his hand to the glass and nuzzling his mouth against her neck. “No. A week without you will feel like forever, Chlo.”
Need slipped down the sides of her belly like hot oil. “What are we doing here, Sig? What are we doing?”
Several heavy seconds passed while he acknowledged the meaning behind her words. They were trapped in this crazy cycle of not being together, while also being totally committed—but not having him in all ways was not a sustainable place to be.
Couldn’t he feel that?
Instead of answering Chloe’s question—what are we doing?—Sig let them into the vestibule, taking his own set of keys out of the pocket of his sweatpants and unlocking the main building. He appeared to be chewing on leather as he escorted her up the stairs, Pierre clicking happily in front of them, probably hoping there would be food provided once they were inside.
Somehow, though, Chloe knew something else was going to happen.
Maybe it was the rough set of Sig’s jaw.
Or the uneven sound of his breathing.
Whatever tipped her off, she still was not expecting to be pressed up against the door as soon as they were inside the apartment, pinned there by Sig’s body. She couldn’t explain what happened inside of her at that sudden, hard press of tense muscle and the blast of intention from the man who usually held back so stubbornly. But her nervous system started to clamor, her pulse rocketing to a thousand miles an hour, the world’s most telling moan sailing out of her mouth. Her fingers shook and snatched for an anchor, finding one in the thighs of his sweatpants, fisting in the soft material and pulling him closer.