by Emma Shortt
“When?”
“In my mid-twenties,” Chance said. “It was a work thing.”
“As a PI?”
“No. I was doing something else then.”
“What?” she demanded.
He shrugged. “I was working as a server.”
“In a restaurant?”
“Yeah.”
He pulled open one of the dishes. It was rice. Not just any rice, though. It was molded into Luna, the Sailor Moon cat. Meg let out a little squeak. She’d only ever seen these things online.
“How did you get them to do that?”
“I’m a good customer,” Chance said.
Meg grabbed her Android, snapped several pics, and immediately messaged them to Kate. A message came through a few seconds later of multiple question marks. Chance looked down at the screen.
“You’re close with Kate, right?” he asked.
“She’s my very best friend.”
“You’ve known each other for a long time?”
“Since college,” Meg said. “We just connected, I guess. Kate lost her parents really early on and that brought us even closer together.”
“Kate owns KIT?”
“Yep.”
“You didn’t go in together as partners?”
“Kate wanted to,” Meg said. “But I didn’t want to own a business. I knew that I couldn’t give it the time and dedication it deserved. I was too busy with my research. Kate offered me a job instead, and that worked out fine.”
“Tell me about what it was like to do a PhD,” Chance said, and Meg jumped right in and did just that. It was only after a about twenty minutes that she realized she’d pretty much given Chance a summary of her years as a student, and that was not what she had planned to do tonight. She wanted to know about him.
“Did you go to college?” she asked.
Chance placed his chopsticks on the table and picked up his wineglass. He fiddled with the stem. Meg got the impression he was playing for time. She realized why a moment later, and her heart gave a squeeze. Working as a server in his twenties? A PI in his thirties? Neither of those jobs required a college degree or much in the way of qualifications at all. For all she knew, Chance might only have finished high school. Was he embarrassed about that? Meg wanted to tell him that there was no need to be. Qualifications were not the be all and end all of life. She’d met plenty of people over the years who were super smart but just didn’t take to the school system.
“I dropped out,” he eventually said.
Meg’s heart gave another squeeze. “When did you become a PI?”
“Not that long ago.”
“Why?”
“It seemed like something I might be good at.”
“And is it?”
“I like puzzles,” Chance said. “I like solving them. Sometimes I think I’ve spent most of my life doing that.”
“You’d be great at programming, then,” Meg said. “That’s all it really is, in the end—solving puzzles.” She paused. “I could teach you the basics, if you like. It might give you some insight into this case.”
Chance shot her a look. “The basics?”
“It’s not super hard once you know the rules,” Meg said. “I hold classes all the time on the basics of the main programming languages.”
“Are you a mathematician or a computer programmer, Blue?” he asked.
“There’s not a lot of difference,” Meg replied. “Not to my mind at least.”
“Both are difficult.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “but not that difficult. I could totally teach you. And then, maybe in return, you could teach me about how you approach a case, how you string the evidence together, how you identify your suspects, that sort of thing.”
Chance placed his glass back on the table. He reached out his hand and took hers. A shiver ran up Meg’s arm. Their eyes met. That intensity was back in Chance’s eyes. It made him look all kinds of dark and dangerous. Was it any wonder that she responded to it?
“It would take weeks,” he finally said.
The shiver continued through the rest of her body. “Weeks?”
“To teach you how to become a PI.”
Meg took a deep breath. She hadn’t intended to ask this question tonight. Not after only a week. But she didn’t see that there was any way around it, and not least because she hated uncertainty. It was one of the reasons that she was so keen on mathematics. There was little in the way of uncertainty there, not until you got into the really theoretical stuff.
“Do we have weeks?”
Chance squeezed her hand. A moment later and he came around the table and pulled her up and into his arms. He lowered his head and kissed her. The shiver became more intense. Meg wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with all the desire that was now thrumming through her body.
“I would like us to have weeks,” Chance said when they eventually pulled apart.
“So would I,” Meg said.
Chance lowered his head and placed little kisses against Meg’s neck, right from the point below her ear all the way to where her shoulder started. The sensations made her tingle.
“I don’t know if weeks would be enough time to do all the things I want to do with you, though,” Chance whispered.
“Things?”
“Stuff,” Chance said as his hands trailed down to her shorts.
Meg closed her eyes. She was sore from the night before, from the afternoon, too, but she knew just how Chance could make her feel better, and it absolutely did involve those lips. “We have the entire weekend to get started,” she said.
“There’s no time like the present.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The next morning Chance headed back to his apartment while Meg was still asleep. He checked his messages, changed into sweats, a tee, and sneakers, and picked them up bagels and coffee. The sleepy smile on her face when she greeted him at her apartment door brightened Chance’s day in a way that both delighted and terrified him.
Meg insisted on eating breakfast on the couch. She curled up against him as she ate her bagel and sipped her latte. Chance wrapped his arm around her. There was no denying how good she felt there or how good she had felt with her head on his chest all night. Chance suspected he could easily become addicted to having Meg in his arms. It had to be something to do with how soft and warm she felt. Or maybe the way that his skin seemed to hum when she pressed against him—which made no sense! Chance knew of no biochemical reaction that would cause his skin to behave in that way.
Chance had mentally reviewed his research on the drive to his apartment. He’d considered all the aspects of attraction that he’d learned about. By the time he was sitting at his desk checking his messages, Chance had realized there was a fatal flaw in his research. He hadn’t reviewed what happened after that attraction was realized and acted upon. He was in unknown territory now, and he did not have time to undertake a second literature review, not with Meg waiting at her apartment for him.
Chance told himself that was why he was so nervous as Meg wrapped her arm around him. It had nothing to do with the elephant in the room. Nothing to do with the lies and the secrets and all the things that would have to come to light at some point. But Chance had never been very good at fooling himself. Being with Meg hadn’t changed that.
“Have you played the new version of Crash?” Meg asked as she scrunched her bagel wrapper and aimed it at the trash can in the kitchen. She missed.
It wasn’t Chance’s sort of game. “Nope.”
“Would you like to?”
How could he refuse her anything that led to them spending more time together? Especially as he didn’t know how much time they had. “Sure.”
The morning passed that way. Chance was not very good at the game in the beginning. He’d never played it before. An hour later and he was well on his way to completing it.
“Dammit, Chance,” Meg snapped. “I’ve been playing this for weeks.”
�
�It’s all in the wrist action,” Chance said.
She shook her head. “You really want to go there?”
He dropped a kiss on her open lips. “Always.”
She pushed him away and grabbed the controller. “I have to get past Sunset Vista. It’s going to drive me mad otherwise.”
Chance settled back to watch her. She was so damn pretty. There was nothing about her that Chance didn’t find to be so. Her hair, her face, her body. If Chance had been asked to draw his perfect woman at any point in his life, it would have been Meg. The fact that she was super smart? That she shared almost all the same interests as him? That was more than Chance could have ever imagined.
Of course, she didn’t know they shared the same interests. She didn’t know that Chance had many of the same books as her on his bookcases. That he had many of the same PS4 games that she did. That he would happily sit and code all day long with her. That solving a math problem together would delight him.
When would he ever be able to tell her this stuff?
What would she say when he did?
He closed his eyes. Guilt slithered through him. It felt wrong surrounded by the other emotions that Meg made him feel.
“Did you hear back from the other developer?” Meg asked.
Chance snapped his eyes open. “Interview is set for tomorrow afternoon.”
“They couldn’t meet today?”
They could have. They were ready to meet immediately. But, and Chance knew it was wrong, he didn’t want this weekend to be clouded by the X-Tech fuck-up. How ridiculous was that? X-Tech was what had brought them together. It was going to decide the course of their entire time together. Hell, it had been the thing that had decided the course of Chance’s entire life.
“Nope.”
What was one more lie to add on to all the others? He almost winced.
“You look twitchy, Chance,” Meg said. “What’s wrong?”
Suddenly, Chance felt twitchy. He stretched his legs out. His body ached but not in the way that it usually did. “It’s nothing.”
“Chance…”
How many hours had they spent in bed? How many positions had they tried in an effort to discover if, in Meg’s words, Chance really was good in tough positions? Still, Chance was used to a different kind of exercise.
“I need a workout,” he eventually said.
Meg swiveled around to look at him. “I knew it!” she said. “You’re one of those people addicted to exercise.”
“Not addicted.”
“You totally are.”
“Blue…”
She dropped the game pad and reached out to wrap her hand around his upper arm. It got maybe halfway. “I discussed this with Kate. We both agreed that someone who looks like you do would have to spend almost every day in the gym.”
“Someone who looks like I do?”
“You’re really ripped and toned, Chance,” Meg said, and there was an approving note to her voice that Chance loved.
“I didn’t used to be,” he said. “When I was younger I was a skinny, spotty thing. Lived on soda and pizza. It took an effort to change my lifestyle. I hated it in the beginning. I puked more than once when I started running. I think my body was in shock. It wasn’t used to doing anything beyond sitting at a computer.”
“A computer?”
Chance gritted his teeth. Be careful! “Or on the couch. Watching TV. That sort of thing.”
Meg gave him an appraising sort of look. Chance almost held his breath. “You stuck with it, though,” she said, and he exhaled slowly.
“I wanted to be…” He paused. “Different, I guess.”
Meg trailed her hand to his chest and downward to his stomach. “I can give you a workout, Chance.”
“I need harder cardio than that.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” he said. He took her hand and pulled her up. “Let’s go for a run.”
The look on Meg’s face said plenty about what she thought of that idea. “A run?”
“We can head down to the harborside,” he said.
“That’s three miles away.”
“We can do that in twenty minutes.”
“You can do it in twenty minutes.”
“I’ll coach you,” Chance said.
Meg shook her head. “Chance, I have never been any good at running. I’ve never been good at exercise full stop. Why do you think I look like this?”
“You’re perfect,” Chance said quickly.
“I agree,” Meg said. “But I’m not lean and toned. I never have been. My parents are fitness addicts. They do something every single day. Do you know how many hikes I got dragged on as a kid? Every Christmas we started the day with an hour’s trek up the mountain. I hated it.”
What would Meg’s parents think of him? What would his think of Meg? Chance frowned. He wasn’t sure where his folks even were. He’d bought them world-traveler air tickets a decade ago, and they hadn’t stopped traveling since. The last time he’d Skyped them they’d been somewhere in India. They’d probably love Meg. How could they not? She was so open and friendly. She’d be a surprise to them, too. Like Chance, his parents had probably doubted his ability to attract someone like her.
“We can do something else, then,” Chance said.
She squeezed his hand. “I don’t mind if you want to head off and pump some iron for a couple of hours.”
“Is that a polite way of asking me to leave?” Chance asked.
Meg’s response was immediate. “No, Chance,” she said. “I’d like you to stay. I’d be happy if you stayed the rest of the day and night.”
“I’d like that, too.”
“But you need your workout,” she said with a sigh. “Okay, fine, let me get into some sporting gear.”
Chance started. “You’ll come?”
“I’ll walk,” she said. “And expect a lemon cake on the flipside.”
She headed off into the bedroom, stripping her clothes as she went. Her ass really was perfect. Chance’s hands clenched with a desire to grab ahold of it. She opened a drawer and pulled out a pile of multicolored active wear.
Chance shook his head. “You have a drawer full of workout gear?”
“I like the way it looks,” she said.
She pulled on the tiniest shorts and sports bra Chance had ever seen. He could see the tops and bottoms of her inkings, and they weren’t that big. He inhaled sharply even as his cock hardened. Was she planning to go out dressed like that?
“Blue…”
“Hold up.” She fished a vest out of the pile. “Mom gave me this. It’s from a half marathon she did. Very runner-esque.”
She pulled the vest on. Chance exhaled. He willed his cock to soften. They couldn’t spend the entire weekend in bed!
“I have sneakers here somewhere,” she said.
She bent over. Chance’s body reacted to that sight in the exact way he knew it would.
“Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go!”
He nodded even as the desire to drop her onto the bed, rip those shorts aside, and bury himself inside of her almost overwhelmed him.
“We’ll go slow,” he said.
“We’ll be walking,” she replied. “It’ll take hours.”
It didn’t. The moment they hit the sidewalk Meg’s competitive streak set in. Chance had suspected that it would. She shot him a look over her shoulder before running off at top speed, her blue hair bobbing in her wake. Chance jogged behind her, admiring her ass as he did so. He caught up with her a few minutes later.
“You okay?”
“Fine,” she gasped. “Just fine!”
That set the pace for the next ten minutes. Meg shot off. She stopped. She gasped. She shot off again. Chance tried to slow her down. Tried to work on her technique. She did not let him. By the time they made it to the harborside, Chance was nicely warmed up. Meg was bent over gasping.
“Oh. My. God. Never again.”
“You did brilliantly,” Chance said
. “Technique needs some work but—”
“Is my face bright red?” she demanded, straightening up. “It’s bright red, isn’t it?”
“It’s cute.”
“Not with blue hair it isn’t,” she gasped. “If we’re going to do this with any regularity, I’m going to have to switch hair colors.”
“Are we going to do this regularly, Blue?” Chance asked, and he meant it to be something flippant, something humorous, but it didn’t come out that way at all.
She started to reach out with her damp hand, changing her mind at the last minute. Chance smiled as he grabbed ahold of it, entwining their damp fingers before lifting them to his lips and placing a sloppy kiss on them.
“Gross,” she whispered, even as she squeezed his hand back. Chance swore that his heart missed a beat.
She smiled up at him. She really was red-faced. Chance thought that she had never looked so pretty.
“You know, Chance,” she said after a moment. “I kind of think we are.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chance dropped Meg off at work early Monday morning. She gave him a long, lingering kiss outside the doors of KIT before heading in to find Kate already there, hands flying furiously over her keyboard.
Meg walked—some might say hobbled—straight over to her friend, dropped her satchel on the table where her flowers were wilting, and announced, “I have gossip!”
Kate looked up immediately. “Spill.”
Meg did. She spent most of the morning giving Kate an in-depth account of the weekend. She pulled up the pictures she’d taken of the rice Luna, the harborside, and Chance sitting on her couch looking all kinds of attractive. She described their run, stretching her aching legs out as she did so. They went over the conversations she’d had. The questions Chance had answered and those that he hadn’t. They checked the forums. Posted some new questions. They even reverse Googled the image Meg had snapped of Chance. It didn’t bring back any matches.
By the time Meg met Chance later that morning for their next interview, she was no closer to figuring out what the hell was going on, but part of her was finding it really hard to care. That was what a weekend of sex and affection did. She was well aware of that. It had been bad enough when she was simply lusting after him, but now that she knew what it was like to feel his lips on hers, to have his hands running up and down her body, well, there was no denying that her judgment was completely shot to shit.
