Summer reached across to squeeze Chloe’s hand tightly, flashing a wan smile. “Okay.”
With a deep breath, Chloe shook off the moment and said, “Before I forget, we have to take a picture for my mom.”
“Of course we do.” There was only a small sigh behind Summer’s words. Hardly noticeable at all. “Can we do a selfie? I hate when the waitress takes it and cuts off the top of my head.”
They’d returned to the normalcy of whining and teasing. Chloe couldn’t be more relieved. “Oops. Did I somehow forget to tell you after all these years about your scarily pointy and big head? ’Cause I meant to. Lots of times.”
“I’ll give you a pointy head,” Summer threatened, using her napkin to thwack the top of Chloe’s head. They both burst into giggles. Until Summer gasped. “Oh my God, don’t look!”
“Don’t look at what?” Chloe twisted in her seat, which earned her another whip-like tap of the napkin, this time catching her neck. “Ow.”
“I told you not to look. It’s him.”
“Summer, for God’s sake, we’re a block from the White House. You could be talking about the president, or the barista who put extra caramel on your latte last week.”
“It’s that super-sexy pilot. The one who rescued the sailboat. He’s coming our way. If I drop to the floor and pretend to faint, do you think he’d stop and do mouth-to-mouth?”
Chloe twisted in her seat, almost upsetting the table with her knee. She made a wild grab to catch the china pot as it skittered to the edge. Of course, she didn’t grab it by the handle, so it burned her palms and she let go with a swallowed shriek. When she tossed back her hair and looked up, Griffin’s eyes locked on to hers. Surprise washed across his face.
“Don’t bother,” she murmured to Summer. “I’ve got dibs on this one.”
He wore jeans. A white polo shirt, tucked in and belted, so although the outfit was casual, Griffin still wore the clothes with an air of tidy uniformity. Guess you could take the lieutenant out of his plane, but not the pressed and proper officer out of the man. Under one arm he carried a laptop like a football. His blond hair was ruffled from the gusty April wind. Sexy ruffled. The way Chloe imagined it would look if she got to run her fingers through it.
“Just because you got hit on once this week, you think you’ve got more of a shot than I do?” Summer pulled the band off her ponytail and shook out her long brown hair. “Huh-uh. This one is too cute to let you call dibs. I say we let him decide.”
Chloe wiped her hands on her napkin. Pressed her lips together to keep a smug smile from popping out. “Fine.”
Griffin stopped right in front of their table. Beamed at her with eyes alight with focused heat like a Bunsen burner. “My day just took a hard one-eighty in the right direction. It’s great to see you, Chloe.”
“Nice to see you again, too, Griff.” Chloe angled herself toward Summer. “Lieutenant Griffin Montgomery, this is my best friend, Summer Sheridan.”
“Hi.” Griffin shook her hand politely, but dropped it pretty darn fast to turn his attention back to Chloe. He propped the computer next to her chair and grabbed her hand. “I’ve been stalking that coffee shop for you for two days. Where have you been?”
He’d been trying to find her? That was all kinds of gratifying. Almost as nice as it was to have his big, warm hand wrapped around hers. Chloe felt a callus at the base of his fingers. Wondered if it was from the throttle/wheel/whatever he held to control a helicopter. Wondered what that roughness would feel like against other, more sensitive parts of her.
Before she could answer his question, Summer scooted forward. “This is the guy? Why didn’t you mention that a famous hero is the guy with the great ass who hit on you?”
Griff’s eyebrows, about five shades darker than his hair, winged upward. “You like my ass?” His dimple winked into view. Chloe didn’t think it was calculated this time. Griffin seemed genuinely tickled by the cheeky compliment.
It suddenly didn’t matter that the little girls at the next table could very well be hanging on their every word. All that mattered was that the super-sexy man who’d been interested in her was back. She’d be an idiot not to flirt with him.
“What’s not to like about your ass?”
“Right back at ya.”
“Chloe,” Summer hissed, “why didn’t you tell me he was famous?” The vertical crinkle on her forehead indicated just how miffed she was at being denied the information.
“I was getting there. We haven’t even touched our scones yet,” Chloe pointed out. No cloak and dagger reason. Honestly, Griffin’s notoriety was the lowest tidbit on the scale of what attracted her to him.
With a slight increase of pressure on her palm, Griffin redirected her attention. “When I had to leave on Monday, I looked for you to say goodbye, but you’d disappeared.”
So he had looked for her. It was what Chloe had hoped. “Sorry about that. I walked around the corner to get away from the man smoking at the entrance.”
“You told me you worked most days at Busboys and Poets, but you didn’t come back.” Griffin lightly rubbed his thumb over the top of her hand. It raced chills up her arm until Chloe was positive the goosebumps must be visible. Or should she call them lust bumps?
“I don’t punch a time clock there or anything. The last two days were full of, um, appointments.” Chloe certainly didn’t intend to explain to Griffin that she’d blocked one morning out for her yearly gyno checkup and the other to wait for the delivery of a bigger television. Yes, guys appreciated the more-is-better way of looking at TVs. But Chloe had upgraded it solely to watch all the Highland glory of Outlander in HD. Probably a phenomenon appreciated only by women.
“And I couldn’t find your business online,” he continued with a frown. “How do you keep a business going if you’re not Google-able?”
Another rush of pleasure that he’d searched for her. “Since I work out of my home, I don’t attach my name to my website. But I’ve definitely got one—MyScribe.com.”
That earned her an approving nod. “It sounds like an app. Clever.”
“Thanks.” Chloe liked that he got it. She’d worked hard to combine the modern edge of an app with an old-school word that would appeal to a more mature demographic.
Summer rattled the sugar tongs against the china. Clattered her spoon in the saucer. Then clanked her knife as she scooped cherry jam onto her scone. Chloe suspected Summer didn’t mind not catching Griffin’s eye. Her friend just didn’t like being ignored. “Why’s a famous pilot crashing afternoon tea?”
“The walls were closing in on me. I came out to shake some thoughts loose. I’m headed to the World War II Memorial. It’s a good place to think. Just cutting through the Willard. Not trying to crash tea, trust me.” Finally letting go of Chloe’s hand, Griffin looked askance at the silver tray of tiny treats. “Those sandwiches would only be worthwhile if you stacked about ten of them together to make a mouthful.”
“See?” Summer lifted her cup in a toast to Griffin. “That’s exactly what I said. Although to be fair, by the time we finish all the desserts, we’re stuffed.”
Chloe picked up his laptop and set it on the table. Even though it wasn’t hers, it disquieted her, having it on the ground where it could be kicked or stepped on. “What sort of thoughts are you shaking loose?”
“I have to write a blog post.”
“The Coast Guard blogs?”
He jammed his thumbs into his front pockets. “Nah. My friends and I run one. Naked Men.”
Summer met Chloe’s startled gaze across the table and mirrored it. Rats. She should’ve known he was too good to be true. Was Griffin a stripper on the side? A nudist? “What sort of things do you write about on there?” Chloe asked cautiously. “The best way to get rid of preexisting tan lines?”
A hearty laugh rolled out of him. The kind of contagious laugh that invited everyone in the room to join in, even without knowing the joke. “Worried I’m a flasher?”
�
��Or worse,” Summer muttered under her breath.
“The idea is that we strip away the pretense, not our clothes. We don’t hide behind clichés or excuses—we just lay the reality of what it’s like to be a man today out on the table.”
Summer snorted. “Men being open about themselves? That’s hard to believe.”
“It’s going to sound way more high-minded than it ought to, but my friend Riley claims we ‘strip ourselves bare emotionally.’ ” Griffin made air quotes with his fingers and a grimace with his lips. “Of course, when he says that, we give him shit.”
“What is this—a group therapy assignment?” Chloe teased. It was hard to picture a bunch of undoubtedly alpha males, if they were anything like Griffin, sharing their feelings with the world for the good of mankind.
Something happened behind his eyes. A shuttering? A reset? Chloe wasn’t sure. She could just tell that whatever he was about to say wouldn’t be the entire story.
“The five of us—Knox, Riley, Josh, Logan, and me—were super tight in high school. Splitting up for college was”—he shifted from one foot to the other; then his gaze veered to the golden swirls on the carpet—“rough.”
Not exactly a breaking news flash. That was gender universal for all freshmen. Which cemented her belief that Griffin was holding something back. In a sympathetic tone, Chloe said, “Everyone goes through a transitional hump. I think my right hand locked into the shape of a phone for the first few months, I called my brother, David, so often.”
“Guys don’t spend hours on the phone like girls do. So we opened up a group blog and just started posting to one another.”
“About what—how much you all missed going on field trips together?” Summer scoffed.
A quick smile flashed across his face, and then was gone. “The first blog was about laundry.”
One of the moms at the next table snickered. Chloe twisted the gold circlet of leaves on her index finger. “You’re seriously outside the realm of believability here, Griffin.”
He dropped into a squat. “You know how people leave their stuff in a dorm washing machine and don’t come back for hours? So eventually you take it out and throw your own stuff in?”
Still not believable as a blog post. Chloe got a warm and fuzzy over a bunch of boy BFFs trying to stay in touch, but she needed it to ring true. “Yeeeeees?”
“Well, when a guy does that and gets caught holding a girl’s wet pink panties, stuff happens. Screaming. Accusations. The throwing of all of his laundry onto the floor.”
Chloe covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, no.” Easy to believe, now that he’d painted the word picture.
“Suddenly the guy’s labeled the dorm pervert for just trying to get his sheets washed. Josh was pissed. Embarrassed. And he knew he couldn’t be the first guy this ever happened to. So he wrote the blog, and we opened it up for comments and advice from us—and from whoever was out there on the web. That was the start of Naked Men.”
“How many years ago was that?”
“Ten. At first it was just people we knew checking in every week. We still can’t figure out where all the followers came from, but after year three, the numbers jumped.” Griffin hunched a shoulder forward. “It kind of took on a life of its own after that. We alternate who posts. But I…well, I pissed them all off, so I have to push out an extra post this week.”
The hot, sexy officer who saved people for a living also wrote? No one was that perfect. He must have six toes on one foot. A terminal disease. A fiancée. Chloe surreptitiously looked down at his left hand to be sure she hadn’t missed a wedding ring. Nope.
She picked up her cup. Sipped slowly. Looked at him over the rim of it. “You know I’ll go home and find that blog. If you’ve got any secrets in those old posts, you have about two hours to delete them.”
Griffin winced. “Believe me, my life’s an open book.” Then he took her hand again. “I didn’t try to track you down for two days to hide anything. I felt like I missed out on the start of something good by not getting to have coffee with you.”
“Me too,” she breathed. Whoops. That came out entirely too eager. Chloe tossed her head. Trying to project a brash challenge, she said, “What are you going to do about it?”
“Look, I don’t want to intrude on your whole girls-gone-wild afternoon.”
“Good,” piped in Summer.
He skimmed his palm up and down Chloe’s forearm. “I want to take you on a date.”
And she very much wanted to go. But Chloe wouldn’t make it quite that easy. “Why? Because you’re still bored?”
“You’re still pretty—don’t forget that part.” Griffin stood. Hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “Technically, I’m just some stranger who walked into a coffee shop. But I’ve got proof in the form of the local news that I’m gainfully employed. Between your job and my blog, we’ve got the whole shared-interest thing going over writing. Every so often your reserve slips, and I see sparks. I want to find out what else is hiding under there. Hopefully that’s enough to convince you.”
Chloe tried not to jump when Summer kicked her under the table. Did she want to be consulted? Was she supposed to ask Griff to walk away ten steps while her best friend weighed in on his hotness and date-ability? “When?”
“How about tomorrow? I don’t want to wait to get to know you better.”
Griffin was saying all the right things. There was a good chance he was still bored and looking for a novel way to entertain himself. On the other hand, Chloe didn’t mind the idea of being his distraction. And Griffin, with his easy smile and muscles everywhere, looked like he had the potential to be an epically wonderful distraction.
Which meant there was equally huge potential for it to turn into an epic disaster if things got serious. But she’d pull a Scarlett O’Hara and think about it tomorrow. Like when she was icing the bruise on her calf from Summer kicking her, again.
Chloe looked up at the inarguably hottest guy who’d ever asked her out. Played it cool by crossing her legs with a subtle swing. Probably. As long as he couldn’t hear her pulse ka-thumping through her body. The beat felt strong enough to her that it should’ve been both visible and audible to everyone in the historic hallway.
“It’s a date.”
Chapter 5
“Are you an adrenaline junkie, Griffin?” Chloe didn’t look at him when she asked the question. No, her gaze was locked straight down on the sidewalk. Her teeth clenched together with the same intensity as her white knuckles around the hand grips on the Segway.
That grip weirdly hadn’t lessened during the twenty minutes of instruction on how to use the machine, or the last half hour slow-rolling it through the Vietnam, Lincoln, and Korean War Memorials. The only time she’d looked up had been when they came to a full stop at each memorial and dismounted to listen to their private tour guide’s spiel.
Griff was convinced he’d now be able to pick out the top of her head in the middle of an SRO D.C. United game. But he really wanted to see more of her eyes and that killer, swift smile, rather than the razor-straight part of her shiny brown hair.
“I’m a pilot. I go out into the weather that grounds everyone else. If I didn’t get a little thrill out of it, I wouldn’t have the balls to do it at all.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Her question—and her wordless response to his answer—had the classic earmarks of a dating pop quiz. One that he’d just failed. “Why?”
“Because only an adrenaline junkie would call this a fun first date.”
Wow. Chloe was dissing his date while still on it? Flameout. The kind of massive crash and burn when even a parachute couldn’t save you.
Griffin was torn. On the one hand, talk about prime blogging material being dropped in his lap. On the other, he’d worked hard to come up with the perfect activity for tonight. If Chloe wasn’t having fun, he’d screwed up. Worse yet, she wouldn’t give him a chance to redeem himself.
“We’re not zip-lining.” Although h
e’d considered it. “We’re not hang gliding.” Also on his initial list. “We’re on a glorified skateboard with handles. I get more juiced from adrenaline while zipping up my jeans.”
That got her to look at him. The Segway bobbled backward and forward as her head snapped up, then right back down. Then she came to a full and sudden stop, mouth agape. “You’re making a reference to going commando, aren’t you?”
Masterfully, he spun a tight three-sixty to stop beside her. Waved at the tour guide to keep his distance. “Yeah.” Not to flirt with her. Just because that’s how the conversation went.
“Are you nuts?” Dismounting, she leaned the machine against the bench facing the Tidal Basin. Tugged at the bottom of her two-shades-of-pink sweater. “I’m operating heavy machinery. A dangerous contraption that could easily snuff out the life of any pigeon who crosses my path.”
Griff barely bit back a laugh. Because she had to be kidding, right? “Let’s agree to disagree on the dangerous part.”
“My point is, now you’ve made me think about you naked. Because not wearing underwear is the same as being naked. Griffin, there’s not a woman in the District who wouldn’t steer right off the road at the mental image of you naked.” She waved the ends of her scarf—in a third shade of pink—at him for emphasis.
Chloe had just spit out more words about his lack of boxer briefs than she had on the entirety of their date. That boded well. He didn’t mind the topic one bit. In fact, he wanted to let the conversational line play out a bit more.
He stuck his thumbs in the waist of his jeans. Dipped his chin to look at her from beneath hooded lids. “Technically, when I go commando, I’m still wearing clothes.”
“Right.” Chloe scrubbed the heels of her hands over her eyes. “Try telling that to the stripped-down fantasy in my head.”
Risking It All Page 6
