KATE: Yeah, but paintball isn’t going to be nearly as delicious.
CHRISTOPHER: I disagree, at least, if you plan on being extra labially liberated.
KATE: I’M DELETING YOUR NUMBER. I BID YOU GOOD DAY SIR.
When Curtis comes in with next meeting’s notes, I’m still wiping away tears from laughing.
? TWENTY-THREE ?
Kate
I don’t have butterflies in my stomach. I don’t glance up every time someone enters the room, hoping it’s him.
Because I am not crushing on Christopher Petruchio.
I’m just possibly slightly affected by his kindness and care and friendly text messages the past few days. And my dreams the past few nights, which have possibly involved obscene moments in the kitchen that started off how we did and ended very differently. Me pressed back on a counter, hands I know so well, strong and beautiful, skating up my thighs, easing the ache between them. Hard, slow kisses turning my limbs loose, liquid gold.
“Everyone suited up?” Hank, the Peace, Love, and Paintball employee in charge of orientating our group, asks from the middle of the gear room as everyone trickles in from changing.
I crouch to retie my bootlaces, which don’t require retying, to hide the fact that my face has turned bright red as my thoughts wandered down Lusty Lane, and to avoid Bea’s eyes because my sister’s looking at me curiously, like maybe she has a guess as to what’s running through my head.
“This is an aggressively unflattering green on me.” Toni plucks at the hunter-green fabric of his coveralls.
“It is not,” Bea tells him. “You look cute as a cabbage.”
“Cabbage?” Toni sighs bleakly.
“That’s how you tell someone they’re cute in French,” Jamie explains. “Call them cabbage—chou.”
Toni bats his lashes. “Jamie. Stop it.”
Hamza laughs and hooks an arm around Toni’s neck, pulling him in for a kiss to his temple. “I already told you that you look cute.”
“You’re obligated to say that.” Toni pouts. “Plus, cute is nice, but I want to look sexy.”
“I got news for you,” I tell Toni, peering down at my own green coveralls as I stand. “None of us looks sexy in these getups.”
Which is of course when Christopher strides out of the changing room, looking sexy as hell in his green coverall paintball suit. I shouldn’t be surprised—the color complements the golden undertone in his skin, his amber eyes and dark locks. It’s obscene what happens to my body as I watch him rake back his hair and set a pair of goggles on his head.
Toni throws an accusatory hand Christopher’s way and says to me, “You’re really going to try to tell me you still stand by that statement?”
“Ready when you are,” Christopher says to Hank as he finishes doing the last few top buttons of his coveralls.
He stands beside me but doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t even acknowledge me.
It feels like a slap.
A sinking dread settles in my stomach. Maybe I got it all wrong. Maybe two nights ago didn’t mean to him what it meant to me. He’s trying to fix things, he said. Maybe that’s all the other night was, Christopher trying to “fix things,” doing it how he knows best—sweet-talking and flirting, hugging and making homemade pasta, promising a satisfying time in bed when I was clearheaded enough to know I really wanted it. That whole routine has to be as natural for him as breathing.
If that’s the case, if I’ve misread this so badly, I feel like a fool.
“Okay, folks!” Hank claps his hands as Margo and Sula join us in their green suits, goggles on their heads. “Welcome again to Peace, Love, and Paintball, the ultimate progressive paintball experience. The rules go like this: you and another team will—”
“Wait.” Jamie lifts a hand. “Sorry to interrupt. You said another team? We were hoping for a friendly time out there for our group only. When we called and inquired about that, we were reassured it was possible.”
“It is,” Hank says, sounding apologetic. “But only if no one else shows up. This group came in while you were all getting changed. We’re up against a lot of competition with the more traditional, rifle-style model of paintball, so we’re not really in a position to turn down business.”
Jamie sighs and peers over at Bea.
“That’s understandable,” Bea says encouragingly. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“If by fine, you mean ‘about to get your asses reamed,’？” an obnoxiously loud voice calls from behind us, “then it sure will be.”