Against her will, Krista’s lips turned up in amusement. She couldn’t help it. He was so adorably sexy that she couldn’t not smile. And he knew it, which was supremely irritating. Luckily, that irritation enabled her to snap out of the lust spell his sexy superpowers had cast on her. When that happened, she noticed that he was rolling on the solo tip.
“Where’s Bear?”
Krista had almost cried when she’d seen both Bear and Chase on the float with her cousin Alex and the other HC firefighters. The first thought that had crossed her mind was, Awww, look at my boys. Then she’d quickly reminded herself that they weren’t her boys. She was helping Abby out with Bear while she was in the hospital and Chase and she were…well… He wasn’t hers. Not officially anyway.
“It was too hot to have him walking around out here. When we got off the float, I took him home and made sure he had plenty of water. I heard him snoring before I even made it out the front door.” The corners of Chase’s mouth twitched up as he relayed the last sentence, drawing Krista’s attention to his perfect mouth. The mouth that had spent a lot of time exploring every inch of her body. Her already primed body flared with desire at the thought of his lips on her neck, her breasts, her…
“Hey, Miss Double Standard, if I can’t look at you like that, then you can’t look at me like that.”
Her eyes darted up to his. He looked pretty proud of himself for being able to use her own words against her. It wasn’t often that she left herself open for that kind of thing.
“Fine. Then you need to move along so I can do my job.” The chances of her keeping her looks and her thoughts PG while Chase was in her presence were slimmer than her winning the lottery, which she didn’t even play.
“When are you done here?”
“I have a break in an hour, but it’s only for thirty minutes. Marla twisted her ankle this morning during the parade so I told Betty I’d cover her shift.”
“You want to take a walk down by the river on your break?”
The tone in Chase’s voice made Krista feel a little uneasy. He sounded serious. Too serious.
Before she could ask what was wrong, a woman approached the booth asking about information to volunteer. Krista nodded her head in agreement, telling him that she would meet him by the bridge in an hour as he stepped away from the booth.
She watched him leave as she answered the woman’s questions and tried desperately to silence the alarm bells that were going off in her head. It was probably nothing. She hoped.
Chapter Twenty
Those annoying alarm bells were ringing louder and louder in her head as she walked through the crowds of people on her way to meet Chase. She knew that, no matter how many times she told herself that she was making too much out of this and that everything was fine, she wouldn’t actually feel better until she talked to Chase. Not because she truly believed that everything was actually fine, but because she knew in her heart of hearts something was up and at least after she spoke to Chase she would know what she was dealing with.
A lot of times, it felt like their souls were tuned into a radio frequency that no one else could hear. Sometimes, that was amazing. Sometimes, not so much. This was one of those not-so-much times. Any other guy she’d dated could have said the same thing to Krista, the exact same way Chase had, and she wouldn’t have given it a second thought. Even though if someone asked her why, she would be hard-pressed to explain how she knew that everything was not copasetic. But that didn’t change the fact that she knew that it wasn’t.
Finally, after being stopped what felt like several hundred times by friends and family, she made it past the swarms of people. She was just about to turn the corner to the bridge when a deep male voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Long time no see, stranger.”
Turning around slowly, she saw Chris standing in front of her. He reached down and pulled her into his arms. Feeling awkward but not knowing what else to do, she went up on her tiptoes and hugged him back.
“Hey,” she greeted him lamely.
He held her longer and tighter than would be appropriate for a friendly hug, which she could understand since up until ten days ago, they’d been seeing each other on a pretty regular basis.
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of you,” he said.
“I’ve been busy,” she said as she removed her arms from around his neck and lowered her feet down on the ground.
“Yeah. I know,” Chris said with a little sadness hinting in his voice. “I saw you at Eddie and Haley’s party with Chase.”
Krista just nodded. She liked Chris and didn’t want to lead him on, but she also didn’t really want to discuss her and Chase, mainly because she had no idea what to say.