Chapter Eighteen
Tex Mex
Emmie
Mi Cocina on a Saturday night is chaos in the best way.
The sizzle of fajitas on cast iron. Margaritas the size of my head. Chips and queso appearing on the table before anyone even orders. The hostess seats us at a big semi-circular booth in the back—me, Crew, Sadie, and Foster, who invited himself when he heard me mention dinner.
“I love this place,” Sadie announces, already flagging down a waiter. “I need a mambo taxi immediately. Maybe two.”
“Pace yourself,” I warn her.
“It’s Saturday. I have no pace.”
Crew slides into the booth next to me, his thigh pressing warm against mine. He still smells faintly of chlorine from the pool, mixed with whatever soap he used in the shower.
The afternoon sun left its mark on him—there’s a golden glow to his face that makes him look younger somehow.
More relaxed. Less like an FBI agent and more like a guy who spent the day chasing his fake girlfriend through a pool.
His hair’s a little messier than usual, like he didn’t bother to style it, and there’s a relaxed set to his shoulders I’m not used to seeing.
Pool day was good for him. Good for both of us.
I’m still thinking about the way he looked at me when I jumped in the water. The way he’d chased me through the pool and caught me around the waist like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Earth to Emmie.”
I blink. Sadie’s waving a menu in my face.
“What?”
“I asked what you’re drinking.” She grins. “You were staring at your boyfriend with heart eyes.”
“I was not.”
“You absolutely were,” Foster confirms. “It was disgusting. Very cute, but disgusting.”
I grab a menu to hide my burning cheeks. “I’ll have a margarita. Mezcal. On the rocks. Salt on half the rim—”
“Cointreau, not triple sec, light on the sweet stuff,” Crew finishes.
Everyone stares at him.
“What?” He shrugs.
Sadie mouths oh my god at me across the table. I kick her under the booth.
But my stomach is doing something fluttery and warm because he does pay attention.
He always has. He knows how I take my coffee, knows I hate the crust on sandwiches, knows I need exactly two pillows to sleep.
He notices everything, catalogs it away in that organized brain of his, and then deploys the information so casually, like it’s nothing.
Like remembering my complicated drink order isn’t the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me.
Get it together, Marshall.
The waiter arrives, and I do, in fact, order my complicated margarita—frozen this time instead of rocks, just to keep Crew on his toes. He orders a beer. Foster gets something called the El Jefe that comes with a mini bottle of Coronita upside down in it.
“Showoff,” Sadie mutters.
“It’s called culture.”
The food arrives in waves: sizzling fajita platters, a massive bowl of guacamole made tableside, cheese enchiladas smothered in verde sauce. I pile my plate high and dig in, groaning at the first bite.
“Damn, this is good.” I close my eyes, savoring. “Why don’t we do this more often?”
When I open them, Crew is watching me. There’s something in his expression—something heated and quickly shuttered—that makes my breath catch.
“Because someone—” Sadie points her fork at me, oblivious to the moment I just had— “is always working on her cookbook and never wants to leave the apartment.”
“I leave the apartment.”
“For groceries. That doesn’t count.”
“Speaking of the cookbook,” Foster says, reaching for more chips, “how’s it going? You’re writing about cooking for people you love, right?”
I feel Crew stiffen slightly beside me.
“It’s, um, going well.” I take a sip of my margarita. “Finally found my angle.”
“What’s the angle?”
Cooking for a grumpy man who pretends he doesn’t like good food. Learning someone’s tastes. Paying attention to what they need before they know they need it.
“Just… making it more personal,” I say. “Writing from experience.”
Sadie catches my eye. She knows. She’s the only one who knows I’ve basically been writing about Crew for the past two weeks, that my editor finally stopped sending concerned emails, that the pages are flowing in a way they haven’t since I started.
“Well, Crew’s definitely eating better since you moved in,” Foster offers. “I’ve never seen the man voluntarily consume a vegetable before. Now he’s talking about roasted brussels sprouts like they’re a revelation.”
“They are a revelation,” Crew mutters. “When they’re cooked right.”
“See?” Foster toasts me with his ridiculous drink. “You’ve changed him, Marshall. It’s beautiful.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I just smile and shove more enchilada in my mouth.
But under the table, Crew’s hand finds my knee. It just rests there, warm and steady.
I don’t think he even realizes he’s doing it.
Dinner stretches into two hours. More drinks. More food. Stories I’ve never heard about Crew’s early days at the Bureau—how he accidentally tackled a senior agent during a training exercise, how he once chased a suspect into a quinceanera and had to apologize to an entire extended family.
“He was very polite about it,” Foster says. “Said ‘excuse me, ma’am’ to the grandmother while he was cuffing the guy.”
“She gave me cake,” Crew adds. “Afterwards. Said I had good manners.”
I’m laughing so hard my stomach hurts. This is a side of him I’ve only seen in glimpses—dry humor, quiet warmth, the ability to laugh at himself. He’s different with his friends. Looser. More human.
And God, he’s beautiful when he laughs.
It transforms his whole face—softens those sharp edges, crinkles the corners of his steel-gray eyes, makes him look like someone who hasn’t spent years building walls around himself. I want to make him laugh like this every day. I want to be the reason for it.
Dangerous thoughts, Emmie. Very dangerous thoughts.
But I can’t stop having them. Can’t stop noticing the way his shirt stretches across his shoulders when he reaches for his drink. The way his forearm flexes when he gestures. The scar through his eyebrow that he never talks about, that I desperately want to trace with my fingertip.
He catches me staring and raises an eyebrow.
I look away quickly, face hot, and pretend to be very interested in the last of my enchiladas.
“Okay, I need air.” I slide out of the booth, still catching my breath from the last story. “It’s too hot in here.”
“I’ll come with you,” Crew says, already standing.
Foster and Sadie exchange a look that I pretend not to see.
* * *
The patio out back is mostly empty—just a couple taking selfies by the string lights and a group of women laughing over a shared dessert. Crew guides me toward the far corner with a hand on my lower back, and I lean against the wrought-iron fence, tipping my head back to look at the sky.
“Stars are hard to see in Dallas,” I say. “Too much light pollution.”
“You can see them from my balcony sometimes. Late at night, when most of the city’s asleep.”
I turn to look at him. “Do you do that? Stay up late and look at stars?”
“Sometimes. When I can’t sleep.”
“Which is often?”
He doesn’t answer, but the slight tension in his jaw tells me everything.
I want to reach out and smooth that tension away. Want to press my thumb to the furrow between his brows and tell him he doesn’t have to carry everything alone anymore.
We’re quiet for a moment. Music drifts out from the restaurant, something with a lot of accordion and trumpet. The spring air is warm but not oppressive, carrying the smell of mesquite and grilled onions.
“Today was fun,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“You had fun. Admit it.”
His mouth twitches. “I had… an acceptable time.”
“That’s basically a rave review from you.” I bump his shoulder with mine. “See? You’re capable of enjoying things. It just takes some convincing.”
“Some forcing.”
“Gentle encouragement.”
“You threw me in the pool.”
“You needed it.”
He laughs—actually laughs—and the sound does something warm to my chest. I want to bottle it. Keep it somewhere safe. Pull it out on dark days and remember that I made Crew Jensen laugh.
“Emmie.”
The way he says my name makes me look up. He’s watching me with that expression again—the one from the pool, from the couch, from a dozen moments I’ve been cataloging and pretending not to analyze.
“What?”
He doesn’t answer. Just keeps looking at me like he’s trying to figure something out, like I’m a puzzle he can’t quite solve.
“You’re staring,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“Why?”
He steps closer. Close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his body, can smell the soap on his skin and something underneath that’s just him.
“I don’t know.” His voice is low, rough. “I keep trying to stop.”
My heart is pounding. “And?”
“I can’t.”
His hand comes up to cup my jaw, tilting my face toward his, and I stop breathing. “Tell me this is a bad idea,” he murmurs.
I should. I should tell him to stop, should remind him that this is fake, that we have an arrangement, that kissing outside of practice scenarios is definitely not in the contract.
Instead, I say, “No.”
Something shifts in his expression. Softens and sharpens at the same time.
And then he kisses me.
It’s nothing like our practice kiss. That was careful. Controlled. A test run.
This is hunger.
His mouth moves against mine with a certainty that makes my knees weak, one hand tangled in my hair, the other gripping my hip like he’s afraid I might disappear. I grab the front of his shirt, pulling him closer, and he makes a sound low in his throat that vibrates through my entire body.
He walks me backward until I’m pressed against the railing, and I don’t care that we’re in public, don’t care that anyone could see us.
All I care about is the way he’s kissing me—deep and slow and thorough, like he’s memorizing the taste of me, like he’s been thinking about this for weeks and finally stopped fighting it.
His tongue slides against mine, and I gasp, fingers digging into his shoulders. He tilts my head back, changing the angle, and the kiss goes from hot to scorching. I feel it everywhere—in my chest, my stomach, lower.