Chapter 7 #2
I painstakingly peeled myself off the floor. It involved a lot more wheezing and rolling than I’d anticipated, and I felt like that one blueberry girl from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , but I made it. Who needs dignity these days, anyway?
I straightened my shirt over the bump, acting like I hadn’t just auditioned to be one of those old Weeble Wobbles.
“I know this will be a huge shock to you since you’re as neighborly as a leprous cactus but getting to know your neighbors after they help you move in is exactly what normal people would do.
And since we’re trying to blend in …” My words trailed off, letting him use his handy dandy little FBI brain to extrapolate the rest.
His jaw flexed in irritation, his dark eyes panning over the shirts I’d already hung up. “And does flirting qualify as getting to know someone?”
I sputtered for a second, my disbelief overtaking my capability to form words. Is that what he thought I’d been doing with Liam? As much as I’d wanted to, I hadn’t. I’d been so neutral I wanted to scream.
Taking my indignance as a lack of defense, the corner of his mouth edged up into his trademark smirk.
I fumed, placing the latest hanger on the rack with an angry snick . “Do you even know what flirting looks like, or was that little bit of human trivia left out of your coding? Genuinely, I’m curious.”
“Wow, another robot joke.” He rolled his eyes and leaned against the doorframe. “And you say I’m the predictable one.”
I held up a finger. “You arrive at the field office exactly thirty-three minutes early every day. It would be a neat half an hour, but you set your watch three minutes early for some forsaken reason.” I held up a second finger.
“You always eat pasta on Mondays, chicken on Tuesdays, beef or sandwiches on Wednesdays, cultural food on Thursdays, and soup on Fridays.”
I threw my hands out to the side in exasperation. “Who eats soup on Fridays ? It’s clearly a Monday night food. Fridays are for pizza and burgers and something even remotely celebratory.”
His lips twitched with the threat of a smile. But, since this was me he was talking to, of course it never came. “It’s ironic you judge my selections so much, considering you skip lunch more often than not.”
I paused in my tirade, hands on my hips. “No I don’t.”
“Twelve times in the last twenty weekdays.”
“That’s—no—how did you—” I straightened my shoulders and tipped my chin up. “It has not been that often. I eat all the time.”
“Yeah, snacks from the vending machine don’t count as meals.”
“They have sandwiches in the vending machine, too, you know.”
He shrugged. “True, but you don’t like lunch meat, so we both know you won’t eat those.”
How on earth could he possibly know that? Maybe I was wrong. He wasn’t just a cyborg. He was a cyborg who could read minds.
Just in case, I made sure to beam all my thoughts about how annoying he was in his direction.
I narrowed my eyes and took a step closer in challenge. “Who says I just don’t trust vending machine sandwiches?”
“Because we both know you’d eat someone’s family pet if you felt like it.
Your standards aren’t exactly high.” He pressed on before I could argue.
Or stomp on his foot, which I was seriously considering.
“And, you sit further away whenever I bring cold cut sandwiches, but lean in closer to smell whenever I bring anything else. Ergo, you don’t like lunch meat. ”
I scratched at my neck, willing the blush raging up it to subside.
His lunches typically smelled heavenly, even if I couldn’t stand the man who brought them.
So yeah, maybe I made sure to catch a whiff so I could pretend I’d packed something more than a couple of protein bars.
And maybe I’d already picked out which meals in his rotation smelled the best. So sue me.
“Maybe sandwiches just don’t smell as good,” I mumbled, but the fight was long gone from my voice.
He knew I sniffed his lunches. I hadn’t even had dignity to lose when I’d rolled around the closet.
Great. Just freaking great.
He leaned down, his voice as controlled as always. “You can’t fool me, Lex.”
I scoffed, altogether unsettled by how close we were.
Aside from our tussle by the coffee maker last week, I’d never voluntarily stood this close to him.
And, wouldn’t you know it, his faint cologne actually smelled good.
Great, even. Not at all like disinfectant like he should’ve.
And it took all my willpower not to take a big whiff of it, since apparently he could tell whenever I did that.
“Then it’s a great thing you already know I don’t like you.” I smiled sardonically at him, tipping my head to the side to really sell how much he didn’t deserve my genuine smile. “I only have to fool everyone else.”
He huffed softly, his unfairly rich eyes narrowing. “I hope you’re a better actress when it really counts, because that show in front of Liam wasn’t selling anything.”
“It was a perfectly normal interaction, Colt.” I tipped my chin up further. “What do you want me to do, huh? Roll out the red carpet wherever you step? Glue myself to you every chance I get? If you’re looking for someone to worship you, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.”
His gaze lingered on my mouth, which sent a spike of electricity through my heart for some stupid reason. “Not worship. Respect.”
“I respect you plenty.” At his scoff, I elaborated. “I respect your capability as an agent.”
“That sounds more accurate.”
The corner of his lips tipped up in the ghost of a smile, and I found myself fixating on them.
Like the majority of his face, freckles dotted his fair skin, including his lips.
He had two small freckles on his bottom lip and a larger one on his upper one.
The asymmetry had to drive him crazy, but for entirely different reasons than it made the general female population froth at the mouth.
Not me, though. I was immune to his looks, and Heaven knows I was immune to his charm, since he’d have to use it on me in the first place. I never wondered what those lips could do or fantasized about what kind of kisser Colt was.
Ever.
And I certainly wasn’t thinking about any of that now.
As if snapped out of a daydream, I realized with a start how close I’d gravitated toward him.
I backpedaled with a vengeance, thrown off-kilter by both my new tummy and how claustrophobic the walk-in closet suddenly felt.
Unfortunately, I backpedaled straight into my open suitcase and the pile of clothes I’d pulled out of it.
Under normal circumstances, I’d wobble a bit and quickly regain my balance. But I also normally didn’t have a silicone blob strapped to my midsection and throwing off my center of balance.
Instead, my arms pinwheeled like a drunk helicopter before I gracelessly fell flat on my butt into the half of the suitcase that I’d just emptied out. AKA: the empty half. The half that probably just bruised my tailbone and my pride.
As if I had any left anymore.
I blinked slowly, too shocked to feel embarrassed. Or to feel anything, really. What emotions were left when you’d already fallen butt-first into a suitcase?
Colt, to my surprise, stretched out his hand to help me up, his brow furrowed. Rather than laughing at my cringe-worthy predicament, he seemed almost… concerned. “Are you okay?”
I stared at his hand for a moment as my shock made way for mortification. With my face nice and crispy from the heat, I ignored his hand in lieu of blueberry-girl-rolling my way out. This time it involved crawling on hands and knees like a bloated hippo until I could get my feet back under me.
Not my best moment.
I took a deep breath and forced as much emotion off my face as I could. The effect was largely ruined by the burgundy shade my cheeks had undoubtedly turned, but it was all I had at the moment. Even plastic spoons could be a weapon if you were desperate enough.
“Just peachy,” I muttered, straightening my shirt before brushing past him. He couldn’t hide his amusement anymore, which was surprisingly easier to deal with than the concern he’d shown a minute ago. “But I’ll be better once I’m away from you.”
He didn’t pursue, likely already jumping at the chance to organize my shirts by color so they would be less offensive to look at. However, I didn’t miss his reply as I valiantly marched away, quiet though it was.
“Funny, I could say the same thing about you.”