Page 22 of Under Pressure

“You don’t need to stay and do this. Don’t you have other things to do?”

“Let me worry about that.”

“That sounds ominous.”

He chuckles softly and glances over at me with bright, emerald eyes. “If you want me to leave so badly, you could come help.”

“I hate washing dishes.”

“Ah, see, now you’re spoiling me with all this Quinn knowledge. I didn’t even have to work for that one.”

I palm my hips, refusing to give in to the urge to laugh. “I’d hardly count that as important information.”

“Inyouropinion.”

“Yours is so different?”

“What do you think?” he asks, and it almost sounds like a taunt.

“I think that I don’t want to answer that.”

He grins down at the water, focusing back on his task. I watch as one of his gloved hands waves over the clean dishes soaking in the sanitizer-filled basin. I don’t bother asking how he even knew to use the sanitizer and instead tap my fingers to the side of my thigh, debating whether I’m actually going to do this or not.

He has the nerve to smile even brighter when I settle beside him and start stacking the dishes on the flat steel surface beside the sink. It’s the first time we’ve been this close to one another without the order counter between us and the comfort ofchatting customers as background noise. This feels . . . intimate. Way, way too intimate.

Yet, I’m not about to let him see how uncomfortable it makes me to be in such close proximity to him. Especially when I’m already struggling not to inhale the spicy scent of a cologne that I guarantee costs a pretty penny.

For the thousandth time since he first came into Blank Page, I let myself speculate about why he’s here when he could be anywhere else. Surely, it isn’t just to try and get a date with me. There has to be some other reason for it. I continue to lay the dishes out to dry but risk taking a peek up at him.

The height difference makes this a pain. It’s not exactly easy to sneakily look at someone who stands almost a foot above you. I’ve never asked his height, but I’d estimate he’s six four. That makes my five six look pretty pathetic in comparison.

My throat dries up when he moves his arm across his body and I’m forced to watch as thick ribbons of muscle strain and pulse. I didn’t even know there were that many muscles in an arm, let alone a forearm. I’d put money down on him being able to crack an egg with his bicep.

Maybe I could ask to see him try.

Fuck my life.

His eyes slide down to catch mine, and I immediately look away, my cheeks burning. I’m certain that if I forced them back toward him, I’d find his shoulders shaking in silent laughter.

“I have a thing,” I blurt out, already flicking my hands in the air to dry them. “A thing somewhere else.”

He turns his body to face me completely, shoulders back and his naturally wide chest appearing even larger. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Tell Eli when you’re done.”

“You’re trusting me here alone, then?”

“You’re washing dishes, not building a bomb. Just—” I finally gaze up at him, taking slow, measured steps backward toward the office entrance. “Just tell him when you’re done. Andmake sure to mop up that puddle so I don’t have a workplace injury to deal with when you slip and fall and hit your head on the sink. Not to mention a lawsuit from the MLB when I’m the reason their star wound up in the hospital, unable to play.”

My rambling doesn’t seem to have an end. I jam my knuckles between my lips and spin around so that he can’t see the way I glare at the wall and bite down on my skin.

“Their star closer?” he asks behind me. I can hear the beaming smile in his voice. “Have you been researching me, Quinny?”

God, I am praying to you right now to beg for help. Sorry I haven’t reached out in a while, butpleasegive me patience. Or a brick to throw at his perfectly handsome face.

“And you can’t park out front like that,” I snap, pointing to the kitchen door.

He wipes the back of his forearm across his pink-tinted forehead. The edges of his smile twitch. “Like what?”