Page 7 of Bossman

I was pretty freaking proud of myself for getting that much out. He had a towel slung around his neck and lifted it to dry off his dripping hair, revealing even more flesh. His pectoral muscles were carved and perfect. And—oh, my God…is that… Holy shit. It is. His nipples were cold and erect, and one of them was….was…pierced.

“Good to see you, Reese. We don’t see each other for ten years, and now we’ve run into each other twice in a month’s time.”

It took me a minute to realize he was referring to our fake middle school years. His wit snapped me out of my haze.

“Yes. Aren’t I lucky?”

“I know you,” Bryant said.

I’d completely forgotten he was standing next to me. Hell, I’d forgotten anyone else on Earth existed for a minute. I furrowed my brow. Did the two of them actually know each other?

“You’re Reese’s cousin. The model.”

Shit! Shit! Shit! I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

However, Chase (being Chase) went right along with it. He looked at me curiously as he spoke to Bryant. “That’s right. I’m cousin Chase. Aunt Bea’s youngest nephew. And you are?”

Bryant extended his hand, and Chase clasped it. “Bryant Chesney.” Then he turned to me. “I thought your mom’s name was Rosemarie? Same as my mom’s.”

Chase cut in smoothly. “It is. But some of us call her Bea. Nickname. She’s allergic to bees. Got stung at a family barbecue once. Her face swelled up, and the kids all called her Bea after that.”

Seriously, the man has to be a professional liar. He was so damn good at it, and he seemed to be turning me into one, too.

Bryant nodded like it all made sense. “Well, nice to meet you. I’ll let you two catch up while I get in a few laps.”

Just as Bryant began to walk away, Chase stopped him. “How did you know I was Chase? Aunt Bea showing off my pictures again?”

“Nah. Haven’t met any of Reese’s family yet. Saw your picture on her laptop.”

“My picture?”

“It’s Reese’s background on her MacBook.”

Forget the hole I wanted to crawl in to hide a minute ago. Now I closed my eyes and prayed for the Earth to swallow me up and never spit me back out. Or for the superpower of turning the Earth backward so time could rewind. I stood completely still and counted to thirty with my eyes tightly shut. When my time was up, I opened one eye, peeking to see if Chase had disappeared.

“Still here.” He smirked.

I covered my face with my hands. “I’m so embarrassed.”

“Don’t be. We’re not blood cousins, so it’s not too weird for you to be dreaming about me at night.”

“I was not dreaming about you at night!”

“So it’s only during the day while you stare at my picture on your laptop, then?”

“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to set it as my background.”

He folded his arms over his chest. “Okay. I’ll buy that.”

“Good, because it’s true.”

“But how, exactly, did the picture get on your laptop in the first place? I don’t remember you snapping a pic during our double date.”

I snorted. “Double date?”

“Speaking of which, what happened to Oedipus? Kicked to the curb so soon? I gotta admit, even though you went about trying to get out of your date all wrong, you weren’t wrong about that guy. Boring as shit.”

“He was.”