He laughed, charmed and so freaking in love with her. “I know. It was the best. I hope you’re like that every time. Lets me know I’m doing well.”

“It lets everyone on your entire floor know you’re doing well.”

He laughed again and turned on the shower, laughing harder when she yelped and twisted away from the cold spray. “There are worse things, Mary. There are much worse things.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

JOHN ROUNDED THE corner off the elevator and paused when he saw Richie and Crash talking in the hallway outside the office door. The two men cut off their conversation as John approached and a smug, shit-eating grin exploded over Richie’s face.

“Crash,” Richie ordered in a bossy tone. “Do this with me.”

Richie doo-wop stepped to one side, shucking his arms with his feet. And then to the other side. He looked over, saw that Crash was abstaining from the dance move and frowned. “Crash!”

Sighing, Crash joined in the dance step, looking half chagrined at dancing in his place of work and half pleased that Richie was bullying him into goofiness. “Why are we dancing?”

“We’re celebrating John. Who did something very naughty last night. I can see it all over his face.”

John laughed and covered said face with one hand, attempting to step around the dancing men and into his office, but Richie got in the way.

“Am I wrong?” Richie teased. “Just tell me I’m wrong, and I’ll stop dancing.”

“Can I stop dancing anyhow?” Crash asked from behind them.

“Never!” Richie demanded, leaning around John and looking Crash up and down. “I like when you dance.”

John turned in time to see Crash go an immediate electric pink. He stopped dancing and scratched the back of his neck with one hand, looking completely unsure of what to say next and altogether very un-Crash-like.

A thought struck John. The Crash Willis that John had known was not dancing in the halls. He wasn’t blushing or flirting at work. He was a smarmy, smug kiss-ass, hell-bent on needling John at every turn. But that version of this man had apparently exited the building. John wondered if maybe, just maybe, coming to John’s office to be an asshole to John for all those years had been the only reason Crash had been able to invent to come to John’s office in the first place. AKA Richie’s office.

It didn’t make John like Crash any better that years of snide comments and douchebaggery had been an attempt at getting closer to Richie, but at least John could sort of understand the logic of it. People did all sorts of ridiculous things when they wanted someone they weren’t sure they could ever have.

“Can I carry on with my workday?” John asked Richie, who was still barring the open door to the office.