For his part, Nash was all adrenaline and barely tapped righteous fury when he turned around and spotted Chelle standing by their table, the dogs sitting at her feet with their buggy eyes going opposite directions per usual and Sir Hiss sitting on a chair, casually cleaning the back of his paw.

Fuck.

This was not how this was supposed to go. As if brunch with his family wasn’t overwhelming enough, he’d just lost it on a guy—who, yes, totally deserved it—instead of keeping his cool. That had never happened before. Not when the private school teacher had said that maybe if Macon’s parents loved him, they would have showed up for parent-teacher conferences. Not when Bristol had started sleeping on his bedroom floor because of the nightmares after their parents started living hours away from each other. Not when both of his parents seemed to finally start seeing beyond their own self-centered but loving selves only to watch them fall back into old habits after a few weeks.

Only now.

And Chelle was staring at him like she’d never seen him before.

“Chelle,” he said, shoving his hands through his hair as he braced for her disapproval. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be.” She tilted her head and pursed her lips. “I had my whole afternoon planned around writing a side quest scene, and now I can’t decide if I want to write a sex scene or one where some asshole gets shoved off a cliff instead.”

Relief sucked the tension right out of him half a second before he came up with the perfect solution.

“Well, actually, what you should do is act out the sex scene with me and afterward you get to fictionally kill someone who deserves it—not to mansplain your job to you, but you know it’s a good idea.”

“Well, actually,” she said with a grin, “that sounds like the perfect plan.”

And did he check his pace as they quick-walked back to her building to accommodate the dogs’ tiny little legs?

Fuck no.

He carried the wiggly furballs the whole rest of the way home.

Quickly.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chelle

Chelle’s apartment was too quiet.

Sure, if she counted the sound of the dogs tag-team snoring, it was the regular levels of loud, but this was different. This was there’s-no-Nash silence, and she didn’t like it. Honestly, it gave her the creeps. She couldn’t even write, since part of her process was now blocking out the sound of Nash roaming through the apartment while he was on conference calls with his team, talking about Beckett Cosmetics product launches, sales figures, and potential distribution deals. The man could never work in a Panera, the staff would definitely kick him out for being disruptive.