Awk-Weird (Ice Knights, #2)(33)

While one of the waiters stood and gawked, no doubt more than a little in awe, Jules walked into the middle of the restaurant, commanding everyone’s attention.

“Tonight,” Jules said in a ridiculously unidentifiable accent that sounded more than a little like the mom’s from Schitt’s Creek, “we all must dance for our dinners.”

He clapped his hands and half the people who’d been sitting at tables like regular customers whipped off their full-length winter coats, revealing chicken costumes they were wearing underneath. Then the first polka strains of “The Chicken Dance” started to play over the speakers.

“Everyone, get up and let loose!” Jules yelled above the now-blaring music.

Cole, along with all the other non-costumed diners, jumped up out of his seat. “Come on.”

Tess didn’t just stay in her chair, she was frozen, the horror of actually mixing it up and being in the eye of attention freezing her to her seat. “No way.”

“Live a little,” he said, holding out his hand for her to take. “You know the chicken dance.”

Heart racing, palms sweaty, and the apps swirling around in her stomach, she clamped her jaw closed to keep the “hell no” or the random factoid from passing her lips. Cole’s finger under her chin tipped her face upward so she couldn’t avoid looking at him. The mockery or annoyance that experience had taught her to expect wasn’t there. It was just him looking at her as if she was really there and he wanted her to be. The shock of it was enough for her to take his hand and join in the fray.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered in her ear, “I’ll be right there with you.”

Feeling like a gawky teenager, she went through the chicken beak hand motions, flapping her arms like wings, doing the twist, and finally clapping on the beat along with the rest of the diners.

Jules grabbed an older woman out of the crowd and she ended up starting the line as everyone followed her through the restaurant, weaving in and out of tables as “The Chicken Dance” played on.

By the time the recorded accordion blasted its last note, she and Cole were laughing, and when he picked her up and swung her around, she didn’t object. She just put her arms around his neck and brought her face near his, her lips so close that she’d barely have to move to kiss him. “Tempting” didn’t even begin to describe how badly she wanted to follow through with the urge, but that wasn’t smart. Theirs was a temporary arrangement, and she had to think long-term for her baby.

“You better let me go,” she said, even though she really didn’t want to.

Something dark and dangerous in the most thrilling of ways passed across his face, but he didn’t voice it. Really, she’d probably imagined it, because he sat her down and put as much space between them as possible, considering they were standing right beside their two-person table. His jaw squared with tension, he glared down at the floor.

Way to fuck up that moment, Tess. Temporary, remember?

By the time she sat back down in her chair, the people in chicken suits had pulled long coats over their costumes and were following Jules out of the restaurant in a line as if he was the Pied Piper of Pollo. A not-so-small part of Tess wished she could join them, slink away from what would be an uncomfortable dinner thanks to her almost kissing Cole.

Usually it was some stupid thing she said that made things weird, not something she did. Not this time. Nope, tonight she’d driven them on the express lane to Awkwardville because of pregnancy horndog side effect that left her panties wet and her pheromones out of whack. And maybe if she kept telling herself that, she might just start to believe it.

…

Cole gripped the passenger seat with his ass cheeks and tensed his thighs as Tess took a corner at Mach Three. Ever since they’d left the restaurant, it was like she was a woman on a fast break and heading straight for the goal.

“Are you late for something?” he asked as she turned onto his street.

“Just ready for bed.” She let out a little gasp as if she hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “For sleep,” she said, her voice higher than normal. “To go to bed by myself and go to sleep. Alone. All by myself.”

Well, that told him. He didn’t mean to smile at her obvious discomfort, but her verbal explosion was just kind of…“cute” was the only word that came to mind. It was very Tess, a little weird, completely genuine, and always surprising.

Tess slowed to a stop at a red light and sighed. “Maybe tonight I’ll actually get some.”

Instantly on guard, he tensed. “You haven’t been sleeping?” That wasn’t good—especially not with the baby on the way, her general health, and meeting the demands of her work.

“New places are like that.” She shrugged and drove forward when the light turned green. “I think I went the entire sixth grade on three hours of sleep a night.”

She said it with a light little laugh at the end, but he wasn’t fooled. As the team trainers had pounded through his thick skull, sleep—or a lack of it—could have a huge impact on performance, mood, and health, which was why he had a schedule and a routine for getting his Zs.

“I have a technique to help with that,” he said as he prayed gravity would continue to work when she accelerated through another turn onto his street.

“Is it orgasms?” Tess asked. “Research shows that sex before bed can make your sleep better because of all the endorphins released.” Her grip on the steering wheel went white-knuckle and she let out, “Oh my God. Forget I said that; just erase it from your memory forever.”