Changing the Rules (Richter Book 1)(21)

Her new coworker laughed and turned back to the monitors while she fished out a clean mug and poured herself her second cup for the day.

“Nice meeting you,” she said as she backed out of the room.

“You, too.”

At the whiteboard in the situation room, Jax was laying out their notes and pictures of some of the possible players they’d managed to identify.

Lars arrived next, and before the door shut, Cooper and Neil stepped in together.

“Wow, why are you girls all dolled up?” Lars asked before he sat down.

“Jax has a date,” Claire announced.

Neil came to a stop. “Not with one of the students.”

Jax made a motion as if she was going to be ill.

Claire laughed.

“What’s your excuse?” Cooper asked. “Do you have a date, too?” His eyes walked up and down her body. She was wearing a dress, which she didn’t often do unless she was painting the town with her best friend.

But sometimes, when she’d been cooped up too long and hadn’t been able to shop or let her hair down, or be something other than a girl trapped in a world she didn’t want . . . yeah, at those times she needed to get out. It was her release valve.

Jax started to laugh.

And laugh.

Claire followed Cooper’s gaze in Jax’s direction.

“Claire doesn’t date!”

The hair on her neck started to stand on end.

“I date.”

Jax leaned her head back and laughed. “No, what you do doesn’t classify as dating.”

Much as Claire wanted to disagree, she knew her friend spoke the truth. It wasn’t that she had an aversion to dating, there just didn’t seem to be enough datable guys out there.

“What the hell does that mean?” Cooper’s tone was anything but happy as he asked the question.

Claire was about to ask why he cared when Neil stepped forward. “Are we done with the chitchat and ready to work?”

“Technically this is my day off, and since I have homework, not even that.”

Neil’s expression told Claire he wasn’t amused.

Cooper looked like he had more to say, but kept his lips shut.

Lars patted Cooper on the back as he walked by. “I need coffee.”

“There’s a fresh pot in the surveillance room,” Claire informed him.

“We start in ten,” Neil said before heading to his office.

Once the door was closed, Cooper slid beside Claire. “Mind elaborating about this ‘doesn’t date’ thing?”

She slowly looked at him, took a sip of her coffee. “Why deny all the men?” she asked, tossing back the words he’d used on her only a week before.

“You’re lying.”

Any amusement in her faded with the seriousness of his voice. “Why are you so interested?” And why was Cooper standing so close and watching her as if an expression was going to give something away?

When his eyes dropped to her lips, her belly did a little twist.

It was then that her brain started to short-circuit and the coffee felt bitter in the back of her throat.

There were two reasons a man stared at a woman’s lips.

The first was if they were a family member or possibly a gay friend that wanted to comment on the shade of lipstick.

And the second . . . he wanted to kiss her.

Holy shit!

She blinked several times.

Cooper wanted to taste her.

The realization of that fact had her head spinning. Then, because she couldn’t stop herself from looking, she took in his lips, and then the expression on his face.

So many things clicked together. With them, a thousand questions.

Lars pushed through the door from the surveillance room talking and had Cooper taking a step back. “Have you met the new guy?”

Claire’s eyes stayed on Cooper. “Yes, I have.”

Cooper blinked and turned away. “I have not.”

A few more steps and Cooper walked into the other room.

“What the actual hell?” Claire asked the universe out loud.

Lars walked by, oblivious to what had just happened.

“What?”

Claire glanced over at Jax to see her soft smile.

In German, Claire asked, “Did you see that?”

“I felt the static in the room,” Jax replied.

“You know it’s rude to speak in a different language, right?” Lars said.

Jax shook her head and went back to writing on the whiteboard. “Sorry,” she replied in English.



Cooper listened, participated, reported his end of Operation High School, and did everything in his power to not look Claire’s way.

He’d blown it. Got caught salivating over her as if she was ice cream on a hot summer day.

Put it out of your mind, dude.

Manuel had joined them and was brought up to speed.

“And what exactly do you plan on doing to get out of participating in the track competitions?” Neil asked when the conversation came up about Claire having the fourth position in the relay.

“Cooper and I talked about this. I can always throw a race or two and then fake an injury or fail a class and be prohibited from competing.” Claire looked at Cooper.

“I like the idea of an injury, but want to wait until the first meet. Right now Claire is popular enough with the team, and I think we should cement that before we take her away.”