Get a Life, Chloe Brown (The Brown Sisters #1)(40)

He looked up again, his three-line-frown back. “Is that okay?”

“Oh, yes. Why wouldn’t it be?” she squeaked. Saturday night, drinking and dancing, just as she’d planned. Lovely. Delightful. The stuff of dreams.

“Because,” Red said slowly, “if you don’t want to do it—”

She sniffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

He ignored her. “—you could just … not do it.”

“Preposterous.”

“Since this is your list and all,” he finished gently.

She glowered. “The list is not up for debate. I look forward to Saturday, when we will go to various shady establishments and drink far too much alcohol together.”

“Yeah,” he said dryly, scribbling something on the page. “I bet. Anywhere in particular you want to go?”

She wracked her brain, trying to remember the places she and her friends used to visit—back when she’d had friends. But she’d been at university then, in another city. She had no idea what was good here, where was fun. She sat up straight, cleared her throat, and said calmly, “I shall leave all major decisions to you. Just—make it, you know. Edgy.”

He arched an eyebrow, scribbling a few more lines. “Edgy. Aye aye, Captain Button.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Next,” he said, “camping. Want me to handle that, too?”

Since he was turning out to be surprisingly organized, it wasn’t difficult to say “Yes.” He was supposed to be helping her, after all. And, since he was ordinary in all the ways Chloe and her family were not, he presumably had a touch more experience in outdoor pursuits than she did.

“All right,” he said, then seemed to stop and think for a second, all his swirling vitality pausing along with his hands. She recognized this considering stillness from the nights she’d spied on him.

But she wouldn’t think about spying on him. She was overheated enough without guilt adding to the issue, and one of the many curses of fibromyalgia was an inability to maintain homeostasis. If she got too hot, she’d simply pass out. She decided to open a window while Red was too distracted to ask why. He was staring at nothing beside her, running his knuckles back and forth over his lower lip.

She’d never seen him do that before. How fortunate that, the first time she witnessed it, there was a mountain of fleecy fabric in place to hide the way her nipples reacted.

She opened the window—ah, sweet air—and returned to the sofa just as he started writing again. His voice absent, he asked, “How long did you want to camp for?”

As little time as possible. “Oh, just a night should do,” she said awkwardly. “I know you’re very busy.”

“I could do Saturday to Sunday, next week?”

She didn’t need to check her schedule to know she was depressingly unengaged on those evenings, and most evenings, forever after.

No. Not forever. You’re getting a life, remember?

“That should work for me,” she said brightly.

“Cool. I have a place in mind, but I’ll look into it and let you know.” He finally put the pen down. His writing, she noticed, was surprisingly neat. There was wildness there, but it was carefully restrained. Every now and then it trickled from the swooping curl of a g or y, burst from the seams of an I. Before she could stare any longer, he snapped the notebook shut and put it on the coffee table, along with the pen. “There’s something I need to ask you.”

The slow, deliberate way he said those words, as if he were plotting his way through a booby-trapped room, put her on her guard. “Yes?” she asked crisply.

He turned his whole body toward her, his right knee disturbingly close to her thigh. She could feel the heat and the life and something else, something that tightened her belly, radiating off him and sinking dangerously deep into her. She stiffened and stared straight ahead.

“Come on, Chlo,” he said softly. “Don’t do that. We’re … friends, aren’t we?”

She didn’t know what surprised her more—that casual shortening of her name, the kind of easy intimacy she’d had from no one but her sisters in years … or the fact that he thought they were friends. “A week ago you barely even liked me.”

Most people would probably deny that, but he just shrugged, smiling slightly. “You didn’t like me, either. But now that I know you better, I think you’re funny and secretly sweet, and I do like you. I’m hoping you like me, too.”

A weightless, tingling warmth suffused her as she battled a big, silly smile. Yesterday, she’d almost convinced herself that the dizzying tone of his emails was just his natural charm, the one she’d seen him flashing around like fifty-pound notes plenty of times. Apparently not. Apparently, he’d meant the little jokes and the kindnesses.

What a relief, since she had, too.

But her pleasure at his words, at the way he described her, was too enthusiastic, so she reined herself in. Changed the subject. Reminded herself he wanted to ask difficult questions. “Fine. We’re friends. Now what is it?”

His smile didn’t waver, as gentle as his words. “I know you’re sick,” he said. “I’m not trying to get full details, or anything. But if you’ve never done this stuff because of your health, I need to know what the risks are. What to do if you need help. All that shit.”