Just My Type(32)

Taking a step back inside the house, I grab the door and start to pull it closed, pausing halfway to glare at Brandon, who’s still standing in the same spot, holding his cell phone in his hand, with his mouth hanging open.

“And if you ever make a comment again about taking care of our son and what a chore it is, I will punch you in your goddamn face.”

With those parting words, I step back farther into my house and slam the door. Turning around, I slump back against it and let out a long, slow breath.

It means absolutely nothing that thinking about Baker made me tell Brandon off. This still isn’t a date. But damn, did that make me feel good. I want to keep feeling like this. I’m not even going to think about dating the guy until these interviews are finished, but I can still have a little fun.





CHAPTER 14





BAKER

The Hatchet House


“I’m just saying, you have very questionable standards,” I tease, looking back over my shoulder at Ember as I bend over and grab the sharp tool from the ground where it landed.

“I do not have questionable standards,” Ember protests, putting her hands on her hips as I slowly walk back toward her. “It’s not my fault you’re slightly sadistic and thought bringing me to a place called The Hatchet House would be hilarious.”

I can’t help but chuckle that I’m such a goddamn genius. I’d been wracking my brain, trying to think of somewhere Ember and I could meet for our next interview, ever since I left her standing in my gym with an adorable, annoyed look on her face a few days ago. Her admission when she was beating the shit out of the heavy bag—that she hated the city and she missed home—kept playing on a loop in my head, and I decided to try and do something about it.

“Due to my normal and totally not creepy stalker tendencies, I know you grew up on a pumpkin farm in Montana, and you miss it,” I tell her with a shrug as she takes a sip of the beer she ordered a few minutes ago, and I try not to pant like a dog when she wraps her full, red lips around the bottle. “I couldn’t exactly take you horseback riding in downtown Chicago, but I could definitely find something outdoorsy for us to do during this business meeting. Not to mention, the name of the place tied in quite nicely with your assumption that I could be a serial killer.”

The Hatchet House isn’t a haunted house, or a place where murderers learn how to dismantle a body. It’s a bar with a laid back setting, and mismatched couches and chairs haphazardly spread out around the common area. In the back, you have a line of what looks like batting cages all along the wall. Instead of the brick walls around the rest of the huge space, this back wall is made out of wood, each cage having a giant wood bull’s-eye hanging at the end of it. After signing a waiver, a fifteen-minute instruction session, and a round of drinks, Ember and I were given a hatchet, assigned to a cage, and let loose to throw the mini axe at the wall at the far end of the cage.

“This plan of mine backfired,” I tell Ember, stopping right in front of her and holding the hatchet out between us. “You’ve seen my skills with a hatchet, and you’re even more afraid of me now, aren’t you?”

Ember’s hand reached out to grab the hatchet while I was speaking, and instead of snatching it away, when a few of her fingers overlapped mine on the handle, she paused. And slowly turned those gorgeous green eyes up to meet mine.

My eyes dart down to the smooth column of Ember’s neck, and I watch her swallow nervously. It’s the first sign she’s given me since we got here an hour ago that she’s full of shit when she says she wants to keep this professional. She put up a good show, keeping her distance from me and playing it cool, but that nervous swallow and her eyes staring right at my mouth prove otherwise. It’s good to know I’m not the only one struggling right now.

When she first got here, I’d already been inside, sitting on one of the couches that looked out of the big picture windows that took up the entire front of the bar. I’d been anxiously stalking my Uber app, staring at that damn Monopoly-looking board, watching the car I ordered for her slowly make its way from her house to where I was waiting for her. I knew as soon as she arrived, and I looked up right as she was getting out of the black SUV. It was like something out of a cheesy ’80s movie. Or cheesy ’80s porn. The same hip music playing in the background, and the same hot-as-fuck blonde walking onto the scene in slow motion, with the wind gently blowing all that hair away from her face, every guy watching her move getting a boner, with their mouths dropped open as she walked by. I am man enough to admit I got a boner and my mouth dropped open as I slowly stood up from the couch and watched her walk toward to front door.

And then it hit me that I felt like I was in an ’80s porn, because there had been an ’80s song playing through the sound system at the bar. And the wind gently blowing Ember’s ponytail around actually turned into hurricane-force winds in the blink of an eye, because this is the windy city and all. Right before Ember got to the door, she paused to try and claw her hair out of her mouth that was whipping all around her face. And got smacked in the side of the head with an errant page of the Chicago Tribune.

I smile, thinking about that moment and how annoyed Ember was when she finally made it inside The Hatchet House. And got even more annoyed that I couldn’t stop laughing. The laughter stopped me from grabbing her hand, pulling her into the first dark corner I could find, and pinning her against the wall with the power of my dick alone.