Page 41 of The Wild Card
“Uh-huh.”
“And he has this scar through his eyebrow that he won’t talk about. His jaw is very…” I gesture vaguely. “Defined. And his forearms are ridiculous. When he rolls up his sleeves, he has these veins that run under his skin that are sort of… distracting. I didn’t know I was a forearm person, but apparently I am now. And I never knew veins—” I clear my throat.
Sadie grins. “So he’s hot.”
“He’s—” I sigh. “Yeah. He’s hot. In a growly, grumpy, probably-hasn’t-smiled-since-2019 kind of way.”
“The best kind.” She sets down her noodles. “Does he carry handcuffs?”
“What?”
“He’s FBI, right? Tactical unit? Does he carry handcuffs? Does he have a gun? Has he ever tackled someone?”
“I don’t—why are you asking this?” I snort.
“Because I’m living vicariously through you, and I need details.” She waggles her eyebrows. “Has he ever pinned someone against a wall? Has he pinned you against a wall?”
“Sadie.”
“What! It’s a valid question. You’re living with the man. Things happen.”
“Things are not happening. It’s fake. The whole thing is fake.”
“Mm-hmm.” She doesn’t look convinced. “So… on a scale of one to ten, how sculpted are we talking?”
I think about Crew standing in his doorway that first night, contract in hand, all bare chest and gray sweatpants and confused expression. That fine dusting of dark hair on his chest. The way my brain had short-circuited. The way I’d stared at his abs like they held the answers to life’s greatest mysteries.
“Eleven,” I admit. “Maybe twelve.”
Sadie makes a sound that’s somewhere between a squeal and a cackle. “I knew it. I knew there was something there.”
“There’s nothing there. He’s my roommate. We have an arrangement.”
“An arrangement that includes mandatory cuddling.”
“It’s… scheduled. And clinical. And definitely not romantic.”
“You’re cuddling a hot FBI agent on a weekly basis, and you’re telling me there’s no romantic component?”
“Correct.”
“Emmie.” She blinks at me.
“What?”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
I shove more noodles into my mouth to avoid responding.
The thing is, she’s not wrong. The lines are already getting blurry, and we haven’t even started the practice-touching thing yet. At happy hour, Crew said we needed to get comfortable with each other before the gala—that by Saturday, touching me should feel like second nature.
The way he’d said it, all low and serious, had made my stomach do something complicated.
“Okay, new topic.” I set down my container. “I need a dress.”
“For the gala?”
“For the gala. It’s black tie. Floor-length. And I have approximately zero dollars in my bank account, so I was hoping you might have something I could borrow?”
