Page 194 of Rising Heat

Mack pushes off the counter and wanders over while she stares into the shelves like she’s convinced an actual meal might materialize if she looks hard enough.

“That bad?” he asks.

She glances over her shoulder.

“There’s half a lime in here, Mack.”

“We were busy.”

“You’re firefighters,” she says. “Not frat boys.”

Mack shakes his head, smiling despite himself.

She nudges the fridge shut with her hip and pulls her phone out.

“Okay. I’m ordering food.”

“Pizza,” I call from the couch.

Mack digs his wallet out of his back pocket and tosses it onto the island.

“Order whatever you want.”

Darcy looks from the wallet to him.

“This feels financially irresponsible.”

“I’m willing to risk it.”

I sink farther into the couch while Darcy orders food, bouncing from one story to the next without waiting for either of us to answer. Mack leans against the counter listening, and for the first time since yesterday, he’s looking at her instead of through the apartment.

Every few seconds, she looks over at one of us mid-story before she keeps talking.

The pizza shows up twenty minutes later and we eat straight out of the box because nobody feels like finding plates. Darcy plants herself cross-legged between Mack and me while some Tom Cruise movie takes over the TV. She steals my garlic sauce. A minute later Mack hands her his soda without either of them looking away from the screen.

At some point, Darcy ends up curled into my side with one leg thrown across mine and her head tucked against my chest. My arm finds its way around her waist, neither of us acknowledging when exactly that happened. She just relaxes further into me with a small exhale.

A while later, Mack stretches out and drops his head into her lap. Darcy shifts without thinking, making room before her fingers disappear into his hair and stay there, moving absentmindedly while Mack’s eyes drift closed.

Every few minutes Mack opens his eyes long enough to look at one of us before letting them fall shut again. Darcy’s fingers stay tangled in his hair, combing through it while the movie keeps talking to itself in the background.

I spend more time watching them than I do the TV. Mack sinks a little farther into her lap as the night wears on. Darcy leans a little more of her weight against my side until she’s practically folded into me, and my hand closes a little tighter around her waist in response.

Outside, traffic gives way to the occasional car passing below. Inside, nobody moves much.

At some point, my eyes close too.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

darcy

The TV has gone dark except for the menu screen casting a dim blue glow across the living room. The light over the kitchen sink is still on, washing the butcher block counters in warm yellow, and somewhere outside a car rolls past before the neighborhood settles again.

It takes a second for my eyes to adjust.

Then Tyler’s arm tightens around my waist when I shift, and the last few hours rearrange themselves into something recognizable.

I’m still half sprawled across him on the couch, my cheek tucked against his chest, one of his hands warm beneath the hem of my shirt. Sometime in the last few hours Mack apparently decided my lap made a perfectly acceptable pillow because he’s stretched out beside us with his head resting there like it’s the most reasonable place in the world.