Page 59 of Rising Heat

You bought a rug, a throw blanket, and a white sage candle in the same week and haven’t left your apartment unless it’s to change up the scenery for work purposes.

I look around my apartment—the candle, the rug, the throw, the little ceramic bowl by the door that I bought for my keys because it felt like something a stable person would own—and wince. Fine. Maybe I could touch grass.

Darcy

That’s called healing.

Bex

That’s called foreplay for becoming a hermit.

I giggle to myself. Bex has always been the person who knows when I’m disappearing into myself and refuses to let me stay there.

Darcy

I signed up for Pilates.

Bex

Oh, so now we’re healing and getting hotter out of spite?

Darcy

That’s not why.

Bex

Sure.

Darcy

Mostly not why.

Darcy

I hate that you’re making me sound shallow.

Bex

If the Lululemon fits…

My smile softens despite itself. I’d reluctantly told Bex about Mack—Mason—a few nights ago.

About opening my bathroom door to six-foot-something of dark-haired, broad-shouldered irritation crouched under my sink like some kind of walking wet dream. The tattoo running up his bicep. The deep, low grumble of his voice that I may or may not have replayed in my head while I clenched around my magic wand later that night.

The way he’d looked at me when I pushed back. That part had lingered longer than it should have, and I wasn’t in a position to start asking questions I didn’t want to know the answers to.

Bex

Sunshine AND Broody living downstairs?

Bex

Yeah, I’d fold like a lawn chair too.

Darcy

Nobody is folding, Bex.