Chapter 8
Tasha
“Do you think I should have accepted it?”
I had just told Rena about the awkwardish interaction between Paul Wilson and me. Oak & Sage hadn’t opened yet. I had texted Rena ahead of time and found out Cade wasn’t there. I hadn’t spoken to him all week. She was currently looking at me like I’d lost my mind.
Rena lifted an eyebrow. “I’m probably the wrong person to ask if you should have accepted an envelope full of cash, given that I accepted one not too long ago for that one.” She hoisted a thumb over her shoulder, gesturing in the general direction of Devlin, who was bustling around the restaurant preparing to open.
“It wasn’t cash.” I rolled my eyes. “No one gambles anymore. It’s gauche.”
We shared a smile.
“Well, why didn’t you take it?” Rena didn’t know about the kiss yet. “It’s not as if you haven’t earned it. Not as if you haven’t been fitting in Cade’s therapy between a full class load and another job.”
“I know. But Cade and I have become…friends.” I scrunched up my face. That word still felt like the wrong definition for whatever it was we had between us. Because we weren’t really “friendly,” but that kiss had been far more than friendly.
“No, but it makes me uncomfortable. Especially after…” Since I hadn’t told her about the kiss at the museum yet or my hypothesis, I decided now was the time. I looked over my shoulder. A hostess rolled silverware at a nearby table, but I didn’t see anyone else. When I turned back to Rena, she was leaning over the bar, her fingers laced together. My rapt audience.
“Especially after what?” she asked, her voice lilting. Since she’d recently harbored her own sexy secret, it was right of her to suspect me.
“Especially after he kissed me.” I said the last three words in a whisper.
Rena’s jaw dropped. Then she grinned. “I knew it. Tell me everything.”
“Well, I took him to the museum, thinking we would try the straw thing. Thanks, by the way, for those.” It was Rena who’d given me a handful of wrapped straws when I told her my idea.
“Let me guess. He skipped the straw and sucked on your tongue instead?”
“Rena!”
She erupted into giggles. Rena wasn’t a giggler, so the sound made me smile. “I honestly tried to get him to do the exercises. But he drank all my water.” I demonstrated the ooo and puh exercises he’d refused to do next.
Rena made an unpleasant face. “You really expected him to do that?”
“If he ever wants to speak clearly again,” I said defensively. “This is standard stuff.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry.” Rena straightened and held out a hand in surrender. “So when that didn’t go over, you decided to do a different kind of exercise.” She waggled her eyebrows.
Geez. Sex on the brain.
“At first it was purely scientific.” Could I have sounded any more full of crap? She smiled confirming that, no, I couldn’t. “I visited one of his former speech therapists. She believes a lot of his problems are in his head.”
Rena considered this. “I guess that makes sense. He and Devlin were pretty stunned when they found out they were related last year. Add to that Paul’s addiction, the car accident. Sonny getting busted,” she said of Devlin’s former bookie employer.
“I believe the exercises will help him, if I can get him to do them. I told him I wanted to try an experiment, but he didn’t let me initiate.” Despite myself, I was grinning broadly when I said, “He started counting, then didn’t let me get to three before he pulled me in.”
“How was it?”
“It worked,” I announced proudly. “He was able to speak without a stutter after the kiss. Which tells me—”
“No, Tasha.” She gripped my arm and tipped her head, sending her dark ponytail over one shoulder. “How was it?”
I knew that’s what she was asking. I was trying to deflect.
“Electric,” I answered on a breath.
In a dreamy voice she said, “Oh, I love those. Especially when you don’t know what’s coming next.”