Page 43 of The Attack Zone

Shit.

I type out a reply and hit send before I can stop myself.

Stacey: I just wanted to be sure I can still sit on your face without causing permanent damage.

The speech bubble appears again, this time lasting for even longer than before. Finally, my phone buzzes.

Mitch: Jesus, love. I’m in a dressing room full of dudes right now. At least wait to sext me until I’m back at my hotel.

I didn’t mean to sext him, but I guess that’s sort of what I did. Oops. I need to find a way out of this, or I’ll end up actually sexting with this guy. Not that that would be a bad thing, but now Hazel knows and she got in my head. Have I really wanted to get with Mitch this whole time? No. That wouldn’t make any sense. Up until very recently I hated the guy. Even now, he still drives me a little nuts.

Stacey: As fun as that sounds, I have an early meeting tomorrow.

It’s not untrue ... I do have a meeting with a client. I’m totally prepared for it and I don’t actually have to go to bed early, but there’s a part of me that feels like if I do this with Mitch, we’ll be crossing out of friends-with-benefits territory and into something different. I’m not sure why.

Mitch: That’s a shame.

Stacey: Lol. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow.

There’s a speech bubble again. I decide to make my way to my bedroom to get ready to sleep. I might as well get some extra rest since I told Mitch I needed to. Finally, my phone buzzes.

Mitch: I’ll pick you up as soon as I’m back from the airport. But just a heads up, I won’t be able to hang out late after our planning meeting.

That’s odd. We’ve been hooking up every single night. Iwonder what he has going on ... Maybe some kind of team event or something.

Or a date. I mean, who am I to judge if he has a date. We’re just friends, right?

Stacey: Okay, sounds good. Goodnight, Mitch.

Mitch: Goodnight, love.

CHAPTER 22

MITCH

TWO DAYS LATER

“Ouch,” I hiss against Stacey’s lips.

She lets out the most adorable giggle I’ve ever heard and says, “Sorry. I keep forgetting how fragile you are.”

“I am not fragile. My nose is bruised from being a valiant friend,” I say.

When I picked Stacey up to go to our meeting with a potential florist for Caleb and Cassie’s wedding, she didn’t seem annoyed with me for getting into a fight or turned off by my bruised face. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought she was a little into it based on how she kissed me when she got into my car. I sort of expected some holier-than-thou speech about controlling my anger, but that’s not what I got at all. Which is good, because my anger was controlled the whole time. I was just standing up for Thomas because the refs refused to do what was right. I won’t lie, though, after the depressed morning I’d had, it felt good.

But that doesn’t mean I expected her lips to instantly be on me the moment she opened the car door. Or her hands to be in my hair. Even now, as we’re parked outside of the florist’s office, she can’t seem to stop kissing me.

That is until there’s a knock on my window.

“You two love birds ready?” a young man asks as he stands outside of my car.

“Oh, shit,” Stacey whispers. She crawls back to her side of the car, cheeks bright red.

I grab my folder of wedding planning things from the center console and say, “Yep,” as I open the car door.

Stacey gets out of her side, cheeks still rosy. “We, uh ... I...um...” she stutters.

“I’m Mitch,” I say, reaching my hand out to the guy. “We’re Cassie and Caleb’s friends.”