Page 72 of Scoring Chances

“Ugh, fine.”

I flip the phone over and open his text. It’s a picture of an excerpt from my latest read. My latest steamy read. It’s a part of the book where the main male character caught the female lead reading something raunchy and he tells her to read it out loud to him.

When she does, he acts out exactly what she’s reading.

My eyes widen and I look up at Joshua. “You are stalking me!”

“Did you tell our friend, Eddie about the kinds of books you read, Princess?” He cocks his head like a playful puppy.

I swallow. “No. Obviously.”

“Hmmm.” He looks over his shoulder at baggie pants guy and smiles. “My kid brother likes those books.”

He turns back to me. “I have a proposition for you.”

He looks back at the waiting speed dater, “It’ll only take another minute,” he tells him. The guy now looks visibly annoyed and I mouth “I’m sorry” to him.

Joshua reaches behind him and pulls out… my kindle!

I reach for it and he snatches it back. “Uh-uh. Hear me out.”

I huff out my annoyance and it seems to make him happy to rile me up.

“Leave right now.” He leans in, “And I’ll take you home and we can act out any scene you want from your little library.” He shakes the kindle.

“What?” I breathe out.

He nods. “Any scene.”

I look around me at the rest of the speed dates. Eddie is now talking to Lillian. They’re both laughing at something.

Oh no… she must like him too.

I swallow, turning back to Joshua.

He looks so relaxed. Like he already knows what my answer will be.

“I’ll give you thirty more seconds,” he says looking at his watch like he has somewhere to be.

He’s propositioning me. My boss, my crush, is propositioning with smut. Real life smut.

I can feel my jaw tick when I snatch my kindle out of his hand and stand up, grabbing my purse, just as the gong rings.

Joshua smiles and rises from his seat too. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

He heads to the entrance and holds the door open, but before I follow him out, I find Dee and hand her my card.

She looks at me puzzled.

“Something came up,“ I say.

She looks at Joshua holding the door open and chuckles to herself. I wave at Lillian who is still smiling from her last date. It quickly fades but I motion that I’ll call her and she nods.

Once outside, Joshua takes me by the hand and leads me to his car.

Chapter 20

Cassidy