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I accepted the glass of wine with a pained groan. “You are soloudwhen you uncork your crazy. You know that?”

Janice laughed into her own drink, and Gemma sipped hers with dainty grace before saying, “You love it.”

Smiling and rolling my eyes, I turned to Janice. “This is really nice, Janice. Everyone did a great job.”

Janice, brightly colored and impossible to miss with her loud patterns, nodded with a smile. “My pleasure, Dr. Coldwell.”

Somehow, neither of us had been fired. Actually, after I’d shown up on Tuesday banged up and apologizing profusely, Janice had looked strangely unaffected by the whole thing. She’d said something about the issue being a blossom in the wind, whatever that meant. Gemma had been so grateful, she’d burst into tears, and since then, we’d both worked our asses off to prove that we belonged at Kiss-Met. It made enduring social functions like this one almost bearable.

Well,I amended with a glance at Cal where he stood tall and broad-shouldered next to Dr. Rook,a few things make it enjoyable, actually.

Cal turned away from his conversation with Rook and caught me staring. He smiled slow and wide. Then he winked once and returned his attention to whatever Rook was saying. My stomach fluttered like finch wings.

“Ye Gods,” Gemma muttered with her glass of wine hovering near her lips. “You two are disgustingly cute.”

“’Ye Gods?’” I echoed with incredulousamusement.

“My new MMORPG is like a fantasy thing, and one of the characters keeps saying it,” she said like that was the most normal thing ever. I gave her a concerned stare. She clicked her tongue. “What? I’m lonely without sex. Smashing things with a giant battle axe is fucking satisfying. You know, in place of satisfying fucking.”

I hadn’t actually expected Gemma to give up on men, but thus far, she had seemed determined to make it happen. “Okay,” I murmured, smiling to myself.

“I thought we hated Dr. Rook,” Gemma noted under her breath, leaning over and glancing at where Cal spoke to the other doctor.

“I thought so too,” I admitted. “But I think they’re working things out after my incident or whatever.” I took a sip of wine, and a burst of sweet and sour slipped over my tongue before I swallowed.

Gemma made a disgusted sound. “How does an android like that end up with a date to a company picnic, and I end up playing video games alone on the weekend?”

I glanced at the tall, stunning redhead at Rook’s side. Rook himself was just as tall as Cal, and his light blond hair had been swept away from his handsome features with perfect precision. He wore a loose-fitting, vertically striped button-down that stretched tightly across his chest, and as he talked, he casually reached over to drape his hand over his date’s hip. The gesture was undeniably sexy.

I had a pretty good idea about why Rook always had dates tothings. To Gemma, I shrugged and said, “He probably brainwashes them.”

“Cyborg tricks,” Gemma agreed gravely.

Cal finished his conversation with Rook and then returned to me. Like magnets, we gravitated to each other, and he bent to drop a kiss on my cheek before waving to Gemma. “I’m stealing her again. Rook said he spotted an owl awake early down that other path.”

Gemma’s eyelashes flared with disbelief, and she buried herself in her wine glass again. “Mercy, you’rebothnerds.”

“You love it,” I tossed back to her.

Gemma snuffed out a laugh, and Cal tugged me away from the group again. I gave him a questioning glance, but he just took my wine glass, set it on a picnic table where an IT team was standing, and led me away from the crowd toward another trail that curved back into a heavily wooded area.

Cal tugged at his taupe button-down, fanning it away from his sweat-glistened skin. “We’re all roasting out there in the open.”

I had to agree. I’d put on a lightweight, yellow sundress that fell to my knees, but I was sweating under the fabric anyway. “I’m ready for fall,” I confessed.

Cal’s rich, green eyes traveled down from my frizzy hair to my strappy sandals as we entered the shade of the trail. “Ruth in squishy sweaters and fuzzy socks? Sounds like a dream.”

I laughed, and the sound filled the quiet space. “That’s what you’re looking forward to? My schlumpy outfits?”

“Taking them off, yes,” he said with a sharp glance.

I sipped in a fast breath. Holding it, I eked out, “Oh.”

“Oh,” he teased with a half-smile.

The truth was, I still hadn’t gotten completely used to having mind-blowing sex with Cal. All the time. Anytime. So far, he hadn’t grown bored of shattering my sanity with his fingers, his mouth, and his obscenely perfect dick. And the way he was looking at me at the moment had me thinking that I wasn’t going to be disappointed here, either.

When we had walked a good thirty feet into the trail, Cal pulled me off the path and into the trees. Through the foliage and densely packed tree trunks, I could just make out the milling party in the distance. Then Cal pressed my back against a tree and leaned his weight on one hand just beside my head.