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I also selected a beer for myself and held my hand out.

“What do you need?” she asked.

“Your bottle opener,” I said.

Lacey laughed. “I don’t keep it in these pants. There’s one in the top drawer right next to the fridge.”

I tried not to be disappointed that I wouldn’t get to see her flip off the tops of the beer bottles, but it wasn’t meant to be tonight.

“Cheers.” I handed her the bottle and tapped mine to hers.

“Cheers,” she said, watching me as I swallowed. My face heated up and I had to look away from the intensity in her eyes.

At last, Lacey again remembered she was cooking and told me that dinner was ready. She had me pull the salad from the fridge and we set up everything to eat at the island.

“Would you be more comfortable on the couch?” she asked.

“Yes, definitely,” I said, and we carried everything to the coffee table, moving her hats and ereader and other random things aside.

“Better, princess?” she asked as we sat down.

“Yes,” I said, getting comfortable.

“By the way, the owner of this house is probably going to be contacting you about potentially staging this one. I may or may not have sang your praises,” she said.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said, filling up my plate. I was hungry and everything looked incredible. The only thing missing were fried pickles, but you couldn’t have everything.

“I know. But I did it anyway.”

Our eyes met and something shuddered in my chest as I realized just how fucking attracted to her I was.

“How is it?” she asked, her voice thick.

“What?” I asked, having no idea what she was talking about.

“The food, how is it?”

I took a few bites and couldn’t help but make noises. The meat was tender and flavorful, the risotto creamy and perfect, and the salad was full of fresh summer veggies.

“Incredible,” I said when my mouth wasn’t full. “What is this dressing on the salad?”

“Oh, I made that. It’s just a simple champagne vinaigrette with shallots,” she said.

“You’ll have to tell me how to make it because I would literally drink shots of this if I could,” I said, and she made a face.

“Sterling used to drink shots of random things on dares when we were younger,” I said, laughing. “She was always doing shit like that.”

“From what I remember when I met her, she seems like she’d be the kind of person to take a lot of dares.”

I kept forgetting that Sterling had met Lacey first and had been the main reason I got the job at all.

“You got that right. She’s always been the fearless one,” I said with a sigh.

“And you? What were you like?” she asked.

“Scared all the time and desperately pretending I wasn’t,” I said, which was the truth.

“You don’t seem like you’re scared of anything,” she said.