Page 28 of Catch Him

Chapter 8

Monday

“You’re putting toomuch hot sauce on that,” she warned him as they moved through the line at Chipotle, directing the servers with their choices.

He’d asked her where she wanted to go for lunch before her shift started. He’d wanted to take her to the exclusive Cliff House, which overlooked the ocean. She’d suggested Chipotle down the block from her apartment instead.

He sighed but eventually gave in.

“I love hot sauce,” he told her. “Please, as much as you can,” he told the teenager behind the counter.

“Yes, but that’s serious hot sauce. Like super super hot sauce.”

“Bring it on,” he said and the kid behind the counter obliged him. Squeezing the red sauce over everything.

They took their seats and Sinead watched him bite into the now leaking-with-hot-sauce burrito.

“Ten, nine, eight…” she counted down.

He blinked and looked at her. His eyes going wide. “Oh my fucking God!”

“Told you it was serious hot sauce,” she said, trying not to smile as his face turned red and drops of sweat started beading on his forehead. It was like his whole body was on fire from the inside. She could only imagine what that felt like.

“You’re laughing. I can see your lips twitching,” he said around a straw as he sucked up soda. “You’re evil to laugh at my pain.”

Sinead shrugged. “I warned you.”

“Not hard enough! Oh. I don’t think I can feel my tongue anymore.”

With that she burst out laughing in his face.

* * *

Wednesday

“No. I’m not doing that again.”

She was on the night shift and Cherise had just delivered her a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich with a side order of cheese fries. Something that David had proclaimed upended his world.

He was sitting on her side of the booth so he could whisper naughty things in her ear and while she mostly liked it, they were not celebrating their six-day anniversary in the bathroom again.

“It was hot.”

It was. However, it was also illegal and she was not breaking the law. Again.

“Then how about we take the food to go and sit in my car and make out.”

“Your car is too small.”

“The squad car then.”

“Absolutely not! I’m not making out in my squad car. Do you know what happens in the back seat of that thing with drunks… it’s gross.”

“Fine then. We will not make out. Instead I’ll sit here and eat my cheese fries, which are the most delicious things on earth.”

“You do that.”

He leaned in closer. “Except of course your pussy. That is in fact the most delicious thing on earth. Cheese fries are a distant second.”