Page 23 of The No Touch Roommate Rule (That Steamy Hockey Romance #2)

Princess Pinch stalls out pretty quickly, but still ends up winning by default when all the other crawfish in her heat crawl over the pool noodles to pile up in a corner. Speedy Gonzales is disqualified for being asleep.

Or dead. Hard to tell.

“I won!” Makena turns to me, eyes bright, cheeks flushed from the sun. “Parker, I’m a champion!”

“I hope you’ll still be my friend,” I say. “Now that you’re crawfish racing royalty and all.”

Clearly fighting a grin, she says seriously, “I’ll try not to let it go to my head. It’ll be hard, but…I’ll try. Now, let’s go collect my winnings. I’ll buy you a beer to help you feel better about being a loser.”

“Technically, Speedy is the loser,” I say as we head toward the guy in the lawn chair. “But I appreciate that.”

Beers and a big bowl of gumbo to share acquired, we head to the eating contest. We don’t enter that one, thank Christ, but we watch from the stands as grown adults shovel mudbug butts into their faces with the desperation of people who’ve made questionable life choices.

The winner—in a stunning upset, not Ricky Weems, who choked on a drink of water five minutes in—manages nearly thirteen pounds.

“That’s going to revisit him later,” Makena observes, draining the last of her beer.

“Revisit is a precious way of putting that.”

“Violently exodus?”

“Better.”

We grab another beer and wander to the shade to watch the costume contest, both of us happy that it’s human beings who are dressing up like crawdaddies, not costumes on actual mudbugs.

It kind of feels like the crawdaddies have been through enough today, though they are way more delicious than I remember.

The costume pageant is a blast, and watching people of all ages strut down the catwalk, showing off their homemade costumes, inspires me in unexpected ways.

“If we come back next year, I’m entering the pageant,” I whisper to Makena as the little girl on stage answers the MC’s question about her favorite part of the Mudbug festival.

Makena grins. “Of course, you are.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“I know you’re not,” she says, sipping her beer. “I’ve always known you had an inner theater kid under that jocky exterior, Leo Parker. Your Halloween costumes were way too elaborate for a kid who didn’t want to be onstage. At least a little bit.”

“Valid.” I laugh as I lean back against the bleachers behind us. “Though, to be fair, being on the ice in a sold-out arena isn’t that different than being up on a stage. You just don’t get to know your lines ahead of time.”

Makena shivers. “Which makes it way scarier. I could never do what you do.”

“And I could never do what you do.”

“Oh, sure you could,” she says, dismissing her bravery with a flutter of her fingers.

“No, I couldn’t,” I maintain. “I’ve always been part of a team.

The thought of opening a business all by myself, with no one to back me up, scares the shit out of me.

The paperwork alone would probably give me a mental breakdown.

You’re a badass, woman. Own it. And promise you’ll enter the costume contest next year, too.

I need to see you in a crawfish costume. A pink one. Wearing a blue bikini.”

She glances my way with an arched brow. “That’s weirdly specific.”

“I’m a weird guy.” I shrug. “And if you wanted to model it for me a few times before the competition, just to be sure it’s good to go, I wouldn’t mind that, either.”

“Gross,” she says, nudging my knee with hers. “No crustacean kink for me. But I wouldn’t mind having a booth here next year. My mind’s been full of crawfish recipes all day.”

“Yeah?” I ask. “You wouldn’t get sick of cooking outside in the heat?”

“I’m always cooking in the heat,” she says, glancing around.

“It might actually be nice to be outside more. I mean, my location was great for repeat lunch customers, but being trapped inside an office building all day wasn’t my favorite.

A mobile set-up would give me more flexibility, and give me the chance to incorporate work with travel in the summer. ”

“Sound like someone’s having hopeful ideas…”

Her lips quirk. “Maybe. I still hope that appeal goes through, but…yeah. There’s a spark of hope.”

“All it takes is a spark,” I murmur.

The words hover in the suddenly loaded air. But it’s not just a “spark” with us. It’s the way it’s so easy to be with her, the way we get along like we’ve been friends forever, the way she makes me want to make plans for the future.

Plans that include her…

This isn’t normal for me. In the past, casual was the name of the game. I’ve been a “nice guy” and a decent boyfriend, but it’s also always been easy for me to walk away. Easier to bail than make the extra effort to take something temporary to the next level.

“One more beer?” she asks, peering down into her empty cup.

“Definitely,” I say, rising beside her. “Maybe two.”

As we make our way to the closest beer tent, the sun’s getting lower, painting the festival in a golden, forgiving glow that makes the zydeco music pumping from the stage seem romantic.

The crowd’s getting drunker, louder, more committed to the ridiculous.

Half the people we pass are decked out in some kind of crawfish paraphernalia, from hats to foam claws to brand new t-shirts.

Makena and I take our beers to the vendor area to grab our matching merch.

We’re tempted by the “Suck the Head. Pinch the Tail. Repeat.” and “Drink ‘Til the Tail Looks Good” designs, but in the end, we stick with the shirt that first caught our eye.

I change into mine right away, stripping off my sweat-tinged tee in the shadows by the booth, while Makena pretends that she isn’t checking me out.

But she is. I know she is.

So, I take my time pulling my new shirt over each arm, hesitating as I drag it slowly down to cover my abs, making her laugh and slap my hand. “Stop it!”

“Stop what?” I ask, all innocence.

“You know what,” she mutters, fanning her face in a way that makes me happy.

Very happy, indeed.

But before I can suggest we head to the dance floor near the main stage, where I’ll have a good excuse to get my hands on her, someone announces through a bullhorn that squeals with feedback.

“Mating call competition in thirty minutes. Sign-ups close in ten! Claim your spot at the Riverside Stage before it’s too late. ”

Makena grabs my hand. “Come on. This is our time to shine, buddy.”

“I don’t even know what crawfish sound like.”

“Neither do I. That’s part of the fun!”

The Riverside “Stage” is a flatbed trailer with Christmas lights stapled around the edge in front of a photo backdrop featuring a cartoon crawfish with bedroom eyes, much like the craw-zaddy on my shirt.

By the time we get there, only about a dozen people have signed up—eight women and four men.

Mack and I add our names to the list and go our separate ways, to the male and female holding zones.

“Do me proud, woman,” I shout as I duck under the rope into the guys’ area.

“Same,” she calls back, pulling her bandana from her hair and fluffing up the blond strands. She reaches into her pocket next, pulling out her lipstick.

Oh, shit. She’s ready to pull out all the stops.

I wonder if I should tie my shirt up around my ribs? Or just take it off completely? How raunchy is this “mating call” contest going to get?

As if answering my question, the MC calls out, “Remember, folks, we’re looking for authenticity, creativity, and raw sexual crawdaddy energy. These are crawfish in heat, y’all! Make us feel the hunger!”

Makena goes last in the female division. The women before focused mostly on tongue clicks while they wiggled around the stage, which seemed reasonable to someone with zero knowledge of crawfish mating habits.

But Makena…

Damn.

She struts to center stage like she owns it, hair fluffed into a wild halo and overall straps off both shoulders, held up by nothing but the grace of God and the t-shirt underneath.

She makes eye contact with the judges—three old men in John Deere caps, who look like they can’t decide if they should be afraid of this woman or fall instantly, completely in love.

I know which one I’d choose. Every time.

Then she starts.

With Mack, a mating call is a whole body experience. She chatters with her teeth, pops with her tongue, adding in these little chirps and whistles that shouldn’t be sexy but somehow are. She shimmies and swirls, doing this thing with her hips that makes me wish we weren’t in public.

I want her to be my private crawfish dancer.

Maybe she’s right, maybe I do have a crustacean kink.

But maybe she does, too. She commits so hard, the women who came before her look like pathetic pretenders to the crown.

“Holy shit, man,” the guy next to me mutters. “Your girl’s really going for it.”

My girl.

I don’t correct him. I just nod and say, “She always does.”

By the time she’s done, the crowd is losing their fucking minds. People are cheering and throwing foam claws at the stage, celebrating like she’s their hometown girl who just made it to the finals on American Idol.

When she finally stops, taking a bow that nearly sends her overalls to her ankles, the judges don’t even confer. They just point at her in unison, and the crowd goes wild.

And me? Well, I’m cheering loudest of all.

The male division is a sadder affair, making me wonder who thought letting the girls go first was a good idea.

The ladies should have closed this out, no doubt.

The men before me stick to grunting and thrusting, with the occasional roar and display of a flexed biceps, which feels more like construction work than seduction.

When it’s my turn, I catch Makena’s eye off to the corner of the stage.

She’s grinning, glowing, and looking at me like she believes in me.

Like she already knows I’m not going to let her down.

And I don’t intend to.

I take the stage with the same unhinged confidence she did, and proceed to channel every nature documentary I’ve ever seen.

I click, whistle, grunt, groan, and warble, while doing the best interpretive crawdaddy dance a man can pull off with his knee in a giant brace.

It’s mostly arm and neck action with a little bit of ab rippling.

I’m sure I look like I’m having a stroke, but the crowd is with me.

There’s a hell of a lot more laughing than when Makena was up here, but they’re with me, and I finish to another unanimous “he’s the winner” vote.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the MC shouts as Makena’s urged up onto the stage beside me. “Your Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Crawlick Mudbug Mayhem Mating Call Champions. Give these wild ones a round of applause!”

The MC’s assistant smashes stuffed crowns onto our heads that look like someone ripped the head off a giant crawfish, with spindly legs dangling down into our faces. Mine’s missing an eye. Makena’s has a lump on one side that looks like it should be checked out by a doctor.

And I don’t think either of us has ever laughed this hard.

She throws her arms around me, hugging me as she shouts to be heard over the crowd, “You were so good! Oh my God, Parker. That was the best thing you’ve ever done. Ever.”

“I learned from the best, woman,” I say, wrapping an arm around her waist and holding her close.

And then, suddenly, everyone’s chanting, “Kiss, kiss, kiss!”

So, after a beat of hesitation—a beat in which I look deep into her gaze and promise her this isn’t the last kiss of the night, and she silently agrees it’s time to stop pretending this chemistry can be denied—we do.

I’m vaguely aware of cheering, of someone taking pictures, of the MC saying something about the next band appearing on the main stage.

But mostly I’m aware of her. The way she tastes—like Cajun spice and beer and a sweet, honeyed BBQ sauce. The way she sighs into my mouth and melts against me. The little noise she makes when I nip at her bottom lip, promising naughtier things to come.

When we break apart, she’s breathing hard.

So am I.

We make our way off the stage, Makena first, me slightly slower, as I navigate the steep stairs with my brace. But the second I’m on solid ground, her arms are back around me. “Take me back to the truck and do bad things to me. Now?”

It’s what I’ve been waiting to hear for days. Months.

But she’s had four beers. So have I, but I’m a much larger person and had a more solid biscuit base coat to start with.

And to be honest, I’m tired of this play, the “push me away until she’s had a little to drink and her guard is down” drill.

I don’t want to be a weakness she indulges when she’s drunk.

I want to be a choice she makes with her eyes wide open, one that doesn’t get second-guessed the second the sun comes up.

“Dance with me first,” I say, taking her hand in mine.

She blinks. “What?”

“Dance with me.” I nod toward the main stage and the dance floor beside it.

“What about your knee?” she asks, as I start across the trampled grass.

“We’ll dance slow and easy.”

“I’m not drunk, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not.”

“So, you just…don’t want to? Is that it?”

I stop dead and drag her back against me. I kiss her harder this time, deeper, until she’s clinging to my shirt and making these breathy, hungry sounds that drive me insane.

When I pull back, she looks vaguely shell-shocked.

“Let’s dance,” I insist. “And talk. Real talk.”

She narrows her eyes like she’s figured out my game. But I don’t have a game. I’m done playing games. That’s why we have to talk. Even if it means I end up snuggling up to the separation pillow tonight instead of this woman who drives me crazy.

“Fine,” she whispers. “But I don’t have any answers. I really don’t.”

“That’s fine,” I say. “Maybe we can just agree on the questions. That’s a good place to start.”

I take her hand again, leading her to the edge of the dance floor, farthest from the stage. And there, under the twinkling fairy lights, surrounded by the smell of the grilled corn stand nearby and the beer sweat of our neighbors, I prepare to lay my heart on the line.