“I heard,” Griffin said, pretending to be disgusted. “It’s like she didn’t see my in-the-park home run in the championship game this season.”

“Or my triple that drove in the winning run.” I shook my head. “Sad.”

“Appalling.” Griffin elbowed his wife.

Blair rolled her eyes. “I am not talking about old man baseball, and you know it!”

“Now she’s trying to take back what she said about us.” Griffin shook his head. “Good thing she’s hot. That’s what really matters in a relationship, am I right, Cole?”

“She’s also a great cook, which is the second most important thing.” I ate another forkful of chicken piccata, which was delicious.

“True, true,” Griffin agreed. “Or maybe the third. I won’t mention the second at the table, but don’t worry, she’s good at that too.”

Blair cleared her throat. “Cheyenne, remind me of this conversation next time I have the idea to get together for dinner.”

“Will do, sister.”

Griffin and I exchanged a grin, and something about the whole scene was both nostalgic—Griffin and I ganging up on some cute girls—and hopeful. I could imagine dinners like this in the future, with Moretti and Beckett and their wives, whoever they turned out to be, and maybe a bunch of kids running around too.

Beneath the table, I reached for Cheyenne’s hand.

As we were finishing up tiramisu and coffee, I noticed Cheyenne checking her phone.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“Everything’s fine,” she said. “I was just checking the time.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost ten.”

“Is it that late already?” Griffin asked, yawning and stretching.

Blair hit his arm. “Griffin, that’s rude.”

“What? I get up at six,” he said. “And you get up even earlier.”

“But you made it sound like you want them to leave.”

“It’s just my sister and Cole.” Griffin gestured toward us. “If I really wanted them to leave, I’d say it right to their faces.”

Blair clucked her tongue in disgust and looked at us across the table. “You do not have to go.”

“Actually, we do,” I said. “Cheyenne and I have to work tomorrow, and I promised Mariah I’d poke my head in and kiss her goodnight.”

“Won’t she be asleep?” Blair asked.

“I hope so, but when I called her, she made me swear to do it anyway.”

She smiled at me. “Such a good dad.”

A couple minutes later, Cheyenne and I helped clear the table, said goodnight, and headed out. We’d just left their building and started walking down the street toward my car when Cheyenne stopped.

“What’s wrong? Did you forget something?” I asked.

“No. I just don’t want to go home yet.” She turned to face me. “I wish we could be alone.”

“Me too,” I said, feeling like an asshole that I had nowhere to take her. What kind of cretinous basement-dweller still lived with his mother at age thirty-three?

“I was thinking . . .”

“What?”

She turned around and looked back at the building. “I have a key to the garage.”

“You do?”

She laughed and shrugged. “Better than nothing, right?”

I grabbed her arm and started running back up the street.

“But we need to be quiet,” she said breathlessly, unlocking the door. “I don’t want them to hear us. And we should be quick too.”

“No fucking problem.” I was already getting hard just thinking about it.

As soon as the door was shut behind us, I turned the lock and took her hand, leading her out of the lobby area and into the service bay. I’d been in the garage enough times to know my way around, even in the pitch-dark.

At least, I thought I did.

“Oh, shit!” I said after knocking over something that clanged noisily as it hit the cement floor.

Cheyenne started laughing uncontrollably, and to shut her up, I spun her against the wall and kissed her. Unbuttoned her coat. Shrugged mine off my shoulders.

“Hurry,” she panted.

“I’m trying,” I said, reaching beneath her skirt. “Fucking winter clothes. What are you wearing?”

“Tights,” she said. “Hold on. I’ll get them off.” She ditched her boots and whipped off her tights—at least, that’s what I assumed she was doing. It was so dark I couldn’t see shit.

“Okay,” she said, putting her arms around me.

“You’re still wearing a giant sweater,” I complained, desperate to get closer to her.

“I can’t take that off, Cole! We have to hurry!”

“Okay, okay,” I told her, reaching beneath her skirt once more, this time finding her bare skin. “But I haven’t been able to think about anything but this all week, so you have to give me a minute here.” I stroked her patiently, working my tongue between her lips and my fingers over her clit.

“Cole, now,” she begged in a heated whisper, rubbing me through my jeans. “I want you right now.”

I unzipped my jeans and shoved them down just enough to work my cock free and pushed up her skirt. She jumped up, wrapping her legs around me, holding herself aloft while I positioned myself—then groaned loudly as she slid down my shaft.

“Shhhhh!” she scolded. “Quiet!”

But it was fucking impossible to be quiet. I wanted her too much, it had been too long, and I had no idea when we’d get this chance again. I had zero control.

I fucked her savagely, her back against the wall. Against a metal cabinet. Against a tool bench, which was unfortunately on wheels and made a giant rattling noise when I shoved it against some kind of shelving unit—or maybe it was a rack of tires—and then spilled a bunch of its contents on the floor.

Both of us were loud—between my caveman grunting and Cheyenne’s high-pitched cries, you could hardly hear all the racket made by the tools and equipment we were knocking around.

But the kicker was that I set her against the side of someone’s SUV right before we both came, and our spontaneous orgasm was so violent we set off the car’s alarm.

Cheyenne screamed and I cursed, setting her on her feet. “Fuck!”

“Oh my God!” she shrieked. “Make it stop!”

“Give me a second,” I said, zipping my pants and frantically wondering if someone was calling the cops right now and a couple of my colleagues were about to show up here and laugh their asses off.

“We don’t have a second! And I can’t find my tights!”

Five seconds later, the lights came on and Griffin came barreling into the service bay. “What the fuck, you guys?”

I stood next to Cheyenne while he grabbed the SUV’s key fob from a rack on the wall, pressed a button, and stopped the noise. Then he turned to face us, and he was not amused.

He kind of looked like Darlene after the broken plate incident.

“What. The fuck,” he repeated. But it wasn’t really a question.

“Sorry,” I said. My heart was still hammering, and the car alarm still rang in my ears.