“Yes and no.”

“Sounds like you haven’t asked her out yet.”

“Her?” Greg went for innocent, maybe slightly confused, but one look from Brad had him giving up the charade. “I haven’t called her, no. She’s got a lot on her plate with the paint and the reporter and fixing that whole issue.”

“Damn big issue. Gonna take her longer than one night to get to it.”

“No kidding.” Greg waited a beat. “What’s your point?”

“My point is, a night off’s not going to kill her. Call her.”

“Hey, Captain Cupid, who are you and what have you done with my roommate?” He ducked the pillow Brad threw at him. “Come on, man. I just made the bed.”

“Good Marines make their beds when they first get out of them.”

“I’d state the obvious, but I won’t.”

Brad seemed to shrug that off. They both knew he would have just made fun of Brad’s anal retentive tendencies. “She’s smart, she’s hot—”

“Watch it,” Greg growled.

“Oh, piss off. You know I’ve got my own woman. Just stating a fact. And for some reason, she isn’t totally repulsed by you.”

There was more between them than just “not repulsed.” But he kept quiet.

“So go call Reagan Robilard and take the lady out. She could probably use a good distraction tonight after the day she’s had. Let her get loose. She’ll have enough shit to deal with tomorrow.”

“She’ll just bitch at me about some conflict of interest or other bullshit.”

“We thought that. Marianne and I hid our dating for way longer than necessary. And now you have no excuse.”

“Damn,” he muttered.

“Afraid of rejection?”

Greg threw the pillow back at his smirking roommate. “I think I liked you better when you were a standoffish jerk.”

“Me, too. But here we are. And it’s your fault I’m more chatty, anyway.”

“I’m asking her, I’m asking her.” Greg pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and waved it. “But if she says she’s tired, I’m not pushing. She’s had a rough day.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Brad waited a beat. “But she won’t say she’s tired.”

That made Greg think twice. “Why?”

Brad stood, and Greg noticed him favoring his knee just a little on one side. “Because you’ll find some way or another to convince her to throw caution to the wind. To seize the moment. To carpe diem. It’s what you do. You’re the social one. So”—he finished as he went to the door—“go be social.” With that, he closed Greg’s door behind him.

“Go be social,” he mocked. After letting his thumb hover over the call button on his phone, he switched to text and sent her a message.

Coward? You betcha.

She responded less than sixty seconds later, exactly how he’d guessed. Tired, overworked, needed some rest and time to go over notes.

Greg: All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl.

Reagan: I can handle being dull. I can’t handle putting work off. Thanks, though.

See, Costa? You don’t know everything. She was going to reject his offer. But at least he’d put it out there.

Just as he was about to put his phone down, he tried one more thing.

Greg: You can ask me one more question, if you let me buy you dessert.

There was a long pause, to the point where he wondered if she’d put her phone down and didn’t hear it alert with the text. He gave up and set his on the bedside table and went to the drawer where he kept takeout menus.

And nearly broke land speed records racing back to grab it when it beeped with a text.

Reagan: Dessert only, my pick and we call it quits early.

Bingo. Before he could stop it, he felt a smile creep across his face. The one thing destined to get her out of her work funk was . . . work.

He could choose to be offended by that, and see it as a negative that she only wanted to spend time with him if she could call it productive. That being out with him wasn’t reason enough. Or he could see it as a positive that she was too tempted by him, and using work as an excuse made her feel better about stepping over that boundary.

He was an optimist, after all.

Greg: DEAL.

CHAPTER

8

Reagan waited in the back corner of the popular café-style yogurt bar. She’d arrived early, notebook ready, and scoped out the offerings. Frozen yogurt was the least of the dessert sins she could think of. There was a fat-free, dairy-free yogurt that looked tempting . . .

Oh, who the hell was she kidding? That thing looked like pink glue.

But hey, anything fat-free, dairy free, shame-and-guilt free had to be good for you, right?

“This is an interesting choice.”

She jerked her head up as Greg slid into the small chair across the tiny bistro-style table. Why did the man have to make a simple polo shirt and jeans look sinful? “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing, I guess. I just thought you’d be someone to pick something a little more . . .” He glanced around the room, at the bright lights, brighter colors and several tables full of screaming kids. “I don’t know, adult?”

“Frozen yogurt is very adult,” she said, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. “It’s practically a health food.”

He stared at her. “Uh-huh. And that’s why you can dump a bowl of peanut butter cups on top of it and they weigh it by the pound? Because of the health benefits?”

“Exactly.” She left her purse and notebook there—the café was small enough she didn’t worry about it—and went to the starting line where the cups were. “Have you been here before?”

“A few times. You?”

“First time here. But there was one near my apartment in college. Very popular place.” She’d gone there a few times to study, when the lights in her apartment had gone off for nonpayment. The owners had been sweet and let her sit at a corner table to work even though she almost never bought anything.

Greg waited for her to grab the provided cups—which were big enough to hold three baked potatoes—and pick out her flavor. She let three seconds’ worth of pink glue plop into her cup and walked to the register. She passed by Greg, who was on flavor number two, when he snagged her elbow.

“What the hell is that?”

“Strawberry,” she answered defensively.

“That is definitely not strawberry. That’s nothing. There’s, like, a thimble-full in there. Go get more.”

“I don’t need more.” Really, the man was exasperating.

He finished the flavor he was on—cookies and cream—and stepped over to layer on some key lime pie yogurt.

“Uh, that combo doesn’t sound appetizing,” she pointed out, in case he had misread the sign.

“That’s half the fun. Coming up with some weird combination that will make the employees gag.”

She stared at him blandly. “You were one of those children who enjoyed putting some of every soda in his cup at concession stands, weren’t you?”

He winked. “Bet you can’t top this one.”

She could. But really . . . “I’m good.”

“Oh, man. And here I thought you’d be more creative than me.” His disappointed voice grated against her nerves. “Sucks to be wrong. Oh, well.”

“Look, it’s not that disgusting. There’s worse combinations out there.”

He looked her in the eyes, nearly nose to nose, and whispered, “Prove it.”

Something inside her clicked, and suddenly she was seven years old with her two older brothers double-dog daring her and her younger two brothers betting she would chicken out.

Oh. Oh, it was so on. She pulled away from him and started the hunt for the most repulsive combination of flavors. No, not just flavors, she reminded herself. They had syrups and toppings, too. The nastiness could not be avoided.

Ten minutes later, with her massive cup nearly overflowing with yogurt, she put it on the scale at the register. Next to hers, Greg set his own malformation of dessert. They both burst out laughing as the cashier made a Mr. Yuk face at their creations.