Free Off Limits by Lola Darling Page A

admit, my memory's a bit faulty lately—tell me again how you guys met?"
    Heather rolls her eyes, though she still has a stupidly happy smile on her face, and she can't stop casting sideways glances at Mark. "It's okay, Chloe, you don't have to pretend—I didn't tell her about you yet because I thought you might have run away by this point," she admits to Mark.
    He squeezes her shoulder lightly. "My dear, I thought you had better foresight than that," he pretends to scold, yet he softens it with a wink.
    I'd be almost grossed out by the cuteness if it hadn't been so long since I'd seen Heather look like this. Relaxed. Infatuated. "We met through work," she says, presumably in response to me, though she's still staring at him. "The coworker whose birthday is tonight, actually, Nelson. Mark is his roommate, and he tagged along to some company happy hours a few weeks ago."
    "We've been disgustingly inseparable ever since," Mark finishes. Then he ducks over to kiss her cheek again. "But, if your bestie here hasn't heard the full story yet, I should give you two some privacy. Clearly you need to catch up. And I owe my birthday boy a few more drinks, as it so happens."
    Cute and considerate. I mentally chalk up another point in this new kid's favor. Not too shabby, Heather, I must admit.
    "You can still ride us all home later?" Heather says as he pushes his chair back to stand. "I'm thinking I might need another of these." She taps her cocktail glass, and I notice with a start that mine is already empty.
    He salutes. "Designated driver, at your service, my dear. Get as plastered as you'd like."
    Then he's gone, breezing across the room and chatting with other people I vaguely recognize from the couple of times I've tagged along to Heather's work events along the way. "Well he's adorable," I say at the same time that Heather bursts out with, "I'm so sorry I didn't tell you before."
    We both laugh a little self-consciously. "Not your fault," I reassure her. "I'm the one who's been completely M.I.A. from life."
    "I just really didn't think this would go anywhere. I thought it was just a fling, you know, the first couple of times we hooked up. He seemed too . . . interested in me, for it to be real. You know? Like he had to be faking it. James—my coworker—always talks about the dates Mark goes on all the time, so I just kind of assumed he was this big player, but . . ."
    I purse my lips around my straw to suck up the dregs of the cocktail. As if signaled by magic, our server appears at my elbow. "Another drink, miss?" he asks, and Heather nods and holds up two fingers, before I can say yea or nay.
    Ah well. It's been too long since I had a good long chat with my bestie, some drinks are required. "Well he seems really sweet, as far as I can tell. I mean, he might be a manwhore or a serial killer, you never know I guess, but—”
    Heather swats at my arm, though she's laughing as she does. "Trust you to be the optimist."
    "I just like to consider all possibilities!"
    "Uh huh." She smirks. "So what about you; have I missed any new possibilities cropping up for you?"
    Insanely, stupidly, my mind flashes straight to Max. The way his eyes flash when they catch mine. The hard turn of his jaw when he's bent over a case file. Hell, even the angry line that appeared between his eyebrows when we argued this morning in front of the elevator. Part of me wanted to scream at him, but another part—an embarrassingly big part—just wanted to grab him and make him stop talking and put that mouth to better use.
    My cheeks flush. Nope. No real possibility of that, ever. "There's the possibility I might leave my office more frequently?" I reply, keeping an easy grin on, and hoping that Heather won't notice my split second of fantasizing hesitation. "Who knows. Maybe I'll meet someone when I start venturing back into the real world beyond the desk. What about you, how's everything else been? Work and that project you were talking about . . . what