Some Assembly Required by Lex Chase & Bru Baker

Author:Lex Chase & Bru Baker [Chase, Lex & Baker, Bru]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten: FIORE

Patrick splayed out on his MILAN bed as the living customers shuffled around him. Lost in his own world, he tapped his pen on the crossword booklet. He had already done six of them. One more would get him just enough in the zone to face another day of the usual Impressions. The usual bullshit drama. The usual sameness of everything. And then check out, go to bed, and take it fresh in the morning.

He folded the book back on itself, cracking the spine.

“Ten across. Devoted.” He read the clue out loud as he rolled to his back. He quickly scribbled in his answer. “Doggedness.”

A customer crouched over the bed and flicked over the MILAN price tag. “Oh look,” she said happily. “Won’t it be perfect in the guest bedroom?”

Her bright-eyed girlfriend wandered over. “It’ll be an adventure to get it through the front door.”

The young woman frowned. “You’re right…. Maybe we should keep looking?”

This time Patrick didn’t even have to try to ward customers away from his bed. He personally saw to it that the MILAN line was the worst seller in their CASA. No matter what the managers had done, no one would buy any MILAN products. He smirked with the passing thought and crossed his legs.

He pondered the next clue. “Ekindu’s Friend.” A moment passed. “Gilgamesh.”

Patrick ran his tongue over his bottom lip, and the prickle of a memory made his stomach clench. The feel of Benji’s mouth on his invaded his thoughts before he could shut it out. Fucking idiot. Taking on Jabba didn’t even get his head back in the game.

Patrick dropped the crossword booklet over his face to block out the overhead fluorescent lighting. He couldn’t avoid Benji forever. That was rich. Forever. Even being around Benji ground his sharp wit into infantile putty.

Karin had teased him he was going soft. Who the fuck was he? This wasn’t junior high. This wasn’t passing love notes asking for confirmation of feelings by circling yes or no.

Patrick grunted as more customers muttered about buying his MILAN bed and deciding against it. Why couldn’t he be a seventeen-year-old acne-ridden teenager secretly sneaking peeks into Tiger Beat at the grocery store again? He’d take his crush on Val Kilmer to his grave, but even that embarrassment was infinitely preferable to crushing on Benji.

He snorted against the crossword pages. This whole situation proved if there was a God, he was a comedian.

“I need your assistance in Kitchens.” Karin said over him.

Patrick lifted one of the open halves of the book off his face and narrowed his eyes.

“I’m off the clock,” he muttered.

Karin tossed her head. “You’re dead. Time doesn’t matter.”

He answered her witty retort with a middle finger.

She tapped her foot. “We have a situation that I need your particular expertise for.”

Patrick sighed and cast the puzzle book aside. He peeled himself off his bed just as a customer lay in his spot, testing the MODENA mattress.

He growled under his breath. “That’s my fucking bed.”

Karin clapped a hand on his shoulder.

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