Lauren let Caleb into her apartment and closed the door, feeling a little awkward now. They really didn’t see eye to eye on anything, did they?
Except the crazy thing was Caleb was right; the more they argued, the more worked up Lauren got, the more sexually aroused she was. Caleb was very handsome, his light brown hair getting a little long on top and sometimes falling into his eyes, a couple of days’ worth of beard growth on his jaw giving him a slightly scruffy look, and his crazy athletic body all adding up to a quite appealing package.
So basically, whenever they fought, she also wanted to rip his clothes off.
But she wasn’t sure how to get the ball rolling now.
“I’m feeling the need to call you fat and stupid,” she said.
He laughed. “To quell your desire or to ramp it up?”
“The latter. Why is it that fighting with you gets me so revved up?”
“There’s probably some brain science behind that.”
“I’ve got some beer in the fridge if you want a drink while I catalog your faults.”
Caleb followed Lauren into her kitchen. She was a little more self-conscious about her living space now that she knew he lived in Brooklyn Heights. Her place was clean but sparsely decorated, a large open space with a bedroom off to the side. The sofa was secondhand, the TV had been a gift from her parents, and the dishes had once belonged to Evan, who had spotted some colorful china on sale one day and decided to replace half his kitchen. Most of the cups in the cabinet had logos printed on them, one of the bookcases tilted slightly, and the computer desk in the corner had come with her after an old roommate had left it behind. Her mattress, at least, was fairly new, but it wasn’t until recently that she started making enough money to even just live without roommates, let alone replace all her old furniture.
Caleb didn’t say anything. He just smiled when she reached into the fridge and then handed him a beer.
“My ex-wife hated beer,” he said. “We hardly ever had it at home.”
“I like beer. But not IPAs. I don’t know why every craft brewery tries to cram as much hops in their beer as they can now, because bleh. But give me something lighter like aKölschor a pilsner, and I’m happy. This is a pretty good amber. It’s got kind of a caramel-y quality.”
Caleb looked at her with awe. “You know the kinds of beer.”
“I know a lot of things.” She smiled. She’d arrived at the ripe old age of twenty-nine without getting married, and though she’d never been the sort of woman to modify her behavior to impress a guy, she’d been growing more set in her ways of late. And since all that mattered as far as Caleb was concerned was her physical attractiveness, she’d order dessert if she wanted to and drink beer if she wanted to, and basically just be herself because she could be.
She’d left an old afghan on the sofa the previous night, which she shoved off to the side now so they could sit.
“If I weren’t here,” Caleb said, “what would you be doing right now?”
“What a weird question.”
“I’m curious about women, I don’t know.”
“Nothing that interesting. I usually just watch TV in my jammies most evenings.”
“Yeah?”
“Although, honestly? Usually when I get home, the first thing I do is take off my bra.”
Caleb sat back on the sofa and sipped his beer. “Don’t let me stop you.”
“All right.”
It wasn’t a lie. Lauren often did come home, dump her stuff, wriggle out of her bra, and then go about the rest of her evening. The bra she had on now had a wire that poked her on the left side, one of those bras she kept putting back in the drawer long enough to forget it was uncomfortable. She met Caleb’s gaze, then reached under her shirt, undid her bra, wriggled around, and pulled it off under the bottom of her shirt.
“Not through a sleeve?” Caleb asked.
“This shirt doesn’t really allow for that. Also, we’re not inFlashdance.”
Caleb grinned. “I saw that movie when I was ten. It had a profound influence on my adolescence. So you’ll forgive me the fantasy.”
Lauren smiled back. “You have such a funny, formal way of talking sometimes.”
“Too much time in school, I guess.”
