She stands stoic, like a statue, delivering her monologue. “I’m a mom. A single mom. I wear yoga pants and work from home. Most days, I don’t wash my hair. I eat microwave dinners or pizza with a side of broccoli before falling asleep on the couch. This is not a sexy existence. You should be out clubbing, not standing here in the middle of my drab living area on a Friday night.”
I inch closer. “Andi, I’m a statistics professor by day, and I blog by night. I don’t do clubs. I grade papers, and guess what? I have a cold beer, grill, and blog. That’s about as exciting as I get. Believe me, I’m no clubber. Oh, my full name is Reid Fellows, and I’ve been known to go to bed in Darth Vader pajama pants.”
She laughs and raises an eyebrow. “Come on ...”
“No, you come on. Of course, I’ve had my days and nights of fun, but lately, I lead a quiet life. I want to take you out, and you know you’re never going to call me. You never were.” I step closer and take her hand in mine.
“Schwartz.”
“What?”
“My last name ... it’s Schwartz. Maiden name. I never changed my name when I married Gabby’s dad.” She slips her hand from mine and busies her fingers with tying her hair into a messy bun.
“Hmm, Andi Schwartz. There’s a story there,” I say, my only goal to get her to smile.
She does, and the dim room turns brighter.
“Andonia Schwartz, actually. Italian mom, Jewish dad, hot-blooded temper for both.”
“How do you even spell all that?”
She laughs. “Believe me, I was practically in the fourth grade before I could write my whole name. A-n-d-o-n-i-a. Schwartz with acafter thes.”
“I find that hard to believe.” I take one step closer.
“Truth, I swear,” she says softly. “And to make it even worse, I’m a twin. My sister didn’t have it any easier. Odelia.”
“So there’s two of you?” My hand finds hers again, and she lets her fingers twine with mine.
“Not quite. Delia is smarter, settled, has the picket fence and all that. She’s the daughter making my mom proud.”
Something draws me close, her scent or her combative pride, but my lips caress her cheek and make their way to her ear. “I don’t know your mom, but she’s wrong.”
Andi doesn’t lean into me, but she doesn’t pull away, so I assume my advances are okay and bring my lips to hers. At first, I swipe my mouth over her soft lips, testing the waters, so to speak. When she doesn’t pull away, I go in for a long one. Closed mouth, but sexy as fuck.
My eyes close, and I will them to open. I don’t want to miss Andi. Her eyes are open as I make out with her mouth. A small strand of hair falls loose from her bun, tickling our cheeks, and she breaks the moment to swipe it away.
Sadly, we don’t go back to kissing. Instead, she steps back, stares at me, and lets out a little cough.
“Shit,” I mumble. “I’m supposed to be here making sure you got home safe after nearly choking, not making the moves.”
“S’okay, just not my usual Friday night. It’s about the most excitement I’ve had in years.” Her gaze remains on the carpet.
“Hey, don’t hide. We just gotta get you out more. Have a little fun.”
She shakes her head. I rack my brain, challenging it to come up with a solution, and fast. Andi is three seconds from tossing me out on my ass.
“The place with the games, the video games!” I’m practically shouting, rambling, not making any sense, and probably waking her daughter, mucking shit up even more than I already have.
“What?”
“We’ll take Gabby. How ’bout that? The FunZone place with pizza and junk. You can give me your number, and we can forget the crazy kiss with the bad timing and start over.”
Who am I kidding?Forget the kiss?
“Bad timing?” she asks, frowning.
“Forget it. It was bullshit. It was great timing, and I couldn’t forget it.” I move close again.
