Nodding, he says to the ceiling like he can’t look at me—God, am I hideous? I bet I am. I tend to sweat a lot—“My workout is complete, yes.”
What a weird thing to say. “Can I come again?” Maybe I shouldn’t be asking. Is it rude?
“Sure.” Lucky looks back at me. “Sure.”
“Good.” I smile as I hand him back his gloves.
“Keep ’em.” He nods down at my hands. “Keep the wrap too. If you want to work out again, you might as well hang on to them.”
“Thanks, Lucky.”
* * *
Back at the house,Lucky jumps in the shower first. While he does that, I definitely don’t spend several minutes imagining what he looks like all wet and soapy. And naked. No sirree. I don’t think about it at all. Instead, I grab Joe’s sheets from the dryer. When I lay the fitted sheet out on his bed, I grimace, because I can’t believe Joe would sleep on them the way they were. Case in point, when I put them in the washer, the sheets were brownish tan. Now, they’re gray. I suspect they were white when they started out. Mom would’ve had a fit if she’d seen his room.
“Damn.”
“What’s wrong?” Still holding onto the sheet, I whip around to see Lucky wearing only a towel. Water droplets are clinging to his chest for dear life.
Lucky droplets…
I know if I were one of those water drops, I’d do whatever I could to stay right there. Well, maybe I’d slide on down….
“Oh.” I clear my throat, because it’s suddenly as dry as the Sahara Desert. My face is hot too, which means I’ve got to be as pink as a flamingo. And not in a good way. “Uh…”Spit it out, Becklyn.“I was thinking I should’ve taken some blackmail pics of his room.”
“Blackmail?” he smiles. “Your mom?”
“Yep.” Turning away from the hottest man on earth, I start to make the bed. “She’d let him have it.”
“Mrs. M is one tough cookie.”
“You know,” I turn back to him, “you can call her Sandy.” Actually, she used to ask him to call her Mom, since he didn’t have one. His dad, John, grew up in our hometown and knew my dad when he was young. Lucky’s grandparents still live there, or they did. His grandma passed away a few years ago, and his grandpa is in a home now. They were nice people. As for John Ganetti, well, he’s an acquired taste, I guess you could say. Growing up, I couldn’t help but be a little scared of him. He was always angry. At least that’s the way he seemed to me. It’s probably why Lucky spent so much time at our house. Why wouldn’t he? My mom is nice, and my dad is hilarious.
“I know.” Lucky shrugs. “Just used to calling her Mrs. M.”
“You call my dad Billy.”
Lucky smirks. “Everyone calls him Billy.”
He’s right. Dad insists on it. I asked him about it once, and he says it makes him feel young. He hates to be called Mr. Morrissey, and he’s a dang high school teacher. It’s usually frowned upon to call a teacher by his first name, but he’s been at it a long time; nobody at school cares if the students call him Billy.
“True.”
There’s a moment of silence between us. Lucky’s standing in the doorway in his towel, I’m clutching Joe’s sheet, and we’re just looking at each other. I’m not sure who breaks the silence first.
Me.
It was me.
“Wanna watch something?”
I mean, it’s Saturday night, and it’s not even ten yet.
“Sure.” He looks down at himself. “You gonna take a shower, Foxy? You really worked up a sweat.”
I’d already forgotten my boxing moniker. It makes me laugh. “Yep.”
“I’ll get dressed and meet you in the living room in fifteen.”
