No.
I walked my ass out right behind her, followed her down the narrow hall, then stood behind her as she unlocked her door. Like I intended to bodily block her from any kind of harm from, who exactly? The old lady who was coming in with her yippy little sweater-clad dog?
“Do you want to come in for a coffee before you have to walk all the way back to the clubhouse?” she asked as she pushed the door open and flicked on the light.
Absolutely not.
“Sure.”
Fuck.
What was wrong with me?
The last thing I needed was to be in a small, enclosed, private place with the woman I hadn’t been able to get out of my mind since the damn shooting.
But then I stepped past the threshold and closed the door behind me.
There was no going back.
“It’s not usually such a mess,” Gracie said, ducking down to grab a sweater off the floor, then a scattered blanket, a random ring. “Layna has been crashing with me and she tends to… leave a trail.”
“That a nice way to say she’s a slob?” I asked as she kicked two sets of shoes over toward the shoe cabinet behind the door.
“I wouldn’t say aslob. She’s not dirty or anything. I think she’s just used to suitcases scattered around hotel rooms. So she kind of treats all spaces like cramped hotel rooms with nowhere to properly store anything.”
“You ever say anything mean about anyone?” I asked.
“She’s my cousin. And one of my best friends.”
“Even best friends have annoying habits,” I said with a shrug as she gathered up three drink cups off the coffee table.
“I don’t mind the mess,” she said, walking over toward the kitchen where the ass I’d been watching walk away from me disappeared behind the island that cut the kitchen off from the rest of the common space.
It was a small apartment, but something about the way Gracie designed it made it feel intentionally small. Like if it wereany bigger, it wouldn’t have the same intimate, cozy vibe she had going.
Like the woman herself—and, it seemed, most of her wardrobe—the space had a distinctly feminine vibe about it. Even though there weren’t any pink or purple touches that made it seem that way.
The apartment had a more neutral scheme to it more than anything else. I figured she was probably working with rules about neutral-colored walls and just worked from there.
The creamy-colored paint went with the slightly oversized couch, the kind with deep cushions that wouldn’t make me feel like my knees were up by my eyes if I sat there.
All the wood was in a blonde shade with brushed brass pulls on the doors and drawers.
There were pillows and blankets on the couch and chair, a lush rug you could sink your toes into, and more lamps than seemed necessary.
Catching me looking at them, Gracie shot me a sweet smile.
“I hate the big light.”
“The what now?” I asked.
“The big light,” she said, moving to the edge of the island and nodding up toward the ceiling above my head.
And there it was.
The “big” light.
Which was just a typical oversized boob light.
