She gave him a watery smile. “You’re sweet, thanks. But if you’re trying to seduce me with words, you should know that I prefer bald men with neck tattoos.”
“Damn,” Dave said. A pause and then, “Speaking of people in that room today—”
“Don’t,” she snapped, unwinding the towel and letting her wet hair slither around her shoulders. She’d rather deal with a soggy T-shirt than explore that wound again. “We can talk about the show, we can talk about the station, we can talk about That Arrogant Asshole, and we can speculate about the required minimum cup size to be a Brick Bimbo—I’m thinking triple-D—but we’re not talking abouthim.”
Then the doorbell rang, and Mabel’s traitorous heart leaped in her chest. She smoothed her expression before Dave could catch the brief hope that flared on her face. As furious as she was, she still longed for Jake to be standing on her porch so he could explain that it hadn’t actually been him who’d reviewed the numbers, looking for ways to move her around like a chess piece on a board, who’d lied to her by omission during the weeks she’d been sinking farther and farther under the pull of his easy charm and his clever mind and his stupid good looks.
But it wasn’t him of course. A teenager in a red Lehman’s Floral polo shirt stood on the porch holding a potted orchid, its delicate woody stem studded with the most vivid purple blooms she’d ever seen.
The girl smiled broadly. “Before I hand this over to you, the sender wanted me to say this.” And here she consulted a note: “Please don’t throw the pot through a window until you’ve read the card.”
Mabel had, in fact, been considering that very action.
“For what it’s worth, he sounded really sorry on the phone,” the girl confided, handing over the orchid and bounding down Mabel’s front steps.
Mabel kicked the door shut behind her and carried the plant gingerly into her living room, holding it in front of her as if it might spit venom into her eyes if she shook it too much.
“So he went with the flowers after all.” Dave drained his beer and swung into an upright position.
“You talked to him?”
“I did. What do you want to know?”
Everything, of course. How he’d looked and sounded and smelled when he said it. But at the same time, she didn’t want any of that to matter to her. She settled on a lie. “Nothing. I don’t care.”
She walked around her living room in a circle, unsure of where to deposit her gift and finally setting it down in the middle of the coffee table directly in front of Dave.
“You going to open the envelope?”
She grabbed the small rectangle from the pot and turned it over in her hands before putting it back and slumping to the couch. “Oh, inevitably. I’m too curious not to. But I might cry when I do, and I don’t want you here for that, so I’ll wait.” Whatever was inside wouldn’t fix anything, but she’d still read every word of it.
Dave patted her shoulder and ambled to the kitchen to drop his empty bottle into the recycling bin, then plopped back down on the couch.
“He practically broke his hand punching the building after you left, bled all over his fancy suit.”
He punched the wall? He bled for her? The thought sent a thrill tingling through her veins, which was actually kind of a messed-up reaction. But hell, it was kind of a messed-up day.
“For what it’s worth,” Dave continued, “I think he probably did the best he could for us under the circumstances. And that’s the last I’m going to say about it, because it’s not my job to get you laid. Yuck.”
“Yuck,” Mabel repeated faintly, the memory of Jake’s big hand on her breast rising up and threatening to cut off all her oxygen.
“And listen, there’s no shame in being interested in a guy who looks like Superman.”
She huffed a soft, surprised laugh. “You think so too?”
“I’m not blind.” He wiggled his brows. “And not one of the low-rent TV Supermen. One of the classy movie Supermen.”
“Hey, some of my favorite Supermen are TV Supermen!” she objected, grateful for the temporary distraction.
“Reeve or bust,” he said. “Anyway, I’m glad you took a chance with him despite it all. It was brave.”
“It was stupid,” she muttered.
“Brave,” he repeated staunchly. “Say it with me.”
She rolled her eyes but did as he asked. “I’m the brave little toaster.”
“There you go!” He grabbed her shoulder and shook her gently until she laughed. How’d she get lucky enough to have Dave in her life?
