Shit.
“Just…never mind.”
He grimaced, rubbing the back of his neck andfinallylooking at my face. Fuck, he was handsome. Probably far too young for me, but there was something about his awkwardness that drew me in like a tractor beam. And it wasn’t that I was comparing him to Ev, because they weren’t the same at all, but…
“Tea would be nice,” he said softly, the smallest smile on his face.
“Alright. Tea.”
I picked at the fraying cuff of my hoodie while Smith followed me upstairs to the apartment. I hadn’t even bothered to close the door when I’d come down to meet him so it was already open when we reached the landing. Smith stepped into my apartment so close behind me I could feel the heat of his breath against me, and I absolutely didn’t miss the soft intake of breath when the door closed behind him.
“It’s not much,” I said.
“It’s…so much more than much.” He made another appreciative sound. “Should I take my shoes off?”
Fuck, the thought of Smith being that comfortable, that exposed.
“If you want,” I rasped.
“It looks like a shoes off kind of place.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I left him in the entryway to decide what he wanted to do. The soft thump of his sneakers hitting the floor was enough to take me out at the knees. Thankfully, the kitchen counter was there to support me. I flicked the kettle back on, grabbed an empty mug from the shelf over the sink and set it down on the polished concrete countertop.
“This place is…” Smith trailed off, stopping halfway between the kitchen and the living room.
“Old,” I said.
“Gorgeous,” he corrected. “May I?”
I nodded, clenching my molars together at the sight of Smith heading deeper into my space and making himself more at home. He trailed his fingers over the arm of the couch, picked my cell phone up off the floor and set it on the table.
“Pre-war?” he asked, rubbing his thumb up and down one of the panels on the wall.
“Yes.”
The kettle beeped, reminding me to breathe. I poured hot water into the mug and steeped a tea bag, taking it to Smith who had stopped in front of the fireplace and sank down into a squat.
“Is this original tile?” he asked.
“Some of it,” I said, handing him the mug. He rose back to his feet and took it with another small smile. “Most of it was damaged, but we kept what we could.”
“What?” His brow furrowed.
“When I bought the building,” I clarified, needing to not look at Smith because it was impossible to breathe all of a sudden. Maybe the plants had finally sucked all of the oxygen out of the room or something. I didn’t think that was how it worked. “It was not in good shape. We did a lot of renovation and retrofit.”
“You did a great job.”
I huffed out a laugh and went back to the couch. As soon as my ass hit the velvet, I knew it was a bad idea because Smith followed behind and joined me. The old piece of furniture groaned beneath both of our weights, but if Smith noticed he didn’t say anything. Instead, he looked at my plants and sipped his tea.
“This is what I do for work. Did I tell you that?” He cleared his throat, chased it with another drink. “I don’t remember much about yesterday.”
“The adrenaline will do that to a person. But yeah. You did tell me what you did for work, but I honestly don’t know what your job entails.”
“It’s a branch of architecture, basically. Just for old buildings not new ones.”
“You look young to be an architect,” I blurted, immediately biting my tongue to stop myself from saying something else ill-timed.
“I am young to be an architect,” he thankfully agreed. “It’s what my oldest brother does, and I kind of idolize him so I’ve known for a while it’s what I wanted to do. Went right into it after high school.”
