Callie crosses her arms. “I’ll be changing my locks, and you won’t have a key.”
He nods. “I did fix that outside door.” He peeks at me, and I clench my teeth, wanting to growl at the fucker. “I’m sorry, Callie. I just…”
She opens the apartment door, waiting for him to walk out. “Goodbye, Jerry.” Once he’s past the doorway, she slams it shut and flicks the lock. She does a full-body shudder and makes a gagging sound. “How many times do you think he’s done this?”
“May I come out now?” I round the counter and sit on a breakfast stool, crossing my arms. “I guarantee it wasn’t his first time.”
“Which means all of my panties and bras.” She passes me, pulls out a garbage bag from under the sink, and heads down the hall.
I follow her, watching from the doorway.
Callie opens her drawer and shoves all her bras and panties into the bag.
“What about the ones you’re wearing?” I raise my eyebrows. “Go ahead, I don’t mind if you strip.”
Why am I deflecting with humor? Because you’re an asshole, remember?
She gives me a not now look, and I break across the room and sit on the edge of her bed.
“Sorry, that was stupid,” I murmur.
I’m not surprised to see her bedroom is girly with floral wallpaper and lots of pillows on her bed. All the colors match but somehow contrast at the same time. There are pictures of her and Leighton in various frames, and my gaze snags on one of her and Hayes when he was drafted, then one of her entire family the same day.
I’m not sure I even took a picture the day I was drafted. If I did, it wasn’t with my entire family.
“Believe me, I’m going to take a shower as soon as you leave, and I’ll be going commando until I can get to the store.” She cinches the bag after cleaning out the entire drawer. “Oh wait.” She opens a bottom drawer and tosses lingerie onto the bed.
A babydoll number lands on my thigh, and I pick it up, envisioning Callie wearing it as she saunters over and falls to her knees in front of me.
Fuck my life right now. This is not the time to be thinking about that.
“I have no idea how I’ll continue to see him around the building. I feel like I need to tell the neighbors. What if he’s done it to them too?” She opens the bag and tosses the items from the bed in the bag.
I want to buy her an entire assortment of lingerie and fill that drawer up as long as she promises it’s only for my viewing pleasure.
“You’re not staying here.” I get up from the bed, needing to stop thinking sexual things about a woman I’ll never have and never deserve.
“Why not? I have a lease.”
“That you can break now that you found your landlord in your apartment, wearing your intimates.”
“Intimates?” She chuckles. “Foster Davis calls my panties and bras intimates?”
“Come stay with me.” It’s out of my mouth before I really think about it, but I cannot allow her to stay here.
She laughs and takes the bag into the family room, dropping it by the front door. “I think I’ll just drop them off to Jerry. I’d hate for it all to go to waste.”
“Callie?” I draw her back to the conversation, ignoring her attempt at levity.
She looks over her shoulder and goes into the kitchen, looking exhausted with me. “I’m not moving in with you.”
“Why?”
She leans against the counter and stares me down. “Is that even a real question?”
“It is actually. Give me one reason why.”
I may have been rash in suggesting it, but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of knowing more about the woman who will be raising my child than just how she sounds when she comes.
