“Nah, just a chubby guy with a beard who likes Christmas.” Her shoulders shook with laughter. “Did you . . . want to come in?”
I mentally cursed myself for stuttering. Just hours ago, I had all but invited this woman to grind out an orgasm on my leg. But the hat and suit were long gone, and with them my confidence, too. I wondered if superheroes experienced an identity crisis when the spandex came off.
“Sure.”
I stepped back, allowing her plenty of space.
Nellie Wheatley is in my apartment. Nellie Wheatley is in my apartment.
My inner monologue made me sound like a teenage girl mooning over her first crush.Grown men don’t get crushes. Who was I kidding? Yes, we did. And my crush on Nellie hadn’t waned, even after I’d started avoiding her.
“Wow, I wasn’t expecting this.”
“Expecting what?”
She gestured toward the open concept living space that mirrored her own. “You really do love Christmas.”
Correction: I loved Christmas onmyterms.
That meant anything that I knew my family would hate—a pre-lit, flocked purple tree, strand after strand of twinkling lights that looked like cowboy boots strung from ceiling to floor across the length of the living room, and, of course, the Santas.
All one hundred and twenty-two of them.
Some were antiques, picked over from estate sales and the Rose Bowl Flea Market, while others had been given to me as gifts by friends and clients over the years. There were hand-carved Santas, glass-blown Santas, and even a couple of 3D-printed Santas—all of them unique, with their own story to tell, and proudly displayed on the bookshelf beside my sofa. It was tacky to the nth degree, and I loved every bit of it.
“You haven’t decorated the outside of your apartment.”
“I don’t decorate outside,” I said, answering the question baked into her statement.
“Why not?”
“Because I decorate for me. I don’t spend much time sitting outside, staring at my apartment.”
Her lips twitched. “But what will the neighbors think?”
In an uncharacteristically suave move—or at least, as suave as a grown man could be while holding a cat—I moved closer to her and said, “I’m really only interested in one neighbor’s opinion.”
Redness tickled her cheeks.“Aww, that’s sweet.”
“I was talking about Mrs. Lyons in 3B.”
Her blush intensified.
Where else do you blush, naughty girl?
Maybe it was the fact that I had just gotten off the phone with my sister, a season ticket holder to the Guardians, or maybe it was the striped knee sock sticking over the top edge of her walking cast, but in that moment, all I could think about was baseball. Unless the rules had changed, I should have already been out of the game.
Turning down her date invite.Strike one.
Spending the next few months avoiding her.Strike two.
Breaking her foot.Strike three.
All the stats pointed to another strikeout, and yet here she was, in my apartment, petting my cat. I guessed we were heading into extra innings.
“Can I get you a drink?” Buddy climbed down my body and took off toward his bed. “Or a cat?”
She bit her lip, hesitating. “How about a favor?”
