“Me too,” she admits and laughs breathlessly.
She drops her head onto my shoulder. “We need to get dressed before another agent brings someone in.”
She turns and kisses me again, then climbs off me and retrieves her dress and underwear. I pull off the condom and look around. I can’t very well dump it in the trash here, and there’s no Kleenex or toilet paper. I guess that wasn’t part of the staging. Damn.
She’s got her dress on again and is shimmying back into her undies when she looks over at me and seems to understand my predicament. She steps out of the shower and walks over to the counter where she put her purse earlier. She digs around and hands me a Kleenex. I wrap the tied condom in it and she takes it from me and puts it in her bag. “A good Realtor hides the evidence too.”
“Is that so?” I laugh as I grab my pants and pull them on.
“It’s in the training manual,” she kids.
I pull my shirt on and step out of the shower. “I’m beginning to realize my last Realtor was terrible.”
As we start to make our way out of the house, I take her hand in mine. “So are you thinking of making an offer?”
“It’s definitely on the maybe list,” I reply. “But I’d love to see something with three baths.”
“I can line up some more places in a couple of days,” she responds. “Although I don’t think there’s another listing with that kind of shower.”
“That’s okay. We’re moving to beds for safety reasons anyway, remember?” I wink at her. “But no doormen.”
The serene, happy look on her face falters a little. She lets go of my hand and opens the front door, stepping out onto the stoop. I follow her and wait as she closes it and makes sure it’s locked. As we walk back to the car at the end of the block, I try to take her hand again, but she pulls away. Sighing loudly, she turns and looks up at me. “So why no doorman?”
I don’t know why my heart jumps like it just got a shot of adrenaline. I knew when I brought it up again it would bring us back to this awkward conversation. Still, I’m suddenly filled with nervous butterflies. “Because you think I need one to keep uninvited hookups away.”
“Don’t you think you’re going to need the help?”
I grab her around the waist and pull her to me in the middle of the sidewalk. I wonder if she can feel the way my heart seems to be running around my chest like a scared dog. “All I think, all I can think about, is how fucking much I love being with you and only you. I don’t see that stopping anytime soon.”
“So no doorman required.”
“Definitely not.”
Her eyes drop to my chest, but she’s smiling. I do that stupid thing where I kiss the top of her head again. I told myself I wasn’t even going to try to make a commitment again, and I’m not trying. It just happened with no effort at all. But it still terrifies me, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep from breaking her heart.
23
Zoey
“That’s the last of it, unfortunately,” Morgan tells me as he and his husband, Ned, drop the couch in the middle of the living room with a thud. He stands and wipes at his brow dramatically before turning and tipping backward onto it.
“I wish we had more stuff to give you,” Ned says with a sympathetic smile. “And that the stuff we had wasn’t so dated.”
The couch my overdramatic brother is stretched out on is an overstuffed clunky thing in a navy-blue and forest-green plaid fabric. Definitely not my style, but it’s clean and free. It was my brother’s in his bachelor apartment and it somehow migrated to Ned’s parents’ basement when the guys moved in together a few years ago. “Are you sure your dad doesn’t need it?”
Ned shakes his head. “You’re probably saving my parents’ marriage. He would go down to the basement to work on projects in his workshop and take three-hour naps on this thing instead. My mom has been waiting months for him to fix the loose shelf on her spice rack.”
I smile. “Okay, well, thanks for letting me have it. And the little bistro set for my kitchen.”
“I’m parched!” Morgan announces.
“I’ve got lemonade or beer in the fridge; come and pick your poison,” I say and wave him toward the kitchen as I start to walk. Ned reaches down and pulls Morgan off the couch, giving him a quick kiss as he gets to his feet.
In the kitchen I open the fridge. “So what’ll it be?”
“Beer for me,” Ned responds, and I reach for a Coors Light.
“Me too, but I’m actually more thirsty for information,” Morgan says. I toss him a can of beer, and he catches and opens it. “What is going on with our hockey bad boy?”
