She sighed. Glanced to Sketch as he sat staring up at her like she was the one who had to solve this problem all by her lonesome.
She rang the bell this time.
Nothing.
Dang. She deflated a little, standing there on Ethan’s stoop.
She could text him. He’d been responding to her messages. So she could do that. And say what? “I’m here for my booty call.”
She was a woman. A woman who had been through quite the drought downstairs, and Ethan was a talented man who had showed her what she was missing. Now she was missing it even more because she knew what she was missing.
Okay, this was silly. She had twenty more drag-and-drops to finish. She’d just head home and do that instead.
“C’mon, Sketch.” They made it all the way to the sidewalk when Ethan’s door opened.
“Em?” he asked.
She turned. While he was fully clothed, he had wet hair and… Okay, so it’d been a late shower for him.
“You were in the shower,” she said, as though this wasn’t already obvious. Not that she had any place to judge there. Sometimes she didn’t even get in a shower every day, so…yup.
“You came by,” he said this, and the way he said it all husky and rumbly made the little hairs on her arms perk up and stand at attention.
“Hi.” She did a quick walk to him. “I needed a break. I thought I’d say hi since I’ve already done sixty business cards and the Abraham Maldonado-Fumagalli project isn’t going to be fun. I mean, would it kill the photographer to get a bit more perspective and more of his head in the image?”
Ethan looked at her kind of funny.
“I wanted to see you. In person. Right here.” Okay, she could be so much smoother than this.
He nodded. Scratched at his neck. Grinned a little. “I’m glad you’re here.”
See? He was so smooth. Why couldn’t she be smooth like that?
“Come inside?” he asked low and husky and freshly showered.
Oh, yes puh-lease.
She nodded. “Thanks.”
Following him inside, she stepped around Pepper and into the foyer. “I hope it’s okay Sketch came, too.”
“I’ll lock up my laundry.” He stood with his hands looped around the drawstring waist of his athletic pants.
“I’ve been thinking about something.” She followed him farther into the room.
“Yeah?”
“Maybe we should have a schedule,” she said, unclipping Sketch’s leash. “I mean, I guess since we’re doing this, maybe we should be organized.”
He grinned a slow grin. “Organized?”
Sketch and Pepper were done with their initial sniffs of hello and just went at it, playing like they’d been deprived of time together for more than a day.
Maybe they were onto something?
She stepped forward. Totally normal. Reached her hand to his chest because she could and that was allowed.
He glanced down at her hand on his chest, a question clearly forming in his expression.
