“Very funny. What else?”
“I like blondes. And frankly, I like big butts, I cannot lie,” he said, mimicking the rap song. He grinned.
Amy glared at him. “Gross. And for the record, body parts are not a type.”
“Beg to differ. What’s so gross about it? I can’t help what I like.”
“Well, A, I didn’t need to know that about my baby brother, and B, why are men so fixated on bodies? Like that’s all that matters. And now I can’t even be in the same room with you and other people without hearing you say you like big butts.”
“Whatever,” he said with a flick of his wrist. “Are you telling me that women aren’t attracted to the physical? Because if you are, I call bullshit.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Okay, I told you what I like. Now you tell me.”
She pondered it and said, “Shoulders. Arms.”
“Told you,” he muttered before he drank more beer.
She liked shoulders a little broader than average. Muscular arms. A nice smile. “But the difference is that the best of shoulders look terrible if the guy is an ass. I don’t think you care what sort of woman she is if she meets your other requirements.”
“Not true,” Kevin said. “If she’s a nag, it doesn’t matter how big her butt is. What makes a guy an ass, according to you?”
“You know,” she said. “Interest in only one thing, for starters.Thinking he is the expert on any topic by virtue of being male.” She visibly shuddered.
Kevin laughed at her.
“You think I’m kidding. There’s a man at work, he heads up the production side of things. Recently, we hired a woman to do the invoicing. She came with experience, knew exactly what she was doing. But this guy, who has never done invoicing, kept stopping by her desk to explain invoicing to her. So I called him into my office, and explained to him that he was mansplaining, and that he needed to stop.”
“And?” Kevin asked.
Amy couldn’t help but laugh. “He took the opportunity to explain to me what mansplaining was. He said I had the definition wrong, because what I was describing was his wanting to help. He is a prime example of a man who could have the most perfect shoulders in the world and still be an ass.”
“Okay,” Kevin said, nodding. “What if the mansplainer was filthy rich?”
Amy glared at him. “Do you really think your sister is that shallow?”
Kevin’s eyes narrowed right back at her. “I’ll rephrase the question. What if a filthy rich man thinks he knows how to do invoicing? Would you listen?”
“Honestly, Kevin!” Amy glanced away. “That would of course help a lot.”
Kevin had laughed, and their talk had drifted from dating to how badly Jonah was mowing the lawn, then rating Jonah’s complaints about having to mow the lawn on a scale of one to ten. They mutually agreed that the grass tickling him between his toes was the best complaint of the night.
The water in Amy’s bath was getting cold. She reluctantly got out, wrapped herself in a bath sheet, and sat at the vanity. She was disappointed that a kiss hadn’t happened, but also a little relieved. As lame asher anxiety was about what came next, even lamer was the niggling doubt that maybe she was no good at it. Damn, when had sex gotten so difficult? When had she turned into such a wimp? Where had her twenty-year-old self, the artist who was happy to take lovers, gone?
Amy shook her head as she went out of the bathroom. That girl had gotten buried under too many loads of laundry. Maybe it was time she dug her out.
10
Hoping she would come back, Harrison stayed by the fire until the flames began to die. But he finally gave up and walked dejectedly to his end of the house, curious as to when and how it had become so important for him to kiss his housemate. The problem was that he could not stop thinking about it, and that was Not Good.
He sprawled on his bed with his phone in hand, staring at the ceiling, trying to take his mind off it. His knee ached in this weather, and the colder it got, the worse it got. The forecast was predicting frigid temperatures in a day or so. Did he have any ibuprofen? And why had Clay called twice in the last few hours? That man was annoyingly relentless.
But those were fleeting thoughts. The main thought machine in his head was still obsessing about Amy. He had not been entirely truthful with her—he was often attracted to women younger than he. He figured that was because of his milieu, where girls in short shorts and golf skirts milled around clubhouses. But he really liked Amy. A lot. He liked the way she talked to him, like he wasn’t a piece of meat. He liked what she had to say, and that it was nothing designed to entice him. He liked that she was older and had a life to draw from and interesting perspectives. He wanted to stick his fingers in her hair, grab onto that ass, and…
Cool it.He was doing the very thing he said not all men did.
He rolled over and reached for the book on his bedside table, the aforementionedHistory of the Roman Empire. He tried to read, but his mind kept wandering. Eventually, he gave it up and went to bed. As he drifted to sleep, his incorrigible mind’s eye kept picturing Amy at the other end of this house, in her bed. Completely naked. Yep, he was all men.
