But she was appalled she had to try to rent this place to John Tennessee McCord, of all people. His own home was probably so huge and spotless that every word and footstep echoed.
As she rummaged through the kitchen drawers for the remote he was watching her as avidly as if he’d bought a ticket to see her.
“Plenty of spatulas already here,” she said brightly, “so you don’t need to bring your own.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I hate when I burn my pancakes.”
He was both enjoying her show and taking the piss out of her.
“I bet there’s a deck of only about forty-three cards in there, too,” he added encouragingly. “And maybe one beater from a hand mixer, and one corn on the cob holder.”
Like he was prompting a comedian who’d forgotten her next line.
He wasn’t far wrong about the cards, but she didn’t tell him that.
She pulled open another drawer and found it empty. And then another drawer, and saw that sad, depleted deck of cards and a bottle opener. And then another drawer.
He finally turned away and tipped his head back and studied the walls. “Just think... someone must have said, ‘I know what will make this place even better—dark paneling everywhere.”
“It acts as an extra layer of insulation in the summer and winter.”
She had completely made that up.
He slowly lowered his head and studied her for a beat of silence.
“Does it?” He sounded almost intolerably amused and completely disbelieving.
She cleared her throat.
“Er, as you can see, um, J. T.,” she narrated like a spokesmodel, as if he hadn’t said anything at all, as she yanked another drawer open, “there’s plenty of storage for utensils and groceries and—AHA!”
She whipped out the remote for the blinds triumphantly.
She stabbed at it, and miraculously, the window blinds slid up.
He watched, seemingly fascinated. “How lazy do you have to be if you need a remote to...”
He couldn’t finish the sentence.
Because they were briefly paralyzed by the sunlight roaring through the windows.
“Christ,” he muttered, impressed.
After a moment to establish they both still possessed corneas, he braved a step closer and assessed the view.
She’d seen that view before, so she stood where she was.
And surreptitiously watched him.
The gamma ray brilliance of the light delineated faint lines at the corners of his eyes and faint circles beneath them, a little morning stubble, a semicircle of a dimple next to his mouth, visible even when he wasn’t smiling, like a sign saying “here is where you should kiss me.”
That surge of untenable want roared through her like that first shot of whisky she’d tried when she was eighteen and trying to impress a guy.
Funny, though.
She could have sworn there was something almost melancholy in his stillness right now.
If she had to guess, she would have said he was lonely.
