His response came back almost immediately.
Tonight? 7pm? I'll provide moral support and an exit strategy if she gets too intense. Also, she makes the best carbonara you've ever tasted.
I shouldn't. This was such a bad idea. And yet I responded with a simple: See you at 7.
Then I set my phone down and got back to work, trying not to think about what I was doing. Trying not to acknowledge that I'd be seeing Daemon again that night.
It wouldn't matter that I'd have his landlady as a buffer. It was as if I were giving myself permission to want something I'd already decided I couldn't have.
Planning was my forte. I was excellent at separating emotion from mission objectives. I could have dinner with Sofia, charm an elderly lady, maybe pick Daemon's brain about business connections in Coogan's Break.
I could be professional about it. Keep my walls up.
Resist the urge to drag him back to that ridiculous apartment and find out if last night was a fluke or as good as I remembered.
My money was on the latter.
FOUR
DAEMON
Lost in memories of the night before, I didn't see Tyler coming until he nudged me with his shoulder. The bastard put his back into it, slamming me into the wall.
"Sheesh, Daemon, you're smiling at that two-by-four like you want to nail it," he said, then gave in to raucous laughter at his own dirty joke.
His observation snapped me out of my memories of last night. I looked down at the lumber in my hands and realized I'd been staring at it for five minutes.
"Shut up," I said, but there was no heat in it. Not as there would have been in my murky past.
"It's the catering lady, isn't it?" Tyler grinned, settling onto a nearby sawhorse. "Nadia. The one you've been chasing for six months."
"I'm not chasing anyone." The lie tasted bitter even as I said it.
"Right. And I'm not a married man who gets stupid-happy every time his wife texts him." Tyler crossed his arms. "Come on, man. We've all seen you making excuses to be wherever she's working. You volunteered to set up chairs at Lindsey's book launch, and getting you to tidy up the job site is like pulling teeth."
It was true. I hated crap like that. But Nadia had been catering that event, and six months of polite rejections hadn't dimmed my interest one bit.
If anything, it had grown.
"So?" Tyler prompted. "Don't tell me you wore her down?"
I thought about this morning. About waking up with her in my bed, surrounded by Sofia's clutter. About the way she'd laughed when she saw the décor, then panicked when she remembered where she was.
About how she'd called it a mistake.
"Yeah," I said. "And then she ran as if she was on fire and I was gasoline."
Tyler winced. "Ouch. Sorry, man."
"She's coming to dinner tonight. At Sofia's."
His eyebrows shot up. "You're introducing her to Sofia? Man, that's serious." He went quiet for a heartbeat before adding, "Or stupid."
"It's not like that. Technically, Sofia invited her. Well, demanded to meet her after she saw Nadia leaving this morning." I ran my hand through my hair. "I didn't have a choice."
That was a lie, too. I'd had a choice. I could've warned Sofia off, told her to give Nadia space. Instead, I'd jumped at the opportunity like a drowning man grabbing a life raft.
"Sofia's cooking. Am I right?" Tyler asked with a knowing look.
