by G. K. Brady
“Jesus, I’m sorry.”
She flapped a hand at him and sipped her martini. “No, don’t be, because that’s not the point. The point is this, and it’s what leads me to my question. I know, finally, right?” She shook her head on a laugh.
The question slipped from her grasp, and she frowned while she rummaged about her martini-logged brain for it. He arched an eyebrow.
“My question. Oh crap. I forgot what it was.” Then she giggled again. She never giggled.
“Micky?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“No, I mean, is that a nickname?”
“Oh! Yes, it is. Or was. Back in the day when I was more fun. Only a handful of friends call me that nowadays.”
“Uh, can I get you something to eat?” Concern was plastered all over his handsome face.
“No, I don’t like bar food.”
“Well, how about I walk you home and we get you something to eat there?”
“Don’t have anything in my fridge.”
He signaled the bartender. “That’s okay. I do, and it’s healthier than bar food.”
Before she knew what had hit her, she was outside, squinting against pale October sunshine, putting one foot in front of the other. A warm hand rested on the small of her back from time to time, guiding her, and after what seemed like forever, they’d completed the half-block walk to their building.
“Oh, that’s right! You live here too.” She was just sober enough to understand she sounded like a twelve-year-old and that inebriated people were never as lucid-sounding or as funny to sober ones as they were to themselves. Except she wasn’t drunk, was she?
“Why don’t you drink?” she blurted as they stepped onto the elevator. Whoa! Elevators brought on a serious case of the spins, apparently. She staggered after him when the doors opened onto their hallway, focused on staying upright. She hadn’t been this dizzy since college.
“It’s a long story,” he answered as he unlocked his door. He swung it open so she could walk through first. God! On the one hand, she loved men who acted like gentlemen, but on the other hand, she hoped like hell the spins weren’t causing her to drunk-stumble because, hello, no way could she hide it when she was in front of him.
He cuffed her upper arm lightly—she must have been drunk-stumbling—and steered her toward a huge dark brown couch that looked like it could swallow her whole. A whale of a couch! And such guy furniture.
“Have a seat,” his deep, disembodied voice said. “I’m going to cook us up something. Anything in particular you like or don’t like or can’t eat?”
“Nope. I do not discriminate against food.” Or anyone else, she thought fuzzily.
The couch was big and masculine and soooo cushy. She fell gently to the side, curled up in a ball, and relaxed into the cushions. So comfy.
Chapter 6
That Loud Knock Is Opportunity
Michaela had no idea how much time had passed when she stirred to the sounds and smells of cooking. A pillow had been tucked under her head, and a blanket covered her body.
Omigod! How long have I been out? She sat up, and the spins returned. Not that long, apparently. A bottle of water sat on the coffee table in front of her, a droplet carving a path through the condensation clinging to the plastic. She uncapped it and chugged, then cast her glance to the pillow to be sure she hadn’t left drool behind. Because really, did she need to add that to her already horrifyingly embarrassing behavior?
“You’re awake.” Blake’s voice startled her, and she whipped her head to see him holding two plates with steam rising off of them. “Fried rice,” he announced way too cheerfully. “It’s a little healthier than the normal version, but I figured the rice would do you some good.” He slid the plate onto the coffee table in front of her, and the aroma wafted up her nose. Her stomach rumbled in appreciation. When was the last time she’d eaten?
He placed his own serving in front of a different couch that sat perpendicular and handed her a fork, a paper napkin, and her glasses.
When she didn’t put on the glasses, he gave her a puzzled look. “Don’t you need those?”
“What? Oh. No. I can see just fine without them.” She picked up her plate, placed it on her lap, and attacked the mound of yellowy-brown rice jumbled with veggies, strips of egg, and … toasted pine nuts? Weird, but it tasted delicious, and she let out an errant moan.
“I’m sorry. I don’t normally do that,” she muttered.
“Do what? Moan when you’re eating?” She didn’t miss the amusement in his eyes. He had very expressive eyes. Green, maybe. Or gray.
“No, not that. What I meant was, I don’t normally get drunk in the middle of the day. Not that I get drunk at night either!” She stuffed a forkful of rice in her mouth to keep herself from talking … or staring at his eyes.
A chuckle escaped him. It was a warm sound that spread up her spine and made her relax all over, made her feel like she could … just … breathe. “It’s okay,” he said. “Sometimes we just need to step outside the box and cut loose.”
Not so sure about that. She shoveled in another forkful of rice and chewed. “I don’t think I thanked you for letting me use your body today.”
His eyes flew to hers, and he looked all kinds of confused.
She backpedaled. “Your muscle. For the couch.” She quickly added, “You and your roommate.”
“You thanked me plenty already.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “Does this mean you only wanted me for my body?”
“Um, I guess it does.”
He cast his eyes to his plate, but not before she caught a flush of embarrassment on his face. Her stomach twitched. Time to steer this in a different direction. “This is really, really good. Did you cook it all by yourself?” She winced at the way the question sounded. For a woman who was supposed to be good with her words, she was seriously lagging.
Her comment elicited another chuckle. “I did cook it all by myself. Even cut up the ingredients. I try to cook as much as possible, but the schedule makes it tough. I like cooking. It’s cathartic, helps me relax. The six-foot Wolf range was the main reason I rented this condo.” He waved his hand vaguely behind him toward the open gourmet kitchen and yes, a humongous stainless range. “Did you know that wild rice really isn’t rice?”
“Um, no, I did not know that.”
“So did you ever remember your question?”
Truly puzzled, she rested her fork on her half-empty plate. “What question? If you’re talking about the one where I asked if you guys are roommates because you can be his DD, then I think I know my answer. He picked you because you can cook.”
His gaze dipped to his food again, and the look she glimpsed was endearingly bashful. “Thanks,” he mumbled.
She found herself wanting to put him at ease. “Have you and your roommate known each other long?”
He raised his eyes to hers. “Ferguson? Since we were kids.”
That’s right! Ferguson … the Flexer. “How’s living together when you play on the same team?”
“Usually, it’s pretty easy. We share rides, hang out together.”
“I hear a ‘but’ in there.”
He stood abruptly, taking his plate with him, and extended his hand. “Seconds?”
“No, thanks. I’ll just finish this. Unless you have to-go containers.” He seemed to scrutinize her, as if he wasn’t sure whether she was serious, and she rushed to say, “The part about the to-go is a joke.”
Not even a minute later, he was back, his plate heaped with the rice concoction.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to pry.” Man, she was screwing up left and right here! Normally, she could get people to relax around her, but apparently not this guy. Probably because she was coming off like an airhead.
Without looking at her, he shook his head. “No, you didn’t. It’s just …” When he raised his eyes to hers again, his face held a pained expression. “He and I are both centers. Do you know what that is?”
She shrugged. “Not really, but I assume you’re in the center of something team-related.”
He rewarded her with a warm, genuine grin. “That’s as good an answer as I’ve heard. Must be why you get paid the big bucks.”
“Ha! If only. So you’re centers and …”
“We each center what’s called a line. On the line, there are two wings, one on each side.”
“So three altogether.”
“Correct. On the back end, there are two defensemen.” The quickening cadence of his speech tipped her off that he was in his element now. “In all, five players from each team are on the ice at the same time. Six when you count the goalie, for a total of twelve between the two teams. Unless one team’s killing off a penalty, or we’re in overtime, and then—”
Her confusion must have shown all over her face because he stopped suddenly, then continued with, “Never mind. Back to the centers. Typically, there are four lines on each team. You have your first line, your second, and so forth. The top two lines get the most ice time, and every guy wants more ice time.”
“Therefore a player wants to be on the first or second line?” She told herself to project a “got it” look, but truth be told, a real estate contract made more sense to her. “Do you all get to take turns at it?”
“Yes, every man wants to earn his way to the top line, and no, we don’t get to ‘take turns.’ You have to work your way up, show that you have more skill and grit than the other guy. Or if a top line center gets injured, you might have an opportunity to center that line.”
“Okay. So injury equals opportunity. Got it.”
He seemed to short-circuit for an instant. “Never looked at it exactly that way before, but yeah, that’s about right. You don’t want guys to get injured, but that is one way to prove yourself. Anyway, we have a fantastic first-line center, Gage Nelson, and he’s not going anywhere. Until lately, Owen was on the second line, and I was third line. But that changed just recently when Coach switched it up. I’m on the second line now, and Owen dropped to third.”
She pointed her fork at him. “Ah. And that’s not something you can simply leave behind at the office?”
There was that grin again, though she had no idea what he was grinning at. “Usually, we refer to it as leaving it on the ice, but that’s a good analogy.”
She nodded, warmed by the grin still aimed at her. “You two are competing for the same job, and I’m guessing things are little strained at home.” Her eyes took a turn around the open, two-story space that mirrored her own loft.
His smile slid, and he blew out a breath. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“That’s gotta be hard. There’s a competition at my office right now, and it’s pitched every junior attorney against each other. It gets contentious, but none of us has to live together. Plus, you’re friends, and I can only imagine how that complicates things.”
“It doesn’t help. Tell me about the competition at your office. Are you in the running?”
“Yes, I think so.” She explained about vying for the big contract. When she finished, he pointed at her glasses where they lay on the coffee table. “So what’s up with the glasses? You said you don’t need them.”
Could she tell him? Sure, she could. He already thought she was nuts anyway. “I don’t. I see just fine.” She held the glasses out to him. “Here. They’re clear. See for yourself.”
He put them on and looked around the room. They were too small for his face, and the round frames gave him a bug-eyed look. “Seriously? Then why do you wear them?”
She burst out with a laugh. “I graduated early, and for years people told me I looked like I had just started high school. As an attorney, you need to appear credible. Looking like a kid is a big handicap. I was goofing around and tried on a friend’s glasses one day, and she told me they made me look older. So I got a clear pair, and guess what? Instant cred.”
“Get out! Really?”
He handed them back to her, and she put them on and pushed them up on the bridge of her nose. “I’m not kidding. Sad, I know, but true. Plus, I get the added bonus that they make me look smart.” She held her arms wide. “Right?” She turned her torso this way and that, quickly adding, “If you disagree, please keep it to yourself.”
Lacing his hands behind his head, he leaned back and smirked; she tried not to notice how squared-off and well cut he was. “I’d lay odds you’ll beat out everyone at your firm and land that contract without breaking a sweat.”
Aw, that’s just … God, that’s sweet. Normally, she’d take a remark like that for what it was: a platitude. But coming from him, it didn’t sound like it. Then again, maybe the lingering martini effect was holding sway over logic.
Telling herself it was time to go, she snatched off her glasses and stood with her now empty plate. “Thank you so much for the rice—it was what the doctor ordered—and thank you for … well, for taking care of me. I hope I wasn’t too big a nuisance. Honestly, I usually don’t do things like that. Now I have more red ink on my ledger, as Natasha Romanoff would say, and I need to balance it out,” she babbled. “I really should go and let you get back to whatever you need to get back to. Can I help you clean up?”
He had risen when she had, and now he took her plate and added it to his own. “No. I got this.”
She followed him to a large kitchen island, where he placed the plates in an oversized sink. Considering the delicious meal he’d just whipped up, the kitchen was surprisingly neat—unlike her kitchen whenever she cooked. The guy was a catch … for someone much younger … or when he finally became an adult.
The realization led her back to the other night when she’d first laid eyes on him. “So the other night, when, ah, I made the unfortunate decision to threaten you …”
A laugh rumbled through him. “You didn’t exactly threaten me.”
They faced each other at one corner of the island, about four feet apart. “Well, maybe you didn’t find me threatening, but I was trying my damnedest to threaten you. Guess I need to work on my scary face.”
“Better work real hard, Curly. And grow a few inches while you’re at it.” He leveled a look at her she couldn’t read, but intuition told her there was a lot packed behind it, and he wasn’t planning on unpacking anytime soon. Suddenly, he didn’t look quite as young as he had mere moments before.
“Well, anyway, the other night your, ah, date said something about lessons, and I was curious—”
He scratched the back of his neck. “You heard that, huh? Ouch. Yeah.”
She flipped her glasses on top of her crown. “Why ouch?”
He laced his fingers again, placing them on top of his head, and closed his eyes briefly before opening them back up. Green. Light green, like my favorite wall color, fern. “She said I needed kissing lessons.”
Michaela spat out a laugh, and those green eyes of his turned icy. “No, no, I’m not laughing at you,” she gulped. “It’s just … I find that a little hard to believe, based on what I saw. You looked like you knew what you were doing, and I didn’t hear her complain. Just saying.”
His hands slid off his head, and his shoulders eased.
She parked her fists on her hips. “Know what I think? I think she wants to see you again, and she planted that little seed of doubt so you’d call her.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
He let out a mirthless laugh. “Christ, I wish I could figure out how a woman’s brain works. It’s so damn complicated.”
“And I’m trying to figure out the male brain. Maybe we can help each other out.” She grinned.
“Help each other out how?” A semblance of a sly smile curved his mouth.
While she’d been thinking they could exchange secrets about the inner workings of each gender’s brain, a different idea smacked her. The martinis were definitely in charge, and she decided that, for better or worse, she would let them run wherever they wanted to take her. If nothing else, she had a sto
ry to share with Fiona.
Raising her hands, she gave him a come-here motion. “Like this. Show me what you got.”
His eyes went wide. “Excuse me?”
“Kiss me,” she said. “Let’s see if you need lessons or not.” What the hell possessed her? Martinis. “I want to help you out, and this will erase some of that red ink on my ledger.”
He took a tentative step toward her. “Uh …” The sly smile was still there, though a little less sure.
She rolled her eyes. “Come on. I know you’re not shy. Not after what I witnessed.”
“It’s not that, it’s just—”
“Look, it’s not like we’re attracted to each other, so you can relax. This is purely educational. Nonsexual.”
He chuckled. “Nonsexual is kissing my mom or my sister. No offense, but you don’t remind me of either one.”
“No offense taken. In fact, I’d say that’s an offhanded compliment. Nothing against the women in your family, of course.”