The door opened, and my eyes flew open, too. Antony’s appearance set me back. He was not only fully dressed, but he was wearing work clothes, a white button down with the sleeves rolled back and the collar undone, and navy blue trousers that no doubt belonged with a suit.
It seemed unlikely that he’d been having sex in all that.
“Ellie.” His expression was surprised and wary. Obviously, he hadn’t been expecting to see me.
“Hi. Um.” I had to force myself to maintain eye contact and keep my expression neutral. “I really hate to bother you, but your headboard is banging the wall, again. And, we just talked about this like, last night, so…”
“Ah.” He nodded in understanding and pushed the door open wider. I’d never seen into his apartment before. It was a near mirror of mine. Straight across from the door, past the living room, was his bed—of course it would be ridiculously oversized for the space—and atop it stood a red-faced preschooler in Marvel character PJs.
“Oh.” I drew the word out in sudden comprehension. It was his nephew, the kid I’d seen in the hall.
“Do you want to come in?” Antony offered. “I’m just making dinner.”
I hesitated. It was one thing having sex with him. It was another thing getting involved with his family. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, but I have to warn you, I’m not a fancy chef like you are.” He motioned me inside.
He closed the door and reached to help me with my coat.
“Who’s that?” the boy on the bed asked, resuming his jumping.
“This is my friend, Ellie. She lives next door, and you’re driving her crazy.” Antony pointed sternly to the floor. “Get down.”
The scolding rolled right off the kid’s back as he obeyed. Like it was no big deal to be corrected for his behavior. By that age, I’d been keenly aware of my parents’ disappointment and how to avoid it. Jumping on a bed would never have been allowed, and if I’d been disciplined for it, I would have felt guilty for days.
Did it make me weird that Antony’s easy way with the kid was a super big turn-on?
“Ellie, this is Tony—” Antony began, only to be interrupted by the kid.
“I’m Bruce. Banner,” he insisted.
“It’s nice to meet you, Bruce,” I said with a little wave. Then, in mock seriousness, I turned to Antony and said, “Better not make him mad. He’ll Hulk out.”
“Go watch Netflix while we get dinner finished, Bruce,” Antony instructed, and Tony hopped off to turn on the huge television.
Antony’s apartment might have been structurally like mine, but the décor and the layout of his living space was totally different. His bedroom area was on a raised platform, two steps up from the floor, and each step had drawers built in beneath them, all in warm, gleaming wood. A brown leather couch stood against one wall, a glass coffee table sat in front of that, strewn with empty beer bottles and piles of paper that indicated Antony brought his work home with him. The television was at least fifty inches, set as far across the space as possible from the couch. Which made sense, because otherwise, he’d go blind.
There were books, too, on shelves that covered the back wall, splitting to surround the single big window there.
The Avengers suddenly blasted from the television, somewhere in the middle of the movie.
“Sorry,” Antony apologized needlessly. “It’s on heavy rotation.”
“That’s okay. It could be worse. It could be Dora The Explorer or something.” Kids still watched that, right? I had no idea; none of my friends had children.
I followed Antony into the kitchen. “So, do you have any other nieces or nephews?”
“Just this one.” He nodded toward the living room. “He’s a handful, enough.”
“So it’s you and your sister, then?” I asked.
His expression hardened a touch, and there was a neutral quality in his voice that was forced. “No. I’ve got a brother, too, but I haven’t seen him in years. He’s doing ten upstate for aggravated vehicular assault.”
“Oh.” That was…
He cast a glance toward the boy, whose gaze was fully transfixed on the television. In a lower voice, Antony said, “I’m the black sheep of the family, thank god.”
“Never been to prison?” It came out like I was teasing him, and I wished it hadn’t. “Never been to jail?”
“Oh, I’ve been to jail,” he said, like it was no big deal. “I got arrested at an anti-war protest when I was eighteen. Spent the night in a holding cell, never charged. Beer?”
I nodded. “Was that what made you want to become a lawyer?”
He popped the top—with a bottle opener this time, and not his amazing forearm—and half-smiled. “2005 was a crazy time.”
I leaned back on the counter and took a sip of my beer as he stirred the Hamburger Helper simmering in a skillet on the stove. He was right, he was definitely not a great chef, but there was something charming about seeing him in such a domestic context, when I’d only known him before as a player.
“Actually, I’ve wanted to be a lawyer for a while. When I was twelve, before my dad went away for the second time, he said, ‘It’d help if we had an attorney in the family, ‘cause these court appointed ones ain’t worth a damn.’”
“So, you’re a defense attorney,” I guessed.
“No. I work for the prosecutor’s office.” Now, there was definitely a grim set to his jaw, and he fell silent.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.” Although, I wasn’t sure I had; he’d volunteered most of the information, like he was confessing to a crime.
His smile returned, but it was forced, again. “No, I’m just maudlin tonight. I’ll tell you about it when he’s asleep.”
That was pretty confident of him, assuming I would be staying. But I was going to. I couldn’t pretend I preferred my empty apartment and Friends on Netflix to spending time with him.
I set the table—for three, at Antony’s insistence—and choked down some of the super high-sodium dinner he’d made. I made a mental note to take the risk of being passive-aggressive and get him a good cookbook.
Of course, maybe coming home from work and having to deal with a kid made it easier to open a box. My parents had had it easy; they could always afford to have someone cook for us.
After dinner, Antony sent Tony off to brush his teeth and wash his face. When the kid skipped off to the bathroom, Antony turned to me. “You wanna hang around for a minute? Have another beer after I get him to sleep?”
There was a subtle desperation there, and I realized…hot neighbor guy was lonely. Sure, he had his nephew here with him, but adult human company had to be hard to find when you were arranging it around a kid. And, there was more to this story, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. All I knew was, Antony was deeper than the player caricature I’d created in my head. I’d been thinking of him as a sex god who lived to bang chicks when he wasn’t being some hotshot lawyer.
Shame on me for making such callous assumptions. I had to clear the lump out of my throat to answer him. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
Tony came back from the bathroom and frowned at the living room couch. “Where’s my bed not out?”
“Why is your bed not out,” Antony corrected him. “My friend is going to be here until after bedtime, so you can start in mine.” He picked the kid up like a sack of flour and carried him to the bed, which looked like a football field in comparison to the boy’s teensy body. “Just a quick story tonight, okay?”
Oh my god. He was going to read him a bedtime story. Could that be any hotter?
“Let me get these dishes,” I offered, waving him off when he tried to decline. As upbeat as he was, there were dark circles under his eyes.
I took the few dishes to the sink and filled it with hot, soapy water while Antony read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Not a short story at all, but halfway through, I could see the boy’s tiny body relax in the crook of Antony’s arm. By the end of the
book, the dishes were washed, and the kid was sound asleep.
“Do we have to whisper?” I asked, doing exactly that.
He shook his head and went to the fridge, producing a bottle of red wine instead of beer. He held it up for approval, and I nodded. Opening the bottle, he shook his head. “That kid could sleep through a helicopter landing in here.”
We went to the dining table, to our places from dinner, though he sat a bit closer to the corner than before, his body angled toward mine. “I hope you don’t feel like you have to hang out. I realize I’m kind of….needy. But it’s nice to have another grown-up to talk to. I start to feel like a soccer mom after a while.”
“What was I going to be doing?” I shrugged as he poured wine into my glass. Switching gears, I asked, “Do you watch him a lot?”
“Every night except Tuesdays and Thursdays.” He held my gaze for a long moment, to see if I got his meaning.
“Yeah, grown-up interaction seems to be at an all-time high on those nights.” I raised my eyebrows and held up my glass to clink it against his.
“Antonia went away for a year. Just got back.” He lowered his voice, as though the sleeping child would hear him despite his statement to the contrary. “Possession of cocaine, first offense. I told him she went to college.”
“Oh no.” The kid was so adorable and sweet. As stern and sometimes cold as my parents had been to me, I would have been traumatized by one of them disappearing for a year.
“He lived here with me while she was gone.” He shrugged. “I was actually considering moving out, into a place that would have been bigger for us, but then Antonia came back and… Let’s just say that I didn’t want it to seem like I was planning for the future, like I didn’t trust her, you know?”
“I understand what you’re saying, but I wouldn’t say that I know.” I couldn’t imagine being responsible for someone else’s kid while they were in jail, fearing the whole time that the same situation could happen, again.
“She’s got a job now, so that’s good. That’s why I have the kid every night.” He nodded toward the bed and leaned his forearms on the tabletop. With the sleeves pushed back, I could see the flex of his muscles as he toyed with the wine glass, and the dark hair on them that I’d only been able to feel the night before.
“Every night except Tuesdays and Thursdays.” Which were beginning to make a whole lot more sense. “I can see why that would make dating hard.”
“It does. I don’t get out to many clubs or parties. Don’t get me wrong; I wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t like his dad, and I don’t like that the guy gets him even one weekend a month. But it’s hard to find someone who’s cool with this arrangement. Tony is always going to be first in my life, and a lot of women don’t like that. They want to get married, have their own kids. They don’t want to take care of someone else’s, let alone someone else’s nephew.”
“I can see why casual is so appealing.”
“That’s the thing…” He paused, looking up at me. His beautiful brown eyes were full of nervous uncertainty. “I don’t really want to do the casual thing, anymore.”
“Oh?” I squeaked.
“Yeah. I met someone.”
My heart bi-located; it was in my throat and stomach at the same time. “It seems highly unlikely that you met someone today between the time we were together and the time I came over here, but I have notoriously bad luck with guys, especially guys figuring out that they want someone else after I’ve started to like them—”
“No, it’s you,” he cut me off.
I pressed a hand to my chest. “Oh. Oh thank god.”
“You seem pretty relieved,” he teased me, then turned serious. “This is going to sound crazy, but I knew I was into you when you accused me of cheating on my non-existent wife.”
“That does sound weird,” I admitted. “Was it my sparkling personality that won you over?”
“No, I was really pissed off.” He grinned. “Then, I started thinking about it. You leapt to the defense of my wife. She didn’t exist, but you were so outraged, you were willing to stick up for her. I thought about it later. Nobody in my life would do that. They’d just ignore it and go about their business. It’s the DeLuca family motto: don’t get involved.”
“I have some very definite opinions on stuff.” I toyed with the stem of my glass. “Expressing them doesn’t always work out as well as this. Interfering? Never does.”
“But it worked out this time?”
I took a swallow of wine and nodded.
A slow smile started tentatively across his face. “So, you’re into me, too?”
I sighed. “Yeah. Obviously, it started with physical attraction, because of the whole meeting-you-wearing-a-towel thing—”
“That’s how I do it. I get you hooked with the free preview.” His tone was flirty, betraying that he shared my excited sense of possibility.
I arched an eyebrow at him and continued. “And, aside from when I thought you were a skeezy cheater, you seemed like a nice guy. And then, then last night…”
“I rescued you, like Shrek rescuing Fiona.” He winced at his own words and sighed in resignation, nodding toward the bed where Tony slept. “Sorry. He is really my only social life.”
“I’m starting to understand your constant references to children’s movies,” I laughed.
“We don’t know each other very well,” he admitted, looking away and back before he went on. “I don’t know if I should say this, but fuck it. You and I are both living the lives we’re living because of other people. You didn’t become a baker, because your parents didn’t want you to. I became a prosecutor because my family didn’t want me to. I feel like you’re somebody who might get it.”
“You’re not wrong.” That was some kind of thing to say to someone you weren’t even dating yet.
He shook his head. “I just completely ruined my aura of raw sexuality, didn’t I?”
“Your aura? Oh, please.” I laughed. “I wouldn’t mind getting to know you better. It’s weird to go out on a first date with someone you’ve already had sex with, but we might be able to pull it off.”
“Or we could say that our first date was the blackout,” he suggested, reaching over to take my hand in his. “Or dinner, tonight.”
“I’m a pretty cheap date then, aren’t I?”
He gestured to my foot. “Not really. Do you know how much money I would have made doing that if I were a doctor? And, I gave you my beer.”
“I think you were amply compensated for it.” I couldn’t take my eyes off his mouth as he leaned toward me. He cupped my cheek and jaw with his big, square hand and tilted his head slightly to bring our mouths together. It was as soft and sweet as all the other kisses he’d given me, and just like those, it led to something more intense and hungry. Something that we couldn’t exactly indulge in at the moment.
Both of us broke away at the same time. Stroking my arm, he apologized, “Sorry. It’s not a Tuesday or a Thursday.”
“But tomorrow is.” My needy body wasn’t as fine with it as my rational mind was.
“You know, I think it is.” He kissed me again, lingering gently until the last possible moment.
“I’m gonna go, before this gets…unignorable.” I had no self-control; I’d be stifling masturbation noises about five minutes after leaving the apartment.
He walked me to the door. “I promise the next date will be a real date. Not a Hamburger Helper dinner.”
“And, I promise, that on the next date, I’ll put out.” I rose onto the balls of my feet to whisper in his ear, “I mean, it’ll be our third date, right? And, it will be a Tuesday.”
Jenny Trout is an author, blogger, and funny person. Writing as Jennifer Armintrout she made the USA Today bestseller list with Blood Ties Book One: The Turning. Her novelAmerican Vampire was named one of the top ten horror novels of 2011 by Booklist Magazine Online. Jenny writes award-winning erotic romance, including the internationally bestselling The
Boss series (written as Abigail Barnette), as well as young adult and new adult novels.
As a blogger, Jenny’s work has appeared on The Huffington Post, and has been featured on television and radio, including HuffPost Live, Good Morning America, The Steve Harvey Show, and National Public Radio’s Here & Now.
She is a proud Michigander, mother of two, and wife to the only person alive capable of spending extended periods of time with her without wanting to kill her.
Young Adult fiction by Jenny Trout
Such Sweet Sorrow
New Adult fiction by Jenny Trout
Choosing You
By Jenny Trout writing as Abigail Barnette
The Boss
The Girlfriend
The Bride
The Ex
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