by Leslie Kelly
“Okay,” Peggy said with an exaggerated shrug, “If you say so. But I still gotta tell ya, Chaz, from where I was standing, the two of you looked like anything but mere friends.”
As if realizing he was uncomfortable, she changed the subject and led him up to the third-floor apartment. Chaz spent a few hours with Peggy and Marcia, helping them set up the new laptop and hook it to their wireless network. He’d never be called a computer genius, but it wasn’t too complicated.
Though he didn’t, by any means, expect anything for his labors, he ended up accepting their invitation to a cookout the following afternoon. He told himself it had nothing to do with Lulu’s presence and wanting to even the score with her. He’d simply been out of the country for a while and looked forward to a last outdoor gathering before the doldrums of winter set in. And he’d probably need to relax and have a few beers with friends after what he expected would be a difficult breakfast with his kid sister.
Besides, spending time with everyone who lived in the building would give him a chance to ask Marcia and the couple from the first floor if they knew a sexy, mysterious redhead. That should hammer home to everyone—including him—the fact that he didn’t care at all about Lulu.
The next day turned out better than he’d expected, since a much more cheerful Sarah had blown off breakfast in favor of a day with friends. So he had plenty of time to unpack and do laundry, and go shopping for this afternoon’s gathering.
He arrived a few minutes after four. Peggy had said they were cooking out early to take advantage of the daylight in the rapidly shortening fall day. He headed around to the back of the building, following the sound of voices and laughter. Marcia and Peggy were there, sitting at a picnic table across from a good-looking African-American man. The middle-aged couple who lived on the bottom floor—Florence and Herman? Sherman? something like that—were at the grill, him cooking on it, her telling him how to do it better. They both looked up at him and smiled in greeting.
Lulu sat away from the group, on a garden swing that hung from a tall, leaf-bare tree, pushing off with the tips of her toes to set the thing in motion. Her eyes rounded in surprise when she saw him. “Chaz?”
“Hi, everyone,” he said, setting a bottle of wine and a twelve-pack of beer on the table.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, getting up and approaching him, sounding confused, though not exactly unwelcoming.
“Peggy and Marcia invited me.”
“Surprise!” said Peggy. “Chaz told me you two were pals from the olden days, and he did us a solid helping us set up our wireless network.”
Marcia piped in. “Plus, well, the more the merrier. We wanted to share some news with our friends and neighbors and figured we’d make this a little celebration.”
The two women glanced at each other and then Peggy went around to stand behind Marcia, dropping her hands onto her shoulders.
“What’s the news?” asked Lulu.
“First, we should introduce Frankie.”
The good-looking stranger who’d been sitting at the table smiled and waved as Peggy ran down everyone’s names. “Nice meeting y’all.”
“Frankie works with Marcia,” Peggy explained. “He recently helped us out with a very special project.”
“More special than your internet?” Chaz asked with an eyebrow wag.
Peggy’s laughter nearly deafened him. “Oh, yeah. You see...we’re going to have a baby.”
Lulu squealed, as did Florence. Sherman threw his arms up and shouted congratulations in a language that sounded like Italian. Frankie looked proud, and Peggy and Marcia utterly ecstatic.
“Congratulations,” Chaz said, smiling at both women. “I can’t imagine a kid having better parents.”
Lulu rushed around the table and hugged them both, then said, “Okay, now tell me, which one of you doesn’t get to drink the wine or beer?”
The two women eyed each other mischievously, then both pointed to Marcia’s belly. “Seven months without wine, coffee or junk food. I don’t know how I’m going to make it.”
“I’m going without, too, in solidarity,” said Peggy. “Uh, except for the junk food. There’s only so much a Nacho Cheese Doritos addict can do to support the woman she loves.”
The dinner then segued from a casual neighborhood thing to a celebration. Through it, Chaz watched Lulu, glad to see how totally cool she was with the whole situation. They’d both been raised in a pretty small, conservative town. His own horizons had expanded exponentially after he’d left, and it appeared Lulu’s had, too. She was completely gracious and genuinely happy for her new friends.
They all talked and joked through dinner, each offering suggestions for names, one more outrageous than the last. Then, after the steaks were finished and they’d moved on to s’mores for dessert, made over the still smoking grill, Marcia asked, “So, Lulu, what was our Chaz like as a boy?”
Lulu had just sipped a mouthful of wine, and she swallowed quickly, swinging her gaze toward him. He gave a not-so-subtle warning shake of his head.
“Remember, I’m a writer. Any story you can tell, I can tell better,” he threatened.
She laughed softly, her brown eyes sparkling in the low light cast from the grill and from a small, warming blaze burning in the fire pit. Her lips were stained red from the wine she’d been drinking, and her hair had blown loose of its ponytail, several strands whipping across her face.
Damn, she was beautiful. If she were anyone else— absolutely anyone—she might even be tempting enough to console him over the apparent loss of his mystery woman.
“Well, Chaz was...”
“A loser,” he interjected.
She glared at him. “A sweetheart. The nicest boy in town.”
He made a rude noise and rolled his eyes. “I don’t remember you thinking that when you called me a doody-head because I wouldn’t let you ride my new bike on Christmas morning.”
“I was five,” she said. “And I was the doody-head for assuming you should give up your brand-new bike to the brat next door.”
“She’s right,” said Peggy, obviously amused.
“I might not have told you,” Lulu admitted, “but I certainly thought you were the nicest kid I knew.” She qualified her answer, offering the group a sheepish smile. “At least...some of the time. Other times, I thought he was a butthead.”
He raised his glass. “Here’s to the first honest thing you’ve said.”
She raised hers, as well, laughter dancing in her eyes.
After sipping, he jumped in, not wanting her to get the upper hand. “As for Lulu, she was a holy terror.”
“No,” Marcia protested.
“I don’t believe that,” said Florence. “She’s so quiet, barely a peep from upstairs. I worried when she moved in, thinking such a pretty girl would be bringing the men around at all hours of the night, but there’s never a sound from her bedroom, which is right above ours.” She reached out and patted Lulu’s hand. “She’s a good girl.”
Color rose in Lulu’s cheeks as everyone tried to hide their snorts of laughter. Florence, older and maybe a bit naive, didn’t appear to realize her compliment had included a back-handed insult. She looked around in confusion, even as Lulu sunk lower in her seat as everyone speculated on her lack of a sex life.
Chaz caught her eye and offered her a genuine smile. Then he mouthed something only she would understand.
Mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah.
Their stares locked, and she suddenly laughed with him, the sound infectious, her smile breathtaking.
He was seeing her in a much different light than he’d ever expected to, and he didn’t just mean physically, though the physical was definitely potent.
Not that anything could come of it, obviously. The family connection alone would make it impossible
for them to try anything beyond friendship, if either of them were interested in that, which he doubted.
When the gathering began to break up, he stayed behind to help clean up. Everybody in the building had brought down something, and then left with what they’d brought. Lulu’s contribution had apparently been the plates and silverware. The dishes were all dirty now, and there was no way she could carry all of them up to her place, so he stepped in.
“I’ll help Lulu take this up,” he offered, clearing one end of the table.
“Thanks, Chaz, we’re loaded down,” said Peggy. She gestured toward her wife. “And that one’s not allowed to carry anything more than a spoon.”
Smiling at each other tenderly, the other two women headed inside with platters of leftovers, leaving him and Lulu alone to finish up.
“They’re great, aren’t they?” she mused.
“Yeah, they’re the best,” he said. “Peggy and Marcia were the first neighbors I met when I moved in, and they helped me unpack boxes for a week.”
“They did the same thing for me. I appreciated the help—and I appreciate yours now,” she said. “I’d hate to make three trips since I live on the second floor.”
He could have been nice and not taken a swing at the pitch she’d thrown. But he just couldn’t resist. “Yeah, I heard you lived on the second floor. Your room is right above Florence’s.”
She scowled and threw a wadded-up napkin in his face.
“Okay, sorry, I didn’t hear a word Florence said,” he claimed with a wicked grin.
“As if she’d hear anything, anyway,” Lulu said, tossing her head, which shook free her ponytail, sending her dark hair tumbling down her back. “I happen to have a very new bed with quiet springs.”
He supposed she was trying to salvage her pride, but he wasn’t focused on that. For some reason, the idea of Lulu bouncing around in bed with a man was enough to make him stop laughing.
It’s just because you’re not used to thinking of her as a grown woman. You’re still picturing the girl next door, the one who wore angel’s wings and a halo in her second grade Christmas pageant, making all the other kids laugh because Lulu was anything but angelic.
Yeah. That was it. Totally.
It had nothing to do with her delicious-looking body, that amazing mouth, all that thick, dark hair that he could suddenly envision being spread across his naked stomach.
Jeez, he really needed to get a grip. More, he needed to find the woman he’d met Friday night. Sexual frustration was making him think the craziest thoughts about someone he should never consider in that way.
“I could give Florence something to listen to,” she muttered, still obviously disgruntled about her neighbor’s comments. “Something that would have her reaching for her earplugs and praying for my soul.”
“Gonna download porn from the internet and set the speaker by the air vent?”
She glared at him. “Some men actually find me attractive, you know.”
He didn’t doubt it. Physically, she was mouthwatering. It was the nonphysical part that was the problem.
“And I don’t need porn.”
“Nobody needs porn,” he said philosophically. “But it can be kinda fun on occasion.”
She licked her lips, her lashes dropping over those brown eyes. “Speaking from experience?” she asked, her voice probably not as cool and noncommittal as she’d been going for.
He kept his answer just as cool. “Maybe.”
“And here I pegged you as the big stud, women in every town.”
He couldn’t believe they were having this conversation, but since they were, he decided to finish it. “Porn’s not just for lonely guys who have no friends other than Hairy Palmer.” Remembering the highlights from Friday night, he added, “You’ve never thought about watching other people have sex? Or of being watched yourself?”
“You mean, intentional exhibitionism?”
He nodded. She caught her lip between her teeth and shook her head violently. “Never,” she swore, though he suspected she was lying to them both.
He had, on occasion, enjoyed watching sex, via hotel movie rentals and adventurous internet surfing. But until the other night in that savings and loan lobby, and then later up against that tree, he’d never even dreamed of someone watching him with a woman. That night had been so wild, so uninhibited and dangerous, he’d half wanted to be caught.
Chaz had never considered himself an exhibitionist, had never toyed with the idea of allowing strangers to peek in on his life, especially during his most personal moments. But somehow, he almost got off on the idea of laying the most earthy, sexual claim on a woman—that woman—while others stood watching in envy.
Deep down, the ancient caveman within him wanted to put his mark on her, to proclaim that she was his, and warn every other man not to trespass. He wanted to pleasure her, do wild, erotic things to her that nobody would ever even dare try to repeat because they knew he’d set a bar so high it could never be surpassed. He wanted to show off, to prove he was the ultimate lover so she’d never dream of being with anyone else.
It was sexist, it would probably piss off most women, but it was entirely true.
He didn’t think it would anger his mystery witch, though. She’d seemed just as into it as he was. Maybe that was one reason why he so wanted to find her again...to see if she shared the fantasy and wanted to finish what they’d started. In public, in private, it didn’t matter. He just wanted to have her.
“Here,” Lulu said, interrupting his heated musings by shoving a trio of dirty plates in his hands. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“You brought it up.”
“I most certainly did not!”
“You’re the one who mentioned bouncy bedsprings.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Laughter on his lips at how easy she was to rile, he followed her inside and up the back stairs. A few steps below her, he found himself eye level with an amazing ass and wished he hadn’t just been picturing such graphic thoughts.
When, he wondered, had Lulu become so thoroughly feminine? She had curves on top of curves, and he couldn’t tear his stare off those amazing hips and thighs as he followed two steps behind her. Thinking about porn and voyeurism and sex ninety seconds before being presented face-to-butt with pure temptation was not a good thing for any guy. Especially not if he wanted to keep his jeans lying flat against his groin.
His weren’t.
Holy shit. They weren’t.
He was hard for Lulu. If he were to be honest about it, he’d have to admit he’d started getting hard when she’d made that crack about her bedsprings.
This was unacceptable on so many levels, he couldn’t even begin to count them. Lulu had made his life hell, she was trouble, she was a part of his past that he didn’t much care to revisit. He had no business imagining her body or her bed or anything else.
On the top step, she swung around and caught him staring.
“I knew you were looking at my ass,” she said, typical blunt Lulu.
He couldn’t even try to deny it. Hell, all she had to do was glance down and see the bulge in his jeans and she’d prove him a liar. Which meant he needed to keep her attention focused above his waist.
“Guilty. You definitely grew up.” He stepped up beside her, forcing himself to smile down at her. “When’d that happen?”
“When you weren’t looking.”
He was looking now, though he shouldn’t be. He couldn’t even figure out why he wanted to. This was Lulu of all people! The girl had poured an entire milkshake over his head once because he’d asked her if she’d been crying. He had no doubt she’d do the same thing again today if she had the chance.
“I somehow suspect you forgot who you were talking to and who you were ogling,” she whisp
ered, blinking those dark eyes—familiar eyes, beautiful eyes—and staring searchingly at his face.
“Maybe I did, for just a minute.”
Some instinct he couldn’t define made him reach up to smooth back a strand of her long, dark hair, which was wind-whipped and soft against his fingers. His fingertips brushed against her cheekbone, and he realized her skin was equally as soft, her peaches-and-cream complexion revealing a flush of color in her face.
Her tongue flicked out and she moistened her lips, exhaling a long, slow breath as the lingering stare continued.
He was hit with the strangest feeling of déjà vu. It was ridiculous, really, because he’d never touched her like this. He’d never even dreamed he might someday have the impulse to lean in and taste that sassy, saucy mouth, to kiss the insults right out of it.
And yet he did.
He suddenly wanted to kiss her, wanted to experience that lush mouth against his own. He wanted to press her soft, curvy body against his and wanted to explore every inch of her.
Of Lulu. Lulu Vandenberg.
“Lulu,” he whispered, feeling himself lean closer, drawn by something irresistible and irrevocable, as if he had no strength of will.
Their faces came close. Their lips nearly touched.
Then she took a step back and grabbed the dishes out of his hands. “I can handle it from here.”
He blinked, shaking his head hard, wondering whether he’d fallen under some magic spell. How else could he possibly explain his desire to do something as insane as kiss a girl he’d barely tolerated for most of his life?
“Thanks for the help,” she said, stepping across the small hallway to the door of her place. “I’ll see you later.”
Not waiting for him to reply, she twisted the unlocked knob and stepped into her apartment. She shut the door hard, the audible flipping of the lock from within punctuating what she’d been saying to him.
Good night. Goodbye. Go away.
“You’re welcome,” he whispered. “Goodbye.”
He would swear he heard her shuddery exhalation from inside. Chaz sensed she stood right on the other side of the door, resting her head against it, uncomfortable, unsure.