“And you are . . . ?”
“Joellen. Nice to meet you. Good-bye.”
He glances around my apartment. “What, you don’t want to introduce me to your boyfriend?”
“What I want is to finish my dinner and not have a wet, half-naked stranger with more muscles than manners standing in my kitchen.”
Cameron’s grin comes on in full, dazzling, I’m-so-irresistible mode. “So you’ve noticed my muscles. And you don’t have a boyfriend.”
For a moment, I’m stupefied. Is he flirting with me?
Then I realize no, he’s not flirting with me. He’s teasing me. Because obviously a woman like me—big, bespectacled, alone on a Saturday night with her cat and a basket full of granny panties—doesn’t have a boyfriend.
Mr. Bingley sits at Cameron’s feet, looking up at him like he wants to be picked up and snuggled. Traitor.
With as much dignity as I can muster, I draw myself up and square my shoulders. “If you’ll excuse me,” I say coolly, “I have a dinner date. You’re making me late for it.”
“Oh.” He looks flummoxed, as if the possibility I’m telling the truth about having a date is so outlandish he doesn’t know what to make of it. He probably thinks I’ve won a bachelor auction or something. “Well. Right, then. Have a good night.”
He turns and swaggers away without another word, leaving me staring at his perfect, retreating backside.
Why is life so unfair that it bestows all the beauty on the least deserving beasts?
Except Michael Maddox. He is beautiful both inside and out.
I put the pan on the stove and turn the heat back on, then shut the front door. But not before getting another wink from the Mountain, who’s closing his own door just as I’m closing mine. With perfect timing, he spins around, pulls off the towel from his hips, and drops it on the floor, so the last thing I see is a peekaboo shot of his naked ass as the door swings shut.
I’m too young for menopause, but boy is this hot flash a doozy.
Dinner with Mrs. Dinwiddle is an hour of listening to stories about her youth as I shovel food into my mouth and she drinks martini after martini and feeds the dogs right from her plate. Blessica, her caretaker, is about sixty but has the energy of a four-year-old. She bustles around the apartment cleaning things that don’t need to be cleaned, generally making me feel like a sloth in comparison. She’d never leave a pile of unfolded laundry on the sofa.
By the time I leave, Mrs. Dinwiddle is singing a slurred version of “Danny Boy” in honor of a young Irishman she had a scorching affair with when she was a girl, who drowned himself in the sea when his father refused to allow them to marry.
I’m not entirely sure that story is true, but I find it terribly romantic anyway.
Blessica helps Mrs. Dinwiddle to bed, then we do the dinner dishes, then I go home alone to my apartment, with the possibility of bumping into Michael again at work in the future the only thing to look forward to.
I’m unlocking my apartment door when I hear a long, low moan coming from behind me.
I turn and frown at Kellen’s closed door. The moan comes again, followed by a thud that shakes the doorframe. Then a man’s low voice starts to murmur indistinctly as the moans and thuds increase. I put two and two together when the moans take the shape of a name.
“Cam! Oh God, Cam, yes, yes, yes!”
No, no, no. He’s having sex with someone! Against the door!
Not only is this Scot a rude, boozy playboy with questionable exercise habits, he has sex standing up! Who does that?
Thud. Thud. Moan. Thud.
Apparently, he does.
Shocked, I stand with the dish of leftover shepherd’s pie and listen until the thuds and moans reach a thundering climax. The woman screams like an air-raid siren. Cam grunts some unintelligible words—something dirty, I’m sure, though I can’t make it out—and then makes a sound like a wolf growling. It raises all the hair on the back of my neck.
Then it’s quiet, and I feel like I need to take a shower. In bleach.
Ticked off that I’m now a two-time unwilling participant in the Mountain’s sexcapades, I holler across the hall, “She totally faked it!”
I go inside and slam the door shut behind me.
What a pig. What an absolute animal! What a cocky, conceited, self-centered, insufferable man whore!
From his perch on the back of the sofa, Mr. Bingley watches with interest as I stomp into the kitchen and violently throw the dish of leftovers into the fridge. “I’m complaining to the super first thing in the morning,” I tell the cat while slamming the refrigerator door. “We shouldn’t have to deal with this idiot and his music and parties and loud vertical hookups! I work for a living! I pay my bills! I shouldn’t be subjected to—”
Boom, boom, boom!
I pull up short. Someone is pounding on my front door. “Who is it?”
The answer is muffled but clear enough. “Stop spyin’ on me, you little Peepin’ Tom, or I’ll call the super!”
I gasp in outrage. It’s Cameron. Accusing me of peeping!
I march to the door and yank it open. Into the big idiot’s face, I shout, “I’m going to call the super because you’re loud, obnoxious, and rude!”
My tirade loses a bit of steam when I realize he’s smiling. And—of course—he’s barechested and barefoot, wearing only a pair of shiny black athletic shorts that are so tight the bulge in front practically screams Look at me!
Holy cow. This beast is packing some serious heat.
“Starin’ at my baby maker again, lass,” says the Mountain with a low chuckle. “It’s becomin’ a bad habit of yours, innit?”
Steam pours from my ears. My entire face goes red. I clench my hands to fists to stop them from curling around his throat. “If you wouldn’t prance around half-naked all the time—”
“Prance?” he repeats, one eyebrow lifted. “Cameron McGregor does not prance.”
“—people wouldn’t have to be subjected to the sight of your body—”
“You make it sound like a punishment.”
“—accosted in their own homes while they’re trying to mind their own business—”
“When I know for a fact you actually enjoy it.”
My mouth hangs open. “Excuse me?”
He grins. “You heard me. I know when a woman wants me.”
I’m surprised he doesn’t explode into a million tiny caveman shards from the thermonuclear look I give him. “For your information, you’re the last man on the planet I’d ever be attracted to. In spite of your obviously overinflated opinion of yourself, you’re not my type.”
“Oh, really?” Still grinning his ridiculous, conceited, pearly-white grin, he props his hands on his hips. “Then why’re you always starin’ at me like I’m lunch and lookin’ at me through your peephole?”
“You’re insane,” I say flatly.
He jerks his chin at the tiny round window in the middle of my door. “It goes dark when your head’s there, blockin’ the light. I’d say you stared at me for a good five minutes while I was warmin’ up this mornin’, lass.”
Damn. He knew I was watching.
My face flaming, I glare at him. He grins back at me. This lasts for an uncomfortably long time, until a woman’s voice floats into the hallway.
“Cam, get back in here! We’re not finished!”
Without looking away from me, he says casually over his shoulder, “Aye, we are, sweetheart. I’ll call you a cab.”
“Wow. What a gentleman.”
He shrugs. “She knew the deal. You don’t go home with a stranger after one drink if you’re interested in a long-term relationship.”
This guy is a real piece of work. “Okay, number one? You’re disgusting. Number two? This conversation is over. Number three? If you keep up the noise, I’m not only calling the super, I’m calling the cops.”
He cocks his head, looks me up and down, then pronounces, “You’re tense. Guess your date didn’t go as
well as mine did, eh?”
I suddenly understand how otherwise rational people can lose their minds and commit murder in a fit of rage. “It’s been real, McGregor.” I swing the door closed. It slams shut in his face with a loud, satisfying thud.
Through the door, he says, “I’ll make you a deal, Joellen.”
“If it involves you swallowing a vial of poison, you’re on.”
“Bake me one of your shepherd’s pies, and I’ll be quiet as a mouse. Your pie for my silence.” A hint of laughter warms his voice.
“Pie. I get it. Hilarious. What are you, ten years old?”
For an answer, I get two short affirmative knocks on my door, as if we have an agreement, though I’ve agreed to nothing. Then his door closes across the hall, and I’m left standing there glaring at a slab of painted wood like an idiot.
When I turn around, Mr. Bingley is busy lovingly licking the place where his testicles used to be.
“Ugh. Men. Everything you are is between your legs!”
I console myself with the thought of Michael Maddox, who has more class in his pinky finger than that beast across the hall has in his entire body.
When I hear the beast’s door open and close again, I refuse to go to the peephole to get a look at the girl he shagged standing up, even though it nearly kills me.
FOUR
“What did the maxi pad say to the fart? You’re the wind beneath my wings!”
“Denny, it’s eight o’clock on Sunday morning, and I haven’t had my coffee yet. I’m not mentally prepared for fart jokes.”
I enter the elevator at work with the enthusiasm of someone ascending the steps of the gallows and slump against the wall, bleary eyed. I had approximately two hours of sleep last night, thanks to the rap concert going on in Kellen’s apartment.
Twice I picked up the phone to call the police to make a noise complaint, and twice I hung up before going through with it. Despite my threats to Cameron, I really don’t like being cast in the role of the grouchy, fun-hating spinster who’s out to ruin everyone’s good time. Even if they are selfish idiots. So instead I slept with a pillow over my head, promising myself I’d invest in a pair of good earplugs in the morning.
I had more fitful dreams of Scottish warriors in battle, only this time they all wore tiny white bath towels around their hips.
I don’t allow myself to consider why all those bath towels had conspicuous bulges in front. I suspect that’s a topic for a trained therapist.
“What do you get when you eat refried beans and onions?”
I heave a sigh and close my eyes. “Denny. For the love of God.”
“Tear gas!”
Denny cackles like a crone at his own joke, while I stand with my eyes closed, pondering the life choices that have led me to this moment.
“Why don’t little girls fart? Because they don’t have assholes until they’re married!”
“Okay, that one’s a little funny,” I admit grudgingly, but only because I’m in a special man-hating mood.
“Yeah, that’s one of my wife’s favorites, too.”
Poor Phyllis. The woman is a saint.
The elevator spits me out on the thirty-third floor right in the middle of another fart joke, this one involving the pope. I say good-bye to Denny and trudge to my desk, expecting to be the only moron at work at the crack of dawn on a Sunday, but to my great shock, I’m not alone.
Michael Maddox stands at the wall of windows across from the cubicle field, gazing out into the gray December morning with his hands shoved into his trouser pockets and his proud shoulders rounded with an invisible weight.
I stop dead in my tracks. My heart leaps into my throat. All my nerve endings sit up and holler rr-ow!, like Mr. Bingley when he wants his dinner.
Michael looks like he might’ve slept in his clothes. His hair is rumpled, his shirt is wrinkled, his normally crisply pressed trousers are distinctly uncrisp. A shadow of stubble darkens his square jaw, and holy hell the man is beautiful.
I must make a little gurgle of lust, because Michael turns and sees me standing there, staring at him in a hazy, hormone-fueled stupor.
“Oh,” he says, startled.
Oh, indeed. How much drool must be coating my chin?
Flustered, I stammer, “I . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean t-to disturb you. I just . . . just . . .”
My lips aren’t working right. My brain is refusing to coordinate with my tongue, which sits inside my mouth like roadkill, trampled to death and gathering flies.
“You’re working again today?”
The universe, taking pity on how utterly pathetic I am, finally allows me the power of speech. “Yes.”
Michael draws a breath, squares his shoulders, then smiles. It’s forced but gorgeous nonetheless. “We can’t be paying you enough for this kind of dedication.”
Take off all your clothes and I’ll consider us even.
I laugh. It sounds unhinged, like I’ve recently freebased cocaine.
He blinks at me as a wave of heat rises from my neck to my hairline. I send him a pinched smile, wrench my gaze from his, and scurry over to my desk like some nocturnal rodent in search of food. I collapse into my chair. It wheezes in protest and deflates six inches on its pneumatic cylinder, leaving me boob-high to the desk with my bulky handbag shoved up under my chin.
Which is how Michael finds me.
“Oh dear. Are you all right?”
He peers down at me from his godlike height, genuinely concerned by the ridiculous predicament of the silly mortal girl in the puffy down jacket the color of rancid pea soup that her mother gave her when she moved to New York a lifetime ago and she was too cheap to replace.
Ah, hindsight. You are one giant, ruthless bitch.
“Fine,” I manage, cheeks blazing. With as much dignity as I can muster—which isn’t much—I push the chair back, stand, set my handbag on the desk, and readjust the chair, all the while acutely aware of Michael’s presence.
He must think I’m an absolute train wreck of a human being. He must think I’m a stuttering, clumsy fool who doesn’t have the coordination God gave a one-legged goat. He must think—
“I think we need to replace that chair.” He frowns at the object in question as if it has offended him by refusing to more stoically bear my weight.
I take that as evidence of his chivalry and nearly swoon. I catch myself before my knees give out and try to casually steady myself against the desk, but I’m too far away, so my casual lean turns into a highly awkward sideways stagger until my thigh collides with the edge of the desk with a thunk that topples the jar of pens next to the computer and sets the calendar of Grumpy Cat swinging from side to side.
I would literally kill a small child right now for the power of invisibility.
“You seem as out of sorts as I am,” says Michael with a melancholy smile. “I hope your Saturday was better than mine.”
I freeze. Ohmigod. Was that an invitation to talk about his personal life? Is he asking me about my personal life? What do I do? What should I say?
After a few moments, when it becomes clear I’m unable to act like a functioning adult, Michael’s smile falters. “Well, I’ll let you get to it.”
When he turns to leave, I blurt, “Yes!”
Startled again, Michael looks back at me with wide eyes. “Sorry?”
I make myself a promise that if I can just get through the next sixty seconds without acting like an insane asylum escapee, I’ll treat myself to dinner at the Italian place down the street from my apartment, a bottle of wine and all.
“I meant, yes, I’m out of sorts.” I say this robotically, concentrating on making my lips form the right sounds while my hormones are doing five-hundred-mile-per-hour laps around my nervous system in Formula One racing mode. “I haven’t been sleeping well the last few nights. I have a new neighbor who’s apparently trying to turn the rest of us in the building deaf with his music. I didn’t realize stereos could be used as torture devices.”
The tiny lines around Michael’s blue eyes crinkle charmingly. My heart palpitations are so extreme, I stand there and try not to die.
“I had a neighbor like that once.”
I can’t picture anyone inhuman enough to disturb this beautiful creature in his home, which is probably a golden castle in the clouds staffed by cherubs and unicorns. “What did you do?”
A dimple flashes in his cheek, and all my hormones abandon their mad dash around my veins and collapse into a sighing pile at Michael’s feet.
“I went over to his house, explained that he was disturbing me, and asked him to stop.”
“And that worked?”
“No, that actually made it worse. So then I beat him up.” He laughs at my shocked expression. “I’m kidding. I made a noise complaint to the police, and they took care of it.”
Because all my concentration has switched from forming words to battling the urge to lean in and sniff Michael’s neck, when I try to smile I end up weirdly baring my teeth instead.
“That’s probably what you should do,” says Michael, eyeing me warily. I’m sure he’s wondering if he’s going to need something sharp to defend himself with.
Dear Jesus, just take me. Please just kill me now.
“You’re right. I know you’re right.” Overcome with the urge to slam my face over and over onto my desk, I nod like a bobblehead. “But he lives right across the hall from me, and I wouldn’t want to have to see him after that. He’d know it was me who snitched on him because I’ve already confronted him about it.”
A small, adorable crease forms between Michael’s eyebrows. “Are you worried he’ll retaliate? Is this guy some kind of thug?”
I know it’s only my imagination that makes Michael’s expression and tone of voice seem concerned, but my heart doesn’t care. It begins to beat wildly against my rib cage like it’s attempting to break out of prison.
My rabid badger smile makes a reappearance. “Well, he is a rugby player! Who knows what the guy is capable of!”
Joellen, you’re as useless as snake mittens.
But Michael seems to find truth in my ridiculous statement, because his eyes widen in alarm. “Good God, you live next to a rugby man? That’s like living next to a silverback gorilla! Definitely don’t confront him again, Joellen. Let the authorities handle it.”
Melt for You Page 3