Five Things I Love About You

by Sarah Ballance

  “That’s very nice of you, but your charm is wasted. I’m stuck here for two weeks and am literally counting the minutes until my flight home.”

  “All the more reason to have some guilty pleasures on hand, then, isn’t it?” He flashed another stupidly perfect grin. “Lead the way, country girl, and I’ll follow.”

  Chapter Two

  Crosby trailed a step behind the grocery store goddess, who kept looking over her shoulder like she thought he’d take off with her bags. Clearly she hadn’t exaggerated her dislike of the city and everything in it, which made her temporary stay a good thing. He could get a little too used to looking into those blue eyes, and he didn’t time have for her kind of distraction. Not with the weight of his family business on his shoulders. As the oldest of four sons, he needed his focus there. Not on her. But he couldn’t help his appreciation, even if she carried herself like she could take him out at any moment with one of those wine bottles.

  “My name is Crosby, by the way.”

  She shot him another look, then slowed a step, allowing him to catch up. “Estelle. And thank you for the help. I can’t believe I didn’t think about how I was getting all this stuff back to the apartment.”

  “Maybe it was the thing with the pickles?”

  She awarded him with a guarded smile. “We should definitely blame it on the thing with the pickles.”

  We. One stupid word, but still, now they had a thing, and he liked that. He’d like to have much more of a thing with her, but he was already following her home from the grocery store. That was only cute for stray animals, and rarely then. But the woman had stunned him, and not just because he hadn’t seen her on the floor under the shopping cart that he also had not seen. It was her eyes. Had to be. They were an exquisite blue, the color insanely deep when offset by the platinum streaks in her stick-straight, glossy blonde hair.

  “What are you doing in town?” he asked. He felt like he had to walk a fine line between being friendly and making her think he was one of those guys who made lampshades from human skin. Considering the bizarre track record of their short acquaintance, he wasn’t sure he teetered on the preferred side.

  “My brother went to some tech writer’s conference and didn’t want to leave his apartment empty. He sold me on an exciting vacation in the city.” She drew to a stop in front of an ancient brick building and looked up, her sapphire eyes decimating him. “Do I look excited to be here?”

  Well, parts of her did. Two parts, to be exact. His gaze must have drifted the wrong direction because she spun away and headed for the building’s front door.

  He followed, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a grin.

  Inside, the old building actually had a lobby, where a sizable open space held a bank of mailboxes and an elevator. Off to one side, a fire door marked the entrance to the stairs. A single, long-dead potted tree held court, and he noticed her gaze linger on it.

  She pressed the button for the elevator then looked over at him. “If you actually want to wait, I’ll be right back.”

  “I actually want to wait.”

  “Okay, but if Earl runs you off, don’t take my groceries with you.”

  Before he could tell her that he knew Earl—everyone knew Earl—she frowned at the elevator and stabbed the button again, startling him into silence with her ferocity. “Older gentleman. Told me upon my arrival that he owned the building, but I’m pretty sure it’s been days since he’s suffered a close call with running water, so I’m not buying it.”

  “Unlikely story,” he agreed. “This building really should have a lock on it.”

  “It really should have a working elevator.” She kicked the closed doors.

  “I’m not sure that will help,” he said mildly.

  “Sure it did. You have no idea how much better I feel. And now I’m taking the stairs.”

  “I’ll be here,” he said. “Unless you want help.”

  “Forget it, Boy Scout. I’m not that convinced of your innocence.” She walked up to him, took the bag with the ice cream in it, and flashed another one of those smiles that would put the sun to shame. He caught a faint whiff of pickle juice when she turned, and he didn’t even try to hide his grin as she walked away, phenomenal ass swaying like a summer breeze.

  Lord knew he could use one of those right about then.

  He set the bags on the floor and flexed his fingers while he waited. The woman had odd taste in food. Bread crumbs, jalapeños, potatoes, yogurt, Cheez-Its, microwave popcorn, hot dog buns, laundry detergent, and brown sugar. Plus ice cream and wine. A lot of wine.

  She also had an incredible body, especially her breasts as viewed through a wet shirt. Which was precisely what he was thinking about when the door to the stairs swung open and she stepped into the lobby.

  “Do I want to know why you’re smiling?” she asked.

  “Probably not,” he admitted.

  She blew a few strands of hair out of her face, but they didn’t go anywhere. “The stupid air conditioner is about as useful as the elevator. I finally got it to cut on, and I’m not sure it’s not blowing heat.”

  “I can take a look at it for you.”

  “Do you have a merit badge in coolant or something?”

  “You do realize I’m not actually a Boy Scout?”

  “Well, I don’t see any shining armor. What are my other options?”

  “The air conditioner,” he said. “I’m—”

  “Seriously not getting into my apartment. But nice try.” A flirty grin softened her words. She grabbed everything but the laundry detergent. “Be right back.”

  He watched her go. Damn, what a view. He could only imagine the stupid look he must have on his face. He’d have to come up with a way to eradicate it before any of his brothers saw him. He was the only one of the bunch who hadn’t brought at least one woman home to their mother’s weekly Sunday dinners in ages, but it was as much the family’s fault as it was his. As the oldest son, the weight of carrying on the generations-old business fell exclusively in his lap and on his shoulders and everywhere else it could land. The pressure was immense. Eighty years of tradition weighed a fucking lot. A gorgeous blue-eyed distraction couldn’t have come at a worse time…for him. Or his mother. She’d sent him to the store for ingredients to finish off the desserts for tonight’s Sunday dinner, and so far he was late and empty handed.

  Except for laundry detergent.

  Which wasn’t even his.

  He leaned against the brick to wait. The surface was surprisingly cool, which more than made up for the uncomfortable texture. When Estelle popped out of the stairwell doorway, he didn’t miss the visual tour she took of his body. She seemed to have relaxed a notch. Her steps were slower. A little less frantic.

  A slow smile crept across her lips. She looked pointedly at the detergent parked between his feet but made no move to go down there after it. “Um, thank you?”

  “There’s a coffee place around the corner,” he said. “Can I buy you a cup?”

  “Is that what people around here do when they get sweaty? Buy hot drinks?”

  He reached to ease a strand of wet hair from her face, and the barely there contact sent all of his blood rushing to his jeans. “The shop is air conditioned. And they sell cold stuff, too.”

  “Good for them. I told you, I’m not sticking around. And while you seem nice enough, I’ve seen enough New-York-based television to know meet-cutes in this city never end well.”

  Rejected based on media portrayal…that was a first. He should be thrilled she denied him. He was forever tied to the city she hated, and he had zero time to get involved with anything other than his job, but her rebuff didn’t draw his attention from her eyes, or the way her pupils dilated when he touched her. His fingertip burned with the promise of touching her more, and in more places, and if the way she’d swayed into the contact meant anything, she wasn’t entirely opposed to the idea. But that didn’t make it a good one.

  She’d probably hate that the
y agreed on that point. But she was also the first one to distract him from his work in a long time, so while it was a good thing she had one foot on the plane, he couldn’t put a lid on not wanting to say good-bye.

  “So. See you sometime?” Despite his best intentions, it came out in the form of a question requiring a response, instead of the polite brush-off he should have delivered.

  “Forgive me, but I’m new here. When a complete stranger stalks a girl in the grocery store—after a minor assault, I might add—steals her groceries, and subsequently follows her back to her apartment building, is it customary to entertain the idea of seeing him again?”

  “I carried your groceries.”

  Her eyes glittered with amusement. “And that is the only point on which you take issue?”

  “I choose my battles.”

  “Well, I’m afraid you’ve lost this one, but I do appreciate the help. Do I need to tip you or something?” she asked, effectively dismissing him.

  Wow. Obviously it was time to leave Ms. I’m-Country-Y’all alone. “No. I wasn’t helping you so I could take your loose change.”

  “Okay then.” She edged backward toward the door to the stairwell. Her eyes skated the length of his body a time or two, but her apparent interest didn’t slow her escape. “Have a good day.”

  The door slammed on her parting words, but he could only grin. She might not want to see him again, but she probably wouldn’t have much choice.

  He lived in that building, too.

  Chapter Three

  Sleep eluded Estelle, and as much as she wanted to blame it on the crapped-out air conditioner, she couldn’t. Not with electricity crackling off her hand like she was some kind of wizard. Just because Crosby had held that hand to help her off the grocery store floor. Anything more, and she’d have fallen into convulsions. She didn’t know what it was about him that got under her skin, but the feeling was as thrilling as it was practically unfamiliar. She hadn’t met anyone in ages who had captured her interest like he had.

  Pity she was leaving. Faced with two weeks of talking to the walls, she found herself more intrigued with Crosby by the minute.

  And more boxed in by the city. The heat was stifling in the small apartment, and no amount of pressing buttons on or even beating the air conditioning unit provided the slightest bit of relief. Eventually, she gave up and opened the window a crack, then jumped back with a yelp when she noticed a miniature, obviously deranged werewolf sitting on the other side of the glass.

  Not a tiny werewolf. The world’s ugliest cat crouched on her fire escape, staring at her with acid-yellow eyes like he was waiting for her to die so he could come in and calmly eat her face off. The dirty window did nothing to help the feline’s sketchy appearance, which could best be summarized as a one-eared, two-fanged explosion of inexplicably fluffy dingy white and black hair. Was that an overbite? Could cats have overbites?

  “Off you go! Shoo!” He didn’t blink when she whapped the window unit that lay idle next to him. Didn’t even flinch. He just sat there, staring, ready to go all Pet Semetary on her ass when she least expected it. Great.

  She pulled down the blinds and tried to go back to bed, but she could have sworn she sensed that cat still sitting there. Waiting. She fell into a half-hearted doze, interrupted by dreams of being followed by many pairs of acid-yellow eyes. In between bouts of sleep she thought about a project she had waiting back home. The client fought her on every detail, right down to the height of the trees…as if Estelle could predict the exact mature height or find a dozen from the nursery that had the same arrangement of branches.

  By morning she needed coffee, and lots of it. Naturally, there wasn’t a bean to be found in the apartment, since that was one of the things she’d forgotten at the store. While she didn’t particularly want to brave the sidewalk, or the Monday morning swarm of New Yorkers crowding it, going without caffeine wasn’t an option. And she probably wouldn’t have to venture far—coffee shops were everywhere, weren’t they?

  “Just a quick trip out,” she said aloud to absolutely no one. The apartment was small and lonely. Less than twenty-four hours stuck in this god-awful place, and she was about to go crazy. She needed someone to talk to. And grass under her bare feet and views of the sprawling hills. Not brick and concrete and mortar and asphalt and every other cold, unfriendly surface in existence.

  She needed a friendly face, but she’d settle for caffeine.

  Determined to at least have that, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail and grabbed her purse. She’d shower later, when she had her fix and felt human again.

  When she exited the apartment, she was surprised to see someone step off the elevator. Like almost everyone else she’d met in the city, the woman didn’t meet her eyes, which was for the best. Estelle was a hot mess, but with the elevator back in service, at least she wouldn’t have to take four flights of stairs. Things were looking up. Feeling somewhat buoyed, she stepped through the open doors and hit the button for the lobby. The doors creaked dutifully closed, and with a slight lurch, the car dropped, reminding her of just how very much she hated elevators. If she could function without coffee, she’d have realized that before it was too late.

  “Just three floors,” she muttered. A thirty-foot drop, unless the place had a basement. “You got on a plane, so you can handle an ele—”

  A loud metal-on-metal screech wrenched the air. The lights flickered, and the elevator shuddered to a stop. The next second, the car plunged into darkness. A weak emergency light did a poor job of remedying that.

  This was it. She was going to die in this miserable city. Without caffeine.

  The control panel had a little alarm button on it, but she was afraid to move. And equally afraid to die there. Not convinced the morbid thought was an exaggeration, she bolstered her nerve and edged along the wall just far enough to hit the button with an outstretched fingertip. And…nothing. Great. She took another step and jabbed harder. This time she heard a faint click. Was it a silent alarm? Screw that. She dug her phone out of her purse and tapped in a call to 911. After relaying what she could remember of the building address, she resumed her clutch-the-wall-and-hope-for-the-best position and waited. If she survived, she was going to kill her brother. And Crosby, if she ever saw him again. She might have remembered coffee if she hadn’t been forced to finish her shopping with a pickle-wet shirt, and if she hadn’t been thinking about him all night, she probably wouldn’t have been so zombied-out that she actually set foot in this contraption.

  She thought about firing off a text to Grady, but didn’t because she didn’t want to worry him. Still, she was nearly convinced that he deserved to worry for putting her in this hell when a muffled, indistinguishable shout echoed into the car. A moment later, the elevator lurched. She grabbed the walls, convinced she was about to plummet to her death, but instead the lift rumbled a couple of feet upward, and the doors jerked open unevenly. Blissful light pierced the darkness as a fireman in turnout gear peered inside. “Everything okay in here?”

  “I’m sure it’s better out there,” Estelle said, accepting the firefighter’s proffered hand. There was only a three-inch offset in the floor height, so the assistance wasn’t necessary, but she appreciated the chance to gather her wits.

  She waved off medical assistance, instead seeking the stairs. She voice-Googled coffee on the way down and was pleased—for once—to learn there was a place less than half a block away. Good thing, because the way her luck ran, catching a cab was not going to happen. On her way in, she’d needed her brother to do it for her, which was ridiculous because the airport had a whole fleet waiting for fares. But she hadn’t known what to say and had been terrified of ending up upstate somewhere with a bill that rivaled her mortgage payment, so Grady had done the talking. And bless him, he’d had the decency to look worried.

  Estelle had the urge to kiss the sidewalk when she finally made it outside, but between the abundance of used gum stuck everywhere and the overwhelming s
tench of the city, the impulse passed quickly. A quick glance at her GPS suggested she was headed in the right direction, and within moments, she was inside java-scented heaven. She ordered an iced coffee and a pastry, and just as she reached in her pocket to pay, the hairs on the back of her neck stood. And tingled.

  “I’ve got this,” said a deep, familiar voice.

  Estelle turned to find herself mere inches from Crosby. His hair was damp, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower, and the lure of his soapy scent was far more seductive than coffee had ever been.

  While she stood, dumbstruck, he paid for her breakfast. Dammit. She’d lost the window of refusal. Plus, now that he was there, blaming him for her sleepless night and admitting he’d done that to her seemed a bit counterintuitive to the whole leave-me-alone agenda.

  “Thank you,” she managed. “But I thought I told you I wasn’t interested.”

  “You don’t have to be, but I do have one question.” He said the words as he walked away, which was probably some reverse psychology thing to make her follow. And it worked.

  He sat at a table.

  She stood facing him. “What’s your question?”

  “Are you going to sit?”

  “Is that your question?”

  “No. My question is whether you’re going to tell me every time you see me that you’re not interested. I heard you the first time, and I don’t think men like rejections any more than women do.”