What would he have said? That he’d started off dating me as an experiment, then found out I was an actual human being? Ugh. Where do you go from there? A relationship built on lies is like a bra with no underwire. Fucking useless to me.
The floor creaked on the other side of the door, then Keith said, “I wasn’t listening in. Not at first, but then it got interesting.”
I jumped out of the bed and flung open the door.
Keith flinched, his arms up over his head for protection. “Not the face,” he howled, grinning wildly. “Not the abs either. Those are my payday. Just kick me in the shins.”
“Listening in is rude.”
“So’s yelling so loud you wake up your host and rouse his curiosity.”
Still holding his hands up protectively, he said, “You look really cute in my jersey.”
I stared at him, standing in his burgundy bath robe, looking just like a regular person in a regular apartment.
He breathed.
I breathed.
After a few seconds, I managed to get my bitch dialed down from eleven to about five.
“I’m sorry* I woke you up,” I said. “I’m sorry I’m not being a very good house guest.”
*See? I can apologize. It’s very easy. You just say one little word, and mean it. Why is it so hard for some guys to do the same?
He said, “I’m sorry I was eavesdropping, and I’m sorry that you broke up with some guy.”
“Not just some guy. Dalton Deangelo. You knew that. Everyone knows that. But we’re through now.”
“Oh.” His thick, black eyebrows rose and stayed quite high for a while, as he moved into the corner of the apartment with the kitchen and started moving things around. “There’s been a huge misunderstanding on my part. I’m just a dumb model. I thought you and Dalton were just pretending to be dating, for the publicity. Wow.” He stared down at his fancy coffee maker like he’d forgotten where to put the water. “Wow,” he repeated.
“I’m glad we’re through,” I said, taking a seat on one of the stools next to the counter. The chrome chair was more comfortable than it looked, thank goodness. “It was only a few weeks, but I was already sick of the disbelief on everyone’s faces when they found out their perfect hero was dating a chubby commoner.”
Keith ran his hand through his near-black hair, looking embarrassed. “I meant that… I wouldn’t have kissed you last night if I’d known you were actually with someone else. I don’t approve of cheating.”
“Me, neither! Keith, you have to know… I was really pissed at Dalton. In my heart, it was over.”
“Okay,” he murmured.
“We’re cool, right?”
He rummaged through the cupboards and pulled down a silver container and a measuring spoon.
I put my face in my hands and rubbed my eyes. I felt horrible. Keith had been so kind to me, and I’d violated his mouth with my cheating mouth, and now he hated me.
I held up my hands and tried to find the words to apologize again, but nothing came to me.
Keith measured out the coffee grounds, the smell a pleasant distraction.
The kitchen looked renovated, much newer than the building itself, with cabinets in a light-hued wood, and unusual, oval-shaped handles. My mother used to have oval-shaped handles in her kitchen, and they drove her nuts. She’s not OCD or anything, but they wiggled around and she could never get them straight. Even when they were straight, they felt crooked to the fingers during casual use. She wasn’t crazy; I felt the wrongness, too.
The oval handles in Keith’s little kitchen filled me with a sad, desperate feeling—homesickness. I would see my mother again, but I would never live with her again, never hear her day-to-day run-downs of things she couldn’t get quite straight. Every time I saw Kyle, he’d be noticeably bigger, because I didn’t see him every day. My father rarely got to see me do some casually stupid thing and mention that I was “prone to whimsy.” Okay, I didn’t miss that last thing.
Keith got the coffee perking, and finally said, “Yeah, I guess we’re cool. I wish I hadn’t made such a jackass out of myself last night.”
“Don’t say that. I really enjoyed kissing you.”
“Stolen kisses,” he said, giving me a hungry look with his dark brown eyes.
“You do look a bit like a raven,” I said. “Your last name that you upgraded from your middle name is perfect.”
“And you, my fair maiden, look like a peach.”
I glowered at him, crossing my arms over my chest, still wearing nothing but his jersey and my underwear, yet strangely comfortable.
“Thanks a lot,” I said, my voice flat with sarcasm. “I’m round and fuzzy to you?”
He laughed. “I meant sweet and delicious. Your round parts are nice, as well, but I haven’t seen anything that’s fuzzy.”
“My mother says I’ll get the family chin-fuzz when I turn forty.”
“And you’re how old now?”
“Over half-way there.”
He put his elbows on the counter—tiles, light brown—and leaned in close to me, examining my chin. “Nothing yet.” He put his hands on either side of my jaw, gently tilting my face up. His touch was warm and reassuring, and I didn’t want him to stop holding my face, so I rested my hands on top of his.
His voice low and quiet, he murmured, “How many more days are you in LA?”
I swallowed. “Nine days,” I whispered.
He leaned in closer, nearly touching his lips to mine.
“I just got out of a relationship,” he said.
“What a coincidence. Me, too.”
“My wounds are nearly as fresh as yours. Do you know what animals do in the wild when they’re wounded?”
“They die.”
He smirked, then relaxed his mouth into a solemn expression.
“I have a proposition for you.”
“Does it include coffee?”
“I’m suggesting that you and I make like wild animals and lick each other’s… emotional wounds.”
“Interesting.” I gazed up into his model-pretty eyes, rimmed with thick, black eyelashes. No wonder he was in demand as an underwear model. That face could sell seawater to sailors.
“The next nine days could be very interesting,” he said.
“Keith, what you need to know about me is I’m a very smart girl. Top of my class when I make the effort. When I put together furniture, there are never any leftover pieces.”