“Thanks, Adam. I really appreciate you telling me that. I’ll sleep so much better tonight.”
“I’m not even going to get into your neighbors. It’s going to take some therapy for me to forget about Donna. Or at least some really good Scotch.”
“Yeah, let’s never talk about that,” I said, grimacing. “Since you’re here, is there anything I can offer you?”
“Is sex one of my choices?” he asked, looking around.
My apartment wasn’t much, but I liked it and it was spacious for the price. It was filled with books and vintage furniture from the forties that I had found at various second-hand shops. I imagined that it had a sort of film noir look, and so the centerpiece was a large reproduction of an old movie poster from The Big Sleep that I absolutely loved.
“Your choices are coffee or tea,” I answered, taking his coat and hanging it up on a peg next to mine by the door.
“If that’s your final offer, I’ll take tea.”
“I’m not rushing you, but you may not want to leave your car parked out there too long,” I said, as I headed into my kitchen to scrounge up some tea bags and put the kettle on.
“The drug dealers around here have fancier rides than that. You don’t have a car?”
“I do. It’s an old beat-up Ford Fiesta, though, so nobody would want to steal it,” I called back, turning the stove on and filling the kettle.
“Good thinking!” he teased.
“Yeah, okay. When I’m a famous author I’ll buy a new car. Hopefully, then I won’t be living in …”
“A tenement? War zone? Nuthouse?” he broke in.
“This neighborhood.” With the water set to boil, I returned to the living-room. He was looking at the pictures hanging on my wall. There weren’t many, just one of Gabrielle and me in law school and a couple with friends from further back.
“You might as well sit down,” I offered, trying to be polite. It felt very strange to be having tea together after that intense flirtation earlier, but everything about our relationship was strange these days. He walked over and sat down in the chair across from the one I had taken.
“No boyfriend, no family around here, no roommate. Don’t you get lonely, Adler?”
“Weren’t you the one who once tried to have me voted, ‘Most Likely to Die Alone’?”
“Oh yeah! I forgot about that.” He laughed. “So, what are you writing now?” he asked, changing the subject. He was looking off to the corner that I called my ‘writing nook’. It was a little alcove where my desk and laptop sat surrounded by bookshelves.
“I’m starting another erotic romance novel,” I replied.
“I still can’t believe you write romance novels.”
“Why does it shock you so much that I would be able to come up with a sexy story? Do you think law librarians don’t have sexual fantasies?” I snapped, exasperated. “I’m a healthy adult woman.”
“You’re also a very challenging woman,” he replied.
“Some men like a challenge.”
“As I said, perhaps I should challenge myself more.” He looked at me intently, and my heart started hammering again, but I made myself hold his gaze.
“And as I asked, why start now?”
“Why do you think we’ve always fought?” he asked, surprising me. There was something in his tone of voice that I couldn’t decipher and he had an odd expression on his face.
“Because you licked my Fruit Roll-Up, put paste on my chair and locked me in the boys’ bathroom on the first day of preschool, you bastard.”
“You started it. You put glitter in my hair, wench, but I’m not talking about that. Like since puberty, why do you think we’ve always fought?”
“Because I didn’t flirt with you like the other girls did.”
“It wasn’t just that you didn’t flirt. Why did you dislike me so much?”
“Because you were so mean to me.”
“I was mean to you because you disliked me so much. Do you think …?”
The tea kettle began whistling at that moment, interrupting him, and thus providing me with an excuse to retreat for which I was thankful. This conversation was starting to confuse me. I hopped up and escaped to the kitchen.
Chapter Four
Unfortunately, my reprieve was short-lived. He followed along and as I dug out some tea bags he walked over to stand behind me and lightly put his hand at the small of my back, making me jump. “You’re never going to stop touching my back now, are you?” I asked, trying not to squirm with pleasure.
“Only if you ask me to.” He paused for a second. “I don’t hear you asking,” he noted with barely suppressed laughter.
“What is up with you lately? Aren’t you the same guy who once put Cheese Wiz in my sneaker?” I asked, preparing some chamomile.
“That was Josh Lieberman.”
“Josh did that?” I asked, turning to face him with surprise. Bad move, he was inches away and he looked delicious. I wanted to do a taste test.
“Well, I paid him to do it,” he admitted, eyes fixed on my lips.
“You bribed Josh Lieberman to torture me?”
“Is it my problem the man could be bought for a pack of Skittles?” he asked, locking gazes with me and looking as hungry as I felt.
“You’re unbelievable.”
“Just in bed,” he said, smirking. “Well, okay, in court too.”
“How do you want it?” His startled look was my reward. “Your tea?” I finished with an innocent smile.
“Just like it is.”
“No sugar?”
“I don’t like things that are too sweet.”
“Go sit down and I’ll bring it with some tea biscuits. I might as well feed you, I suppose, since you did give me a ride.”
“I’d be happy to give you a ride whenever you wanted,” he answered and returned to the living room. I wondered if it had been a genuine offer or a double entendre. I had a feeling that my Fiesta would be coming to an end soon. Ole´. I put two cups of tea on a tray and found some scones that were probably still edible.
When I came back into the living room, rather than sitting and waiting, he was examining a bookshelf in my writing nook. I stopped in my tracks and held my breath. I hadn’t told him my pen name because I hadn’t wanted him to read my sexual fantasies in book form, especially since, lately, he was the star. I saw him tilt his head to the side and pull a book off the shelf. Oh shit. Why hadn’t I chosen a better pen name?