Opposites Attract (5 page)

~

Brad
had what he knew was a stupid-looking grin on his face that he
couldn’t seem to erase just because Alyssa with the Sexy Voice
had said he looked cute. Just because his hair had dried curly. Well,
if that were all it took, he’d throw his hairdryer away the
minute she left tonight. But right now, they had far bigger things to
worry about, like this damned sex scene he’d tried to fix. He
was really nervous about doing it to begin with, but to have Alyssa
sitting here reading it, especially right after she said he was
cute—well, that was practically unbearable.

He
reached over her and scrolled to the page where Maria’s writing
ended and his began.

“
There.”
He pointed to the spot and held his breath as she read. He stood
behind her and read along, just trying to imagine what she could be
thinking about him as she came to each nearly obscene sentence.

“
Stop
reading over my shoulder and go get me a drink of water or something.
You’re making me nervous.”

“
I’m
making you nervous?” Brad snorted and stalked into the kitchen,
slamming the cabinet door as he took out an empty glass. He took as
much time as he could filling her glass with ice and water, but all
too soon he was back in the living room nervously trying not to hover
over her again as she read.

Finally,
after what seemed like an eternity, she sat back in the chair and
looked up at him. “This is amazing.”

It
would have been more of a compliment if she didn’t appear quite
so surprised, but still, he was shocked.

“
Really?
But, I need your help. I mean I don’t know what it feels
like…you know…to be a woman.” Brad felt his
cheeks grow hot.

“
Yeah,
I know. There are a few things I would change. Like, you didn’t
describe her…um…orgasm very well.” She actually
blushed at the word.

At
least they were both blushing now.

“
Well
I was trying to fit it into the words that were already there. This
whole thing is like one of those word jumbles you find in the
newspaper. It’s not so easy. You give it a try and see if you
can fix it.” He stood, arms folded.

She
breathed in deep. In sweatpants that wouldn’t hide anything,
Brad tried desperately not to watch her breasts rise and fall beneath
her snug black turtleneck.

~

Alyssa
tried to ignore Bradley on the other side of the room while she
typed. It was only a few paragraphs, but she kept second guessing
herself and revising what she had written. Finally, she couldn’t
prolong the inevitable any longer. He was going to have to read it
eventually.

“
I’m
done. See what you think.” She rose, totally freaked out at the
thought of the newly hot Brad reading her description of what an
orgasm felt like.

“
Where
should I start reading?” He sat in the chair she’d
vacated and glanced up.

With
him sitting and her standing, she was practically eye level with him.
She noticed exactly how blue his eyes were behind those wire-rimmed
glasses of his.

“
Just
start from the beginning of your scene.” His eyes met hers for
a moment. She felt herself blush again. Brad took a deep breath
before he broke his gaze away from hers and went back to looking at
the screen.

“
Hey,
you want a beer instead of that water? There’s some in the
fridge.”

“
Yeah,
okay.” Why the hell not? Maybe she could relax a little.

She
walked into the kitchen, taking note it was pretty clean for a guy’s
place. In the fridge she found the usual for a bachelor’s
apartment—bottles of beer, a few cans of regular soda, a kind
of crusty looking bottle of ketchup and a container of leftover
Chinese food.

“
Hey,
grab me one too,” he called from the other room.

“
Sure.”
Her snooping was done anyway. There wasn’t much more to look at
unless she started opening cabinet doors. Alyssa walked back to the
living room, bottles in hand.

He
smiled that cute little smile of his when she handed him the beer.
“Thanks.”

Why
hadn’t she ever noticed how cute this guy was before? She took
a slug of her own beer straight from the bottle. Maybe she
could
like a Brad instead of a Jake.

While
he read, she wandered around the apartment. She absently glanced into
his fish tank at the few exotic looking fish swimming around. She’d
tried having fish once. That hadn’t gone so well. She perused
his CD collection and was surprised to see it was heavy in old
classic rock. She’d expected some sort of computer generated
techno junk. His DVD collection yielded no surprises though. Nothing
but sci-fi movies, all in perfect order and alphabetized, just like
the CDs.

Strolling
back to the table, she spotted a set of barbells hidden under the
futon that doubled as a couch. That explained the biceps and pecs.
She fought the urge to take another glimpse at Brad’s chest
muscles. She finally looked up from her snooping and noticed he was
done reading and was watching her poke around in his stuff.

Embarrassed,
she scrambled to take the attention off herself. “Well? What do
you think?”

“
It’s
good.” He wasn’t really making eye contact—and was
he blushing? Oh, God. She’d gone too far with the description.

“
Um,
really?”

He
nodded. “Yeah. It’s really good, but you did more than
just fill in missing words. You kind of rewrote it.”

“
You
did too.” She frowned, defensive.

Looking
guilty, he sighed. “I know. I had to, it didn’t sound
right otherwise. And I just couldn’t stand that word
turgid
she kept using. Now I feel really guilty. Maria’s going to be
pissed.”

Alyssa
shook her head. “Brad, you’re doing her a huge favor even
emailing her editor in the first place. That’s not part of your
job description. Besides, I think it’s more important to send
out something that’s written well than just some crap that
happens to fit into the words that were left after the coffee spill.
Don’t you?”

“
I
guess so. It does sound better, I think. I mean I don’t read
these things. What do you think? Should we should send it?”

“
I
think so. No, I
know
so. Send it. Right now before we change
our minds.” She nodded, sure of her decision.

“
All
right.”

Alyssa
came to stand next to Brad for support as he grabbed the sticky note
with the editor’s and Maria’s email addresses. He typed a
quick note, then pushed send and let out a big breath.

“
That’s
it. It’s gone.” He glanced up at her with uncertainty.
“Are you sure we did the right thing?”

“
Yes,
I’m positive. Good job.” She held out her beer for a
toast.

He
raised his bottle and clinked it with hers.

“
Yeah.
You too.” He paused for a second. “Hey, I’m
starving. I was going to order a pizza. Do you want to stay?”

She
glanced down at the near empty bottle in her hand. “Yeah, I
think I better. I’m such a light-weight, this beer went right
to my head.”

He
raised an eyebrow. “What do you expect? I bet you didn’t
eat anything besides those few bites of sandwich at lunch today.”

Brad
was correct, but she didn’t admit it. He rose and grabbed a
portable phone off the desk. She noted that he dialed the number for
the pizza place from memory. Single men must order a lot of pizza.

He
covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “What do you want on it?”

“
Whatever
you want.” She shrugged.

“
So
extra anchovies is okay then?” He looked devilish. At her look
of horror, he laughed. “Just kidding.”

Well,
look at that—Brad the Geek had a sense of humor. She considered
that as she sat down on the couch and listened to Brad placing the
order. “Hi, yeah. One large sausage and pepper pizza
delivered…oh and add on a can of diet soda. I’ll give
you the address.”

Alyssa
turned to him with amazement. He’d ordered the diet soda for
her. There was plenty of regular soda in the fridge, but he knew from
lunch today she liked diet and she barely knew this guy. She doubted
Jake even knew what she drank. Her gaze took Brad in one more time
from curly blond head, to sock-covered toes. There was definitely
something to be said for nice guys, especially when they were smart
and tall with such a nice ass.

Chapter 5

Thirty
minutes or less later, Brad sat cross legged next to Alyssa on the
carpet with the pizza box open in front of them on the coffee table.
He was more than happy to see her chowing down on her second slice.

“
Hey,
Brad? Do you have a girlfriend?” Alyssa broke into his
thoughts.

He
tried not to look surprised at her question. “Um, no. Not right
now. I was dating this one girl for about six months, but we called
it quits a few months ago.”

“
Your
decision or hers?” she asked.

Boy,
she didn’t pull any punches. He considered his answer. “Mutual,
I guess. Why?”

She
shrugged. “Just wondering. You’re such a nice guy.”

Nice
.
Great. Nothing a guy likes to hear more.

“
Thanks.”
He managed to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

Alyssa
tried and failed to stifle a yawn, looking embarrassed. “I’m
sorry. It’s not you. I just haven’t really slept in like
three days.”

“
It’s
okay. I understand. Believe me. You relax while I clean this up and
then I’ll drive you home. I don’t want you driving
yourself. You might fall asleep at the wheel.”

She
got up off the floor and sank into the cushions of his couch. “You
don’t have to drive. I’ll be okay in a few minutes.”

“
We’ll
see.” He smiled as her eyes started to flutter shut. He took a
throw, draped it over her legs and then started to clean up.

After
deciding that Alyssa was probably out for the night, he was just
laying out a brand new toothbrush and fresh towel in the bathroom for
her when he heard a faint song emitting from her big red bag.

Glancing
over to make sure the sound hadn’t woken her, he grabbed the
whole bag and took it quickly into his bedroom. After what seemed
like a really long time, he finally located the phone in the damn
thing. He saw that the caller ID display read “Jane” as
he flipped open the phone and whispered, “Hello.”

“
Who
the fuck is this?” Jane demanded loudly into his ear.

“
Um,
hi, Jane. You don’t know me, but this is Brad Morgan. I work
with Alyssa?” He was reconsidering the wisdom of answering
Alyssa’s phone more with every passing moment.

“
Yeah,
I’ve heard of you. Brad the Geek. Where’s Lys and why are
you answering her phone?”

Brad
raised an eyebrow. Brad the Geek, huh? He tried not to be too
insulted since he did work for a company with the unfortunate name of
Computer Geeks-R-Us. What did he expect? Although things were not
looking very promising if Alyssa thought he was both nice and a geek.

“
Alyssa
and I are at my place. We were here working on a project together and
she fell asleep on the couch.”

“
Good,
keep her there with you no matter what. Her asshole ex-boyfriend Jake
has been staking out her apartment all night. When she never came
home after work, he actually came to my place. He nearly knocked down
my door looking for her.”

Brad
swore softly. “I’ll make sure she stays here and I’ll
go with her if she wants to go back to her place in the morning to
change before work.”

“
Good.
And don’t tell her I called or what I told you. It’ll
just make her crazy.”

“
Okay,
no problem.” Brad didn’t like the thought of lying to
Alyssa, even if it was for her own good and at her best friend’s
request, but certain situations demanded it he supposed. Such as
stalker, cheating ex-boyfriends.

“
Thanks,
Brad. You’re a nice guy for doing this.”

Great,
Jane thought he was a nice guy too.