The Hating Game (14 page)

His hair is shiny and damp and there is a glow on his cheekbones. The cotton T-shirt he's wearing is a washed-out navy, prob
ably softer than a baby's bedsheets, and the cold air is probably nipping his bare forearms. Those old jeans love his body and the button winks at me like a Roman coin. The laces on his sneakers are loose and nearly undone. He is an absolute pleasure to look at.

“Date didn't go so well,” he surmises.

To his credit he doesn't smirk. Those dark blue eyes watch me patiently. He lets me stand there and try to think of something. How can I get myself out of this situation? Embarrassment is starting to catch up with me again, now that the joking between us is fading away.

“It went okay.” I check my watch.

“But not great, if you're outside my building. Or are you here to report good news?”

“Oh, shut up. I wanted to . . . I don't know. See where you live. How could I resist? I was thinking about putting a dead fish in your mailbox one day. You saw where I live. It's unfair and uneven.”

He won't be distracted. “Did you kiss him like we agreed?”

I look at the streetlight. “Yes.”

“And?”

While I dither he puts his hands on his hips and looks down the street, apparently at his wit's end. I wipe the back of my hand across my lips.

“The date itself went fine,” I begin, but he steps close and cradles my jaw in his hands. The tension is crackling like static.

“Fine. Fine and great and nice. You need something more than
fine.
Tell me the truth.”

“Fine is exactly what I need. I need something normal, and easy.” I see disappointment in his eyes.

“That's not what you need. Trust me.”

I try to turn my face away, but he won't allow it. I feel his
thumb trace across my cheek. I try to push him away but end up tugging him closer, his T-shirt in my fists.

“He's not enough for you.”

“I have no idea why I'm even here.”

“You do know.” He presses a kiss to my cheekbone, and I rise to my tiptoes, shivering. “You're here to tell me the truth. Once you stop being a little liar.”

He's right, of course. He's always right.

“No one can kiss me like you do.”

I have the rare privilege of seeing Josh's eyes flash bright from something other than irritation or anger. He steps closer and pauses to assess me. Whatever he sees in my own eyes seems to reassure him, and he wraps his arms around me and lifts me clear off my feet. His mouth touches mine.

We both let out twin sighs of relief. There's no point in lying about why I'm here on the wet pavement outside his building.

It starts as nothing more than breathing each other's air, until the pressure of our lips breaks into an open-mouth slide. I said earlier,
What does it matter?
Unfortunately for me, this kiss matters.

The muscles in my arms begin to quiver pathetically at his neck and he holds me tighter until I can feel he's got me. My fingers curl into his hair, and I tug the silky thickness. He groans. Our lips sink luxuriously into kisses. Slip, tug, slide.

The energy that usually lashes ineffectively inside each of us now has a conduit, forming a loop of electricity between us, cycling through me, into him. My heart is glowing in my chest like a bulb, flashing brighter with each movement of his lips.

I manage to take a breath and our slow, sexy slide is cut into a series of broken-up kisses, like gentle bites. He's testing, and there's a shyness there too. I feel like I'm being told a secret.

There's a fragility in this kiss I would never have expected.
It's the same as the knowledge that one day this memory will fade. He's trying to make me remember this. It's so bittersweet my heart begins to hurt. Just as my mouth opens and I try to slide my tongue, he ends the kiss on a chaste note.

Was that a last kiss?

“My signature first-date kiss.” He waits for a response but he must see from my face I'm not capable of human language right now.

He continues to hold me in a comfortable hug. I cross my ankles and look at his face like I've never seen this person before. The impact of his beauty is almost frightening up this close, with those eyes flashing bright. Our noses brush together. The sparks are in my mouth, desperate to reconnect with his.

I picture him on a date with someone else, and a punch of jealousy gets me right in the gut.

“Yeah, yeah. You win,” I say once I regain my breath. “More.”

I lean forward but he doesn't take the hint. As gorgeous as it was, it was only a fraction of what he's capable of. I need the intensity of the elevator.

A middle-aged couple walking arm in arm pass us by, breaking our little bubble. The woman looks back over her shoulder, her heart in her eyes. We clearly look flippin' adorable.

“My car is that way.” I start to squirm and point.

“My apartment is that way,” he points upward and carefully puts me on the ground like a milk bottle.

“I can't.”

“Tiny. Little. Chicken.” He's got my number, all right. My turn to try out some scary honesty.

“Fine. I admit it. I'm scared shitless. If I come upstairs, we both know what will happen.”

“Pray tell.”

“
Or Something
will happen. That one time I was talking about. We won't make it to the interviews next week. We'll both be crippled in your bed, with the sheets in rags.”

His mouth lifts in what I think is going to be one hell of a heart-exploding smile so I turn and point myself in the direction of my car. I lift one foot and begin to run.

N
o you don't,” he tells me. He walks into the building lobby with me under his arm like a rolled-up newspaper. He even checks his mailbox.

“Relax. I'm just going to let you see my apartment, so that we're even.”

“I always thought you'd live underground somewhere, near the earth's core,” I manage to say as he hits the button for the fourth floor. Watching his finger gives me flashbacks. I look at the red emergency button and the handrail.

I try to discreetly smell him. I bypass discreet and press my nose against his T-shirt and suck in two brimming lungfuls. Shameful addict. If he notices he doesn't comment.

“Uncle Satan didn't have any apartments available in my price range.”

It's a big elevator and there's no reason for me to remain under his arm like this. But four floors is such a short distance, there's hardly any point in removing my arms from his waist. He's got his fingertips in my hair.

I spread my hands slowly, one across his back, the other across his abdomen. Muscle and heat and flesh. I'm pressing my nose back against his ribs, inhaling again.

“Creep,” he says mildly, and we are walking down the hall. He unlocks a door and I am teetering in the doorway of Joshua Templeman's apartment. He strips off my coat like a banana peel. I brace myself.

He hangs my coat near the door. “Come in, then.”

I am not sure what to expect. Some kind of gray cement cell maybe, devoid of personality, a huge flat-screen TV, and a wooden stool. A voodoo doll with black hair and red lipstick. A Strawberry Shortcake doll with a knife through her heart.

“Where's the dart board with my picture on it?” I lean in a little farther.

“It's in the spare room.”

It's masculine and dark, lusciously warm, all the walls painted in chocolates and sand. There's a zingy scent of orange. A big squashy couch sits center stage in front of every male's prerequisite giant flat screen, which he hadn't even turned off. He was in a big hurry. I step out of my shoes, immediately shrinking a little more. He disappears into the kitchen and I peer around the corner.

“Have a snoop. I know you're dying to.” He begins to fill a shiny silver kettle, setting it on the stovetop. I let out a shaky breath. I'm not about to be ravished. No one boils water beforehand, except maybe in the Middle Ages.

He's right of course. I'm dying to look. It's why I came here. The Joshua I know is no longer enough. Knowledge is power, and I can't get enough at this point. A silent, exhilarated squeal is lodged in my throat. This is so much better than only seeing the sidewalk outside his building.

There's a bookcase lining an entire wall. By the window there's an armchair and another lamp, with a stack of books illuminated beneath it. Even more books on the coffee table. I'm intensely
relieved by this. What would I have done if he turned out to be a beautiful illiterate?

I like his lampshades. I step into one of the big bottle-green circles of light they cast on the oriental rug. I look down and study the pattern; vines of ivy curving and twisting. On the wall in his living room is a framed painting of a hillside, likely Italian, maybe Tuscany. It's an original, not a print; I can see the tiny dabs made by a paintbrush, and the gold frame is ornate. There are buildings clustered on the hill; church domes and spires, and a darkening purple-black sky overhead. A freckling of the faintest silver stars.

There are some business magazines on the coffee table. There is a fancy, pretty cushion on the couch made of rows and rows of blue ribbons. It's all so . . . unexpected. Not in the least bit minimal. It's like a real human lives here. I realize with a jolt that his place is far lovelier than mine. I look under his couch. Nothing. Not even dust.

I spot a little origami bird made of notepaper I once flicked at him during a meeting. It is balanced on the edge of the bookshelf. I look at his profile in the kitchen as he arranges two mugs on the counter in front of him. How strange to imagine him putting my tiny folded scrap in his pocket and bringing it home.

On the next shelf down is a single framed photograph of Josh and Patrick posed in between a couple who I assume are his parents. His father is big and handsome, with a grim edge to his smile, but his mother almost glows out of the picture. She's clearly bursting at the seams to have two such big handsome sons.

“I like your mother,” I tell him as he approaches. He looks at the photograph, and his lips press together. I take the hint and move on.

He's got a lot of medical textbooks on the bottom shelf, which look pretty dated. There's also an articulated anatomy statue of a
hand, showing all of the bones. I fold the fingers down until only the middle one remains raised, and smirk at my cleverness.

“Why do you have these?”

“They're from my other life.” He disappears into the kitchen again.

I hit Mute on the TV remote and the silence drenches us. I creep past him into his kitchen. It's sparkling clean and the dishwasher is humming. The orange scent is his antibacterial counter spray. I notice my Post-it note with the kiss on it stuck to the fridge and point at it.

He shrugs. “You put so much hard work into it. Seemed a shame to waste it.”

I stand there in the lightbulb glow of his refrigerator and stare at everything. There's a rainbow of color in here. Stalks. Leaves. Whiskery roots. Tofu and organic pasta sauce.

“My fridge is nothing but cheese and condiments.”

“I know.” I close the fridge and lean against it, magnets digging into my spine. I put my face up for a kiss but he shakes his head.

A little crestfallen, I look in his cutlery drawer and stroke the arm of the jacket hanging by the door. In the pocket I find a gas station receipt. Forty-six dollars paid in cash.

Everything is neat, everything in its place. No wonder my apartment broke him out in stress hives.

“My place is like a Calcutta slum in comparison to this. I need a basket for my gym gear too. Where's all your junk? Where's your too-hard pile?”

“You've confirmed your worst fears. I'm a neat freak.”

I'm the freak as I spend at least twenty minutes looking at practically everything he owns. I violate his privacy so badly I make myself feel a bit ill, but he stands there and lets me.

It's a two-bedroom place and I stand in the middle of what is set up as a study, hands on hips. Huge computer monitor, some huge dumbbells. A closet filled with heavy winter sportswear and a sleeping bag. More books. I look lustfully at his filing cabinet. If he wasn't here I'd read his electricity bills.

“Are you done?”

I look down at my hand. I'm holding an old matchbox car I found in one of the narrow drawers of a bureau. I'm clutching it in my hands like a crazy old pickpocket.

“Not yet.” I'm so scared I can barely say it.

Josh points, and I walk over to the remaining darkened doorway. He snaps on the light switch near my ear and I make a strangled gasp of delight.

His room is painted the blue of my favorite shirt of his. Robin's-egg blue. Pale turquoise mixed with milk. I feel a strange unfurling in my chest, like a sense of deep déjà vu. Like I've been here before, and I will be again. I hug the doorframe.

“Is this your favorite color?”

“Yes.” There's tension in his tone. Maybe he's been teased before.

“I love it.” I sound reverent. It's such an unexpected pop of bright against the dark chocolates and taupes, and I think how
Josh
it is. Something unexpected. Pale pretty blue. The dark brown headboard, plushly upholstered in leather, saves the room from femininity. He's behind me, close enough to lean against, but I resist. The scent of his skin is fogging my brain. His bed is made and the linen is white, and I seem to find that little detail pretty sexy. His bathroom is polished to a high shine. Red towels and a red toothbrush. It looks like an Ikea catalog.

“I would never have picked you as someone who owns a fern. I had one but it went brown and crunchy.”

I go back to Joshua Templeman's
bed
. I touch my finger to the edge of his pillowcase.

“Okay, you're getting beyond weird now.”

I try to rattle the headboard but it's solid.

“Stop it. Sit on the couch. I made you tea.”

I scuttle sideways like a crab into the living room. “How could you stand there and watch me snoop?”

I take the fancy cushion and stuff it in the small of my back. He gives me a mug and I hold it like a weapon.

“I snooped through your apartment. It's your turn.”

I'm flustered, but try to hide it with a joke. “Did you find all the pictures I have of you with your eyes scratched out?”

“No, I never did find your scrapbook. I do know you've got twenty-six Papa Smurfs, and you don't fold your bed sheets properly.”

He's at the other end of the couch, head rolled gently to the side, lounging comfortably. He lolls in his office chair a lot but I've never seen his body make such stretched-out, loose shapes. I can't stop looking at him.

“Sheets are too hard. My arms aren't long enough.”

He sighs and shakes his head. “It's no excuse.”

“Did you look in my underwear drawer?”

“Of course not. I've got to save something for next time.”

“Can I look in yours now?” I'm losing my wits. The threshold to his apartment is where I left my sanity. I sip the tea. It is like nectar.

“Now, Shortcake. We're going to do something a bit unusual.”

He unmutes the TV and takes a sip from his mug and starts watching an old rerun of
ER
like we do this every night. I sit with a pounding heart and try to concentrate. Hey, this is no big deal. I'm sitting on Joshua Templeman's couch.

I roll my head to the side and stare at him for the entire episode, watching the tense surgery scenes and ward conflicts reflected in his eyes.

“Am I bothering you?”

“No,” he replies absently. “I'm used to it.”

We are not normal. The minutes tick past and he drinks his coffee and I continue to stare. He's got a shading of stubble I don't see during working hours. My chest is tight with anxiety. My body and brain are conditioned for combat whenever I'm in his immediate radius. When he looks over, I jerk back. He puts his hand between us on the couch, palm up, and then looks back at the TV.

It's like he's put out a dish of seed and is now sitting very still, waiting for the cowardly little chicken to make a move. And it does take me a while. I tentatively pick up his hand and lace his fingers into mine. For a scary moment he doesn't react, but as the warmth of his hand begins to glow into my palm, he gives me a deep, delicious squeeze. He lays our joined hands back down, picks up his mug with his other hand, and nods at the screen.

“I watch medical dramas to spite my dad. They drive him insane. You could never have this on in their house.”

“Why? Are they inaccurate?” I'm glad to be able to focus my attention on something other than this strange hand-related development.

“Oh, yeah. They're complete fiction.”

“I prefer
Law and Order
. I love when a restaurant worker finds a body in a Dumpster.”

“Or a dog walker in Central Park.” He gestures at the screen with his coffee. “That so-called doctor isn't even wearing gloves.” He scowls at the screen like he is offended to his core.

The art of holding hands is underrated and it's embarrassing
how much this simple act has me nearly breathless. The pads of each of his fingertips reach across the backs of my hands to my wrist.

Large men have always intimidated me. When I mentally line up my ex-boyfriends, they've all been definitely on the jockey end of the scale. Easier to deal with. More of an even match. There's never been any of the astounding masculine architecture I'm sitting next to now.

The rounded caps of muscle on his shoulders balance on smoothly curving biceps. His elbow and wrist joints are like something from a hardware store. How would it feel to lie underneath a man as big as this? It would be staggering.

Josh watches
ER
and yawns, not at all suspecting I'm trying to estimate how big his rib cage is like a meat-eating predator.

It's possible our size mismatch has added a friction to our interactions during our working hours. I've always tried to make myself stronger in the only way I can: my mind and my mouth. I think he's converted me. I think I'm into muscles now. I've started to breathe a little hard, and he looks at me.

“What's with the weird eyes? Relax.”

“I was thinking how big you are.”

I look at our joined hands. He carefully strokes the length of my palm with his thumb. When we look at each other again, his eyes are a little darker.

“I'll fit you just right.”

Goose bumps scatter my skin. I press my thighs together and accidentally make a little pony-snort. I'm sexy as hell. I can't resist; I look over my shoulder at his bedroom. It's so close it would take maybe five big strides to be pushed backward down onto his mattress. His tongue could be on my skin in under thirty seconds.

“If you're going to fit me so well, show me.”

“I will.”

Our palms are slick. The back of my neck feels hot under my hair. I need to be kissed again. This time, I'm going to slide my tongue against his until he groans. Until he presses something hard against me. Until he takes me into his bedroom and takes off his clothes.

The end credits of history's longest episode of
ER
begin to roll. My heart is threatening to pop like a balloon.

He mutes the TV ominously and turns his head until we're playing the Staring Game. I watch his eyes tip into black, breathless for whatever is about to happen. I can feel a pulse point in all the sensitive parts of my body. Between my legs is heavy and warm. I look at his mouth. He looks at mine. Then he looks at our joined hands.