The Super: A Bad Boy Romance (10 page)

I’m scurrying around my bedroom, trying to find something I can actually leave the apartment in.

“Hurry up, hun. I thought you wanted to go out. Change your mind?”

“Um, no! I just need to get some real shoes. And I’m not your hun!”

He’s already treating me nicer than my old boyfriend did. But it’s not like Drew Anderson is my boyfriend.

This isn’t even a date, no matter what he’s doing to my body.

Just a quick drink between two neighbors.

“Am I going to have to call the PTA and tell them we’re running late? You know our little Timmy doesn’t like it when we look like the slacker parents. He’s such a good boy. So responsible, unlike his mother.”

I smile to myself as I scurry around my room for something to change into as I keep reminding myself it’s not a date. A date would usually be planned out in advance. A date is not when one neighbor knocks unexpectedly on another neighbor’s door and someone suggests getting a drink as a diversion to avoid jumping into bed.

I find a simple black sundress with thin straps in my closet, and after taking my PJs off, slip it on over my head. I add a pair of flat black sandals and a swipe of lip gloss and hurry out of my bedroom, closing the door behind me.

“Thanks for putting yourself together for once.”

I feel a smile pull at the corners of my lips as I brush past Drew to open the door to the hallway.

“Do you ever wear anything other than a suit or this get-up you have on now? You look like a real Brooklynite in that tank top.”

“Thanks. I got it at the Wiseguy Emporium.”

We leave the apartment and I check and double-check the three locks on the door.

“Are you always this careful? So cautious? I’m here to protect you. I’ll fight off any bad guys. You don’t need to make sure every lock is dead-bolted shut.”

He’s right. Maybe I am overly-cautious. But there’s nothing wrong with simply locking your front door, is there?

We make our way down the stairs, and I lead him. Even though I can’t see his face, I can feel that he’s smiling.

“Okay,” I say, finally pushing the door to the street open. “Where do you want to go?”

“This is your neighborhood. You lead the way. You know, I don’t usually let the woman take control, but the way you asked me out was so assertive. It’s kind of hot to be with a woman who says what she wants.”

“What? I didn’t. All I said was that we should have a drink. If I recall correctly,
you
were the one who originally wanted to buy
me
a drink.”

Oh, no. What am I doing? In my mad dash to get myself out of the apartment and away from the possibility of letting Drew Anderson push me onto my bed and rip my clothes off me, I had unwittingly asked him out? So it
is
a date?

But I can’t help it. It’s like I’m being tugged at by a string he has connected to some piece of me, on the inside. Some part of my heart. I try to cut the string and let him go, but I can’t.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him since the night in the bar, and I couldn’t believe it when he landed in my building.

“Okay,” he says, “then let me buy you that drink. You lead the way.”

We walk to my favorite watering hole on the block, the kind of place I’m certain Drew never frequents. It’s more of a pub, and is often patronized by guys who are from the neighborhood, whose fathers and grandfathers are from the neighborhood, whose uncles know the bartenders and the owner and the girls who work the front of the house.

“So, this is your neighborhood, huh? Tell me, Molly, how did you end up in Brooklyn?”

“I didn’t end up here. I was born here, actually.”

Okay, so maybe I don't have any of that world-famous Brooklyn attitude Jess has, but I’m still from here.

“I thought you were born here. I thought I detected a little bit of an accent.”

“Yeah. Brooklyn native, through and through.”

The truth is, I always try to hide my accent. I want to fit in at the block parties and barbecues on the side streets of my neighborhood, but I also want to make it in the bigger world, the one beyond the open fire hydrants in the summer and the stop-signs tagged with graffiti.

“What is it you really want, Molly?”

“I mean, I want to move up at the paper where I’m working right now. It was a busy first day. But I think I can do it. Just a good-old can-do attitude, and I can make it work. You know?”

“No.”

Drew Anderson laughs and opens the door of the bar, putting his hand on the small of my back to guide me in and sending a warm, slow shock through my body.

“No? You mean, I don’t want to be a journalist? That I’m going to fail miserably?”

“I don’t know if you want to be a journalist one way or the other. I can gather that it’s what you
think
you want to do. And maybe you really do. But that’s not what I was asking.”

We sit down at a booth near the door. He scoots into the booth across from me, and he fits in here just as well as he did at the swanky Midtown bar where we first met.

“Do you like being in a place where no one knows who you are?” I ask.

“As a matter of fact, I do. But even though I came here wanting to hide out, what I found was even better. If I hadn’t wanted to get away from everything, I might not have seen you again. But we weren’t talking about me. I want to know about
you
.”

His eyes lock onto mine and I struggle to catch my breath. Most of the time, when I’m out on dates with guys, they just want to talk about themselves.

Shit. This isn’t a date.

“So you like it here, then?”

“Stop trying to avoid my question.”

“I’m sorry, what was the question, again?”

I want to hide my face, but I can’t, so I do the next best thing: I start fiddling with the salt and pepper shakers on the table.

I know what he’s getting at. I can feel it in his eyes, in the magnetism that’s attracting me to him. He wants to know what I want in a man, but I don’t know if he’s talking long-term or just for one night. I know this guy couldn’t care less what my chosen career path is, or why I chose it, or a million other questions I’ve been asked on so many interviews at different papers in the tri-state area.

“The question was what you want. Not what you want to do. What you
want
. What you want at the end of the day, when you get home and take off your work clothes and sit down to dinner with the people you’ve chosen to make your life with. All of that other stuff is just the things we do to get to what we want at home, isn’t it?”

“This, coming from you? I thought you were married to your work, and recently divorced from all the young things on your precious island of Manhattan.”

He puts his hands on his hips and cocks his head to the side slightly.

“Oh, you read that in a rag mag? That my engagement imploded because I’m obsessed with my work and with bedding every gorgeous woman in New York City? Those are all rumors, baby. I don’t know why they write those things about me.”

The corners of his sexy mouth and stubbly cheeks turn down into a slight frown.

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I’m not offended. I’m just a little bit confused. I mean, if you and I are going to work out, sweetheart, you shouldn’t be reading about my ex.”

I gasp at his words. The way he says sweetheart, it’s like it’s my name. Like he only calls
me
that. And even though I know he’s screwing around with me, his arrogance is astounding.

“I don’t even think I should have to defend myself against that. But you have to know that your reputation is not one for being a family man.”

As soon as I say it, I regret it. After reading about his life, about his parents’ divorce, I’m afraid that I might have hit a nerve with him.

But it doesn’t seem to phase him at all.

“Maybe meeting you will change that reputation, Molly.”

Again, so cocky and confident. I can’t help being turned on by it, even though I know I should bolt toward the exit to go home to curl up under the covers.

“Should we get a waitress to take our order?” I ask hurriedly, my eyes darting around the bar.

“No. I don’t wait for waitresses to get my order. I like to go up to the bar when I’m ready and get it right from the bartender himself. Make sure he’s doing it right.”

The way he says
doing it right
makes me feel a bit uneasy. A wash of heat cascades over my face and into my lap. This is not good.

Drew shoots me his signature smile. He has a smile that lights up his whole face and makes his eyes look like they’re grinning, and he has just the slightest hint of dimples covered up by that five-o’clock shadow I first noticed a few days ago.

Which, by now, is about a two-day shadow.

I guess he didn’t bring his shaving kit with him over the bridge to Brooklyn, and if he did, he certainly isn’t using it.

“Hey, where are you staying, exactly, anyway?”

“At your building. You know that.”

“No, I mean, where?”

“You know I can’t tell you that. This is only our second date. I have to protect my privacy. The last thing I need is you coming to my door and asking why I didn’t answer my phone. I’m here to work, you know. Look after the building.”

“I guess I’m going to have to knock on every single door until I find you, then.”

“I guess I better answer my phone when you call so you don’t wake the whole building. What are you having to drink, anyway?”

I grab a menu from a metal holder on the end of the table and quickly scan my options.

“Oh. Um, I guess I’ll have…”

“I got it. You don’t drink. Or let me guess. You always have so many guys buying you drinks that you don’t have to decide on your own what you want. You just have them handed to you.”

“The former,” I respond sarcastically.

“It’s fine if you want to hide the fact that you’ve had other guys buy you a drink before, but it’s not a big deal. I’m not the jealous type.”

“Okay, fine. It’s a little bit of both.”

“Well, we can’t have that. You should know what kind of drink you like. I assume you know what kind of men you like?”

He raises an eyebrow and looks at me through the dim, early evening light of the bar. There is something about him, something that makes me feel half at ease, and half totally giddy. It’s the oddest thing, having both of these feelings in exactly equal measure. Part of me wants to sit at this table with him until the sun sets and then until the sun rises again, and part of me wants to run the hell out of there.

I guess that means I kind of like him, which is the problem.

“Don’t answer. I think I already know what kind of men you like.”

He gets up from the table and I can’t help but notice his butt as he makes his way to the bar. This bar is such a different setting than the one where we met, but Drew blends in perfectly with both of them. It’s odd, almost, the way he shakes the hand of an older man sitting at the bar and watching the NBA playoffs, but it’s cute. The older man is alone, and looks happy as Drew introduces himself.

He makes small talk with the man for a moment before turning his hips and shoulders squarely to the bar to order our drinks. Again, my eyes linger on his butt for a second and I wonder for the hundredth time what he’s like in bed.

I haven’t been with many guys, and I’ve never had a one night stand. However, after carefully studying my girlfriends’ relationships, hook-ups, and whatever it is in between, and hearing about all the little details, I’ve been able to surmise that a guy like Drew Anderson is likely one of two things in bed: a beast with a big dick, or a totally average guy who likes to talk a big game.

There would only be one way for me to find out what camp he falls into, and I’m not sure I want to go there.

I cast my glance over to him again. If he looked great in a suit, I am just now really realizing he looks even better in his new duds: dark wash jeans, combat boots, and a white ribbed tank top that shows off the muscles in his chest and arms.

Now, with his back to me, I notice what a great body he really has. Seeing him on my floor might have made me want to hop onto him and see what else he could do down there, but now I’m really seeing him.

I’m a sucker for backs. Shoulders. Especially when they are muscular like Drew’s, perfectly chiseled. Just right, strong. Big enough to wrap around you perfectly, warm and safe.

I scold myself and tell myself not to go there. It’s not the right time. Not after everything that went down with the ex. Not with the new job. I need to focus.

And say, for argument’s sake, that I were to have a fling. It would certainly not be with him. Not with a guy who is just going to go back to his real life after the storm passes. This is not the real him. This is not Drew Anderson’s real life. The panty-meltingly hot handyman is just a role he is playing. It doesn’t matter how convincing he is at the role, and it doesn’t matter how much I want it to be real. I’m not mixing business with pleasure, I’m not putting my heart out there, and I’m not letting Drew use me like a plaything while he bides his time.