“Here you go,” she said, handing him the package.
He retrieved a fork and sat down at the table, but before he could dig into the lasagna, she said, “Aren’t you going to wash that first?”
She plucked the fork from his fingers and walked into his kitchen as if she owned the place or something. His skin started to itch. She returned a moment later. “All clean,” she said, and then sank into the chair facing him.
Their gazes met across the table, and all his blood went south. Forget the lasagna and the silverware and his misgivings about the women in his life. Maybe he could tackle her like a cave man and drag her back to the bedroom and bury himself in her.
“About last night,” she said, just as he lost himself in her incredible blue-eyed stare.
“Yeah.” He almost grunted the word as he tore his gaze away and focused on the lasagna. He took a bite, closing his eyes to savor the mouthwatering taste. Holy crap. Courtney Wallace could cook.
“I think it would be better if we were friends, and not lovers,” Courtney said.
His eyes sprang open, and he swallowed down the pasta. What the hell? Hadn’t she admitted that she’d been hanging out on her balcony waiting for him? Hadn’t she come across the hall with food? Then it occurred to him that she might have been waiting all day just to tell him that his mother had been sniffing around, meddling in his life. Maybe she’d been waiting to tell him she just wanted to be his friend.
Did he have any female friends?
Sure he did. He had women friends in Washington. Work colleagues and the girlfriends of guys he knew. And Arwen was becoming a friend too.
Could he be friends with Courtney?
No way. On the other hand, being friends with her might be better than letting her get too close.
“Okay,” he said, looking back down at the lasagna.
“Good. Now that we’re friends, I need to ask you a question.”
He ground his teeth. She was poking him sort of the way he sometimes poked her. “Sure. Whatever. I might not answer it though.”
“Fair enough.”
“So?”
“Who are you? I mean, you’re rich but you bought furniture at IKEA. You have a cat named Doom after some comic book character, but you also quote Shakespeare. You’re a player with cats.”
“What’s the matter? Don’t I fit into your man classification system?”
She shook her head. “No. That’s not it. You actually fit the definition of a Hook-up Artist perfectly. But for some reason I still like you.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. And I’m trying to figure out why a guy like you, from a wealthy family, who has had everything in life, ended up becoming a player. I mean players are guys who have low self-esteem. And you’re not like that.”
Whoa. That came way too close to the truth. He gave her an intent and sober stare. “First rule of friendship: no psychoanalysis.”
She snorted a laugh. “Sorry. That’s fair. But for the record, just so you feel comfortable with your insecurities, I’m pretty sure they won’t ever rival mine. See, I was the girl no one loved in high school. I had zits, braces, a slightly crossed eye. So I’m naturally defensive. Especially after what happened at senior prom.”
His hearing faded away as blood rushed through his veins. He had the strong, almost overpowering urge to give her a hug. A hug! “What happened?” he asked instead.
“A guy I really liked asked me to the prom. I was over the moon, and then he turned out to be the high school equivalent of a player, or something. He took me to the dance, but he didn’t sit with me, he didn’t dance with me, and he didn’t take me home. He sat with the popular kids, pointing at me and laughing.”
Matt blew out a long breath. “I’m so sorry.”
She pushed up from the table. “I wanted you to know that because I think that prom incident warped me in some deep way. It’s not that I don’t like guys. It’s not that I push them away on purpose. It’s just that I don’t quite trust any of them. I guess I never have. So really, I think it would be best if we were friends, because I do like you, Matt, and that’s a huge surprise.”
Before he could say another word, she turned and walked with an astonishing amount of dignity out of his apartment, leaving him stunned and utterly adrift.
“So, I’ll see you later, at the open mic?” Rory tucked a strand of Arwen’s hair behind her ear, the gesture so kind, so surprising.
She sat on the edge of his bed, in the apartment he shared with Steve, one of the Jaybird’s other bartenders. It was four in the afternoon, and she needed to get back to work. Her life would be so much simpler if Rory didn’t work nights, and if he didn’t live here, at Dogwood Estates.
For the last four days, she’d been skulking around, leaving the office for a few hours every afternoon, sneaking in here, scared to death that someone would see her.
How had she missed this essential fact about Rory? All these months, visiting with Leslie and the tenants, never once had she come face-to-face with him. But then, most of the tenants association meetings had been held in the evenings when Rory was working. And Rory’s name wasn’t on the lease. He was Steve’s subtenant.
“I can’t make it tonight,” she said in answer to his question.
“Why?”
“I have something important I need to do tonight.”
“Really? What’s more important than your songs?”
She stood up, moved to the grimy window, and looked out on the weed-choked parking lot. The coast was clear right at the moment. “It’s none of your business,” she said, trying to infuse her voice with conviction. In truth, what she had to do tonight was his business in a roundabout way.
She let go of a long sigh
