“Holy shit, Keats! You scared me.” I place a hand to my chest to still my wildly beating heart. I mustn’t read too much into this. “What are you doing there?”
“You didn’t want to open your front door. Could you help me up?” he calls to me. The grimace on his face tells me it’s not easy to dangle where he is right now.
I walk out onto my small balcony, look over the edge and see a wheelie bin a metre below his feet.
“How the hell did you get up there?” I ask.
“I pulled myself up. Easy.”
I look at him and notice a tear on his waistcoat and a smudge on his cheek.
“This last part’s a son of a bitch though. Help me up?” He shifts his fingers to a different rung. They’ve turned white from the strain.
With a sigh, I grab his hand till he can swing his grip onto the top rail of the balcony. His kilt rides up, but disappointingly not all the way, treating me only to the muscled length of his thigh. From there, Keats hoists himself till he can place his feet between the iron bars and jump over to the safety of my balcony like a parkour traceur.
I look over the side of the balcony again—we’re over three metres off the ground.
“Could I wash my hand?” He shows me his left palm and I notice the gash running along the side of it from just below his little finger to the heel of his hand.
“Dammit, Keats. Is your tetanus shot up to date?”
“Yeah. Possum bit me the other week, remember?”
I grab his wrist and take him inside to the sink, running cold water over the wound. He tries very hard not to wince in pain.
“Talk about shit karma. I guess I deserve it,” he muses.
“Sit there while I get the first aid kit.” I turn off the TV on my way to the bathroom.
When I return to the small kitchen, Keats is sitting at my little table viewing the framed photo booth shots of his mother and me on my bookshelf across the room.
I plop down in the chair opposite his, taking his injured hand in mine. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with wife-material Sofie rightabout now?”
He raises a brow at me. “I didn’t want to.”
“You mean she didn’t want you.” I gently lay gauze over the wound and cut adhesive strips to keep the material in place.
“No, I didn’t want her. I thought I did,” he says and I tense up, “but I don’t. Besides, she’s looking for a good, Brazilian man. I’m neither good, nor Brazilian. I set her up with Tomohiro.”
“You’re an idiot,” I say, closing the first aid kit and standing up to walk away. It hurts too much to be close to him. “That’s two women you spent a lot of time and energy on that you’ve just decided aren’t for you. Fickle much?”
“I thought you’d be happy that I’m not with Sofie.”
“Why would I be?” I ask, my mask of indifference threatening to crack.
This is sounding too promising. But I’ve been wrong before. I turn away to hide the hope in my eyes, but he takes me by the wrist and turns me to face him. He stands up and with shoes on, he’s an inch taller than me.
“’Cause you said you weren’t in love…with Byron.” He smiles tentatively at me, eyes flicking over to my lips. His intention becomes clearer as the space between us seems to shrink.
“I write porn.”
That stops him in his tracks, but the smile remains. “I know about Miz Peggy now.”
“So you know about the dating service?” I watch the smile turn bemused on his face, so I explain, “Before she started seeing Pete, I hooked your mother up with some of my customers—just the ones with positive reviews.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I think you’re about to tell me something important, and you need full disclosure before you say what I think you’re going to say.”
He starts to shake his head. “Jess, I already know—”
“No, you don’t. I need you to understand that I’m nothing like Isabella or Sofie. I’m not trophy wife material. Oh shit, I just said wife. You see, I totally don’t know how to behave. You’re probably just here for a booty call ’cause you think I’m a total slut with a booty call guy.”
He shakes his head again. “If that makes you a slut, then what am I? You can’t possibly think I’m perfect. I can be a real asshole. I’m late all the time, and I don’t always have the best ideas.” He visibly swallows, like it was hard to admit his flaws. “But you seem to like me anyway.”
He takes another step towards me.
“My name’s really pronounced ‘Hoggen’,” I blurt out, “not ‘Hog-gen’, but not ‘Hay-gen’ either.”
“Jess, just shut up and let me kiss you.” He bridges the gap between us till his chest touches mine. Then he tips my chin up with his forefinger, angles his head to the side and leans in till our lips touch.
I push him away even though my whole body is humming from that gentlest of touches. “No.”
I realise I want more. Just sex with Neil I can handle. But just sex with Keats would kill me—slowly and with a smile on my face—but it would still kill every self-respect I have for myself, because I want him too much.
“Why not?” He looks confused.
“What? You expect my underwear to just fall off because the great Keats McAllister has decided he wants me after all? Fuck you.”
“But I cut my
