“There has to be something there, or she wouldn’t be shopping you.”
“Shopping us?”
“Rooting for the two of you to succeed in a romantic relationship. Maclan.”
I have to laugh at that. “You mean shipping. She’s shipping us. You know I love that girl, but she is absolutely flooded with hormones right now. She would root for two pigeons to succeed in a romantic relationship if she saw them sitting together.”
“She’s actually very perceptive.”
“Yeah. She’s extremely perceptive about boys’ butts. You do realize we’re talking about the man who’s making me work on Christmas Day?”
“Oh yeah. That’s still happening, huh?”
“Yeah. Still happening.”
“But you’ll be at Aunt Mel’s for dinner?”
“Please—I tell youse,” I say, imitating our Aunt Mel from Staten Island. “I am there, come hell or high watta, arright?”
“Youse betta be, I’m tellin’ youse… Shit. Piper’s home. We never had this conversation—but we aren’t done talking about Boss Butt!”
She ends the call.
That kid. I have no idea what Piper is thinking. Maclan.
I open up my messages app and scroll through the many, many text conversations with Declan. He definitely does not look at me longingly with his beautiful amber eyes. But he is kind of fun to text with. And look at. But terrible to work for. I can’t even imagine how awful he’d be to date.
Suddenly, a new text notification pops up. From Boss Butt.
DECLAN: Happy Saturday, Cooper. You at home?
“Shit!”
DECLAN: I’m just asking if you’re at home.
“Shit shit shit.”
ME: Why do you ask?
DECLAN: Because I’m in the neighborhood.
I burst out laughing. Is he kidding me? What is this—a booty call? Am I supposed to get all excited? I tell him I’m at home, and he’d say, Oh good, so you’re not busy—I need you to do something for me. “Not falling for it,” I mumble to myself.
ME: I’m out running errands all day. And night. Unfortunately.
DECLAN: Really? Because your landlady let me in and I’m standing outside the door to your apartment right now. Pretty sure I heard a woman swearing and laughing in there. Should I call the cops? Maybe someone broke in.
“Shit.”
DECLAN: I think I just heard her again. Kind of a potty mouth. Sounds like trouble.
ME: Just tell me right now if you’re here to murder me.
DECLAN: That depends on how long you’re going to make me wait out here.
For purely professional reasons, I run to my bathroom, as quietly as possible.
ME: Could you first explain why I have the honor of receiving you at my home on a Saturday?
I roll a little perfume oil onto some pulse points and floss my teeth and gargle with mouthwash and apply lip gloss. Because my mother and my landlady would be appalled if they knew I received a gentleman caller without having done so. Even if the gentleman is my stinker of a boss.
DECLAN: I’m considering letting you have Christmas off.
ME: Go on…
DECLAN: And there’s something I’d like to discuss with you. Something that I didn’t want to discuss with you at the office. Something that is not work-related.
Gulp.
DECLAN: There’s a legal agreement involved. It’s not creepy.
ME: I’ll be the judge of that.
DECLAN: Exactly how large of an apartment do you live in? Because it’s taking you a really long time to reach the door.
I reach the door and open it. And Scrooge me, he might look even better unshaven, in a beanie, jeans, and black puffy jacket than he does all groomed in a suit and fancy wool trench coat. What an asshole.
“Hello, Magdalena.”
“Only Mrs. Pavlovsky gets to call me that.”
“Hello, Cooper… May I?” He gestures, asking if he can enter my home. Like a vampire. Like a vampire who smells like camping sex in a forest when it rains.
“Do I have a choice?”
“I’m about to present you with a choice, actually,” he says as he brushes past me, pulling the beanie off and combing his fingers through his perfectly tousled chestnut brown hair. Like a vampire with bedhead.
He doesn’t stop near the entrance to look around my apartment like most normal humans would—he immediately starts strolling around, checking it out. My living room area, the kitchen, the bathroom, and then peeks into my bedroom—as if he were at an open house. “This is pretty nice,” he says, sounding surprised.
“You were expecting me to live in a hovel? Just because my work environment is wretched and unpleasant, that doesn’t mean my home has to be.”
And there’s that damn dimple again.
Just as I realize I haven’t shut my front door yet, my landlady pops her head in. “I very like zis man, Magdalena. Wonderful man to have for you,” she enunciates while beaming at Declan.
“Very good, Mrs. Pavlovsky!” I praise her. “But I do not have this man, thank you.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Pavlovsky,” the man says, grinning. “I very like your building.”
Why is he so nice to her? First my niece, now my landlady.
“Ohhh, sank you.” She gives a little wave. Her cheeks are so flushed, she looks like Mrs. Claus. “Okay, I am leaving now. Bye-bye!”
I carefully shut the door and stay near it because I expect to be opening it and ushering Declan out shortly. “I’d offer to take your hat and coat, but I’m sure you won’t be staying long.”
He shoves his beanie into a pocket, unzips his coat very slowly while holding my gaze, and all I can do is stare at his bare hands and imagine him stripping naked. I blame my thirteen-year-old niece for this. But God, that man knows how to take off a coat. He shrugs it off and drapes it over one arm. “I’ll keep it with me, in case I need to make a run for it.”
“Good thinking.”
“Can we sit down and talk for a minute?”
“Must we?”
“Are you this apprehensive with all of your guests?”
“No.”
He smiles, shaking his head, hangs his puffy jacket on the back of a chair, and takes a seat at my dining table. “Have a seat, Maddie.”
I
