first these days. Even on first dates. Seriously? Was I so old-fashioned I wanted to work my way down a guy’s body?
Did Gray expect me to give him a blow job? Today? He’d barely touched me, just held my hand the other night, and that had been for show. That was it. Was this even a date? Had he not touched me anymore because he wasn’t interested? He said he didn’t bring women to his apartment, so why me?
Hearing the water shut off had me coming back from la-la land. The guy took two-minute showers like in the military. I hadn’t even moved from where he’d left me, so I went to check out his view from the large windows. We were above the treetops lining the sidewalk, and I could see across the street to the other buildings. This area used to be a suburb of Brant Valley but had been absorbed into the city. The small downtown area was thriving with boutiques and small shops, restaurants and coffee houses. I could see why Gray put his gym here; young people coming from work and college students would find the location convenient.
I moved to look at framed pictures that were on a table behind the couch. One was of Gray competing in a fight, his arm out punching his competitor in the face. The photographer had caught him in motion. Pretty ruthless. Another was of Gray and a few other men, clearly other fighters. I picked up one of him and Thor, both with medals around their necks, both younger. A few nature shots. Open fields. Prairie. Mountains in the distance. Was this where he’d grown up? No family pictures, then I remembered he’d said he'd had a shitty childhood.
“I hope I didn’t take too long,” Gray said, coming out of the hallway.
Putting the picture back, I looked up at him. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt that fit very well across his chest and the same well-worn boots from the other night. His male scent filled the air, something woodsy and not too strong. Soap, perhaps? Whatever it was, I liked. A lot.
“Me and Thor, back in the day.” He nodded toward the picture I’d just put back.
I glanced back at the photo. “One of your competitions?”
“Yeah, you can see what I look like with my hair grown out a bit.”
I assessed him, picturing him with longer hair. It was only about an inch long in the photo, but his hair was dark and covered his brow. I wondered if it were even longer if it would curl over his forehead and be unruly. Not his style, it seemed, and I liked Gray with it closely cropped. It exposed him to the world, and with it, he was saying This is me. He didn’t hide behind anything, and I liked that. So far, he’d been direct and forthcoming, and it totally, totally, worked for me.
“I kind of like the clean-cut look,” I admitted.
He ran a hand over his very short hair, all the while assessing me, perhaps testing the weight of my words. He made a sound deep in his throat. “Ready to go?”
“Sure.” My flip-flops were noisy on the wood floor as I followed him back to the elevator.
Grabbing his keys, he snagged the cowboy hat from the hook and set it on his head. He pushed the button for the elevator, which opened right away.
He did all that while I stared, entered the elevator eyeing the hat, the man, the full package. While this was the Wild West, not too many went for the cowboy look off the ranch around here. Gray didn’t give a shit what others thought, and… yeah, that worked for me.
“You aren’t skipping a Sunday lunch with family, are you?” He leaned back against the handrail, gripping it.
Clearing my throat, I replied, “I got divorced four years ago. The house was sold in the settlement, and I moved into my parents’ house.” I fiddled with the strap on my purse. “Yes, it was pretty pathetic, living with my parents in my thirties—with a child of my own. Fortunately for everyone, they retired and moved to Florida a few months later. I decided to stay and live in the place I grew up in, maybe because it was familiar, and I needed that, maybe because it was just easy. I had too much insanity as it was with a fourteen-year-old who was angry at his father, at the world. At the time,