you? Chewing her lip, she scuffed a shoe against the grass. Jethro trotted over with his stick and presented it proudly. The man took it and threw it again.
“Well, if it helps, I liked what you were playing. It was—nice.”
“Thank you. I’m Naomi Sparks by the way….” She took a couple of steps forward and held out her hand.
He stared at her for a long moment before taking it in his warm, callused, strong grip—and her insides did a little shimmy.
“Matt McCall.”
Chapter Four
Matt opened the cabinet and his gaze landed on the locked gun case. Nudging it to the side, he reached behind it for the power strip. After rewiring the television and sound system, he still had to relocate his laptop’s power strip for the job. It took a while to remember if he had a second one and where he stored it. Locking the cabinet and pocketing the keys, he looked around the apartment. Jethro watched him from his claimed corner of the new sofa.
The furniture had trickled in over the last several days. He’d talked to Lauren and James about wanting to make the apartment feel like more than a bunk, so Lauren went shopping. He wasn’t sure about the lamps or why she ordered different shades than the ones they came with, but he followed her orders to exchange them when they arrived.
The fifty-five inch flat screen he’d picked out for himself. Grabbing the laptop off the table, he set everything up on the coffee table. Grabbing a cup of coffee from the kitchen, he carried it to the sofa and turned the game on. The dog yawned, bored with his fussing and curled up to sleep. Grinning, Matt powered up the computer. He hadn’t turned it on in so long, the battery had died.
The little red light warned him he had to keep it plugged into a power source. Sipping the coffee and watching the game, he left the web browser open, but blank. Every day since he’d met Naomi, he took Jethro past the spot in the park—just to see her. Two days in a row and no sign of her.
He should have asked for her number.
But day three, the sound of her guitar floated down the path toward him and he’d quickened his pace. She sat exactly where he’d seen her the first time. Her head down, guitar in her lap, and alternately strumming the strings and slapping her hand against the wood of the instrument to create a rhythm. He motioned Jethro to sit and stood listening to her for several minutes before she chided him for hovering.
Accepting the invitation, he found a spot to sit and listened to her for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, she had to run because of an appointment, and he tried not to examine his disappointment too closely. The next several days followed the same pattern, and she was there…every single day.
He wanted to ask her out.
But every time he thought about it, the words stuck in his throat. So he hung out, she played her guitar and wrote down the mysterious notes on her sheet paper, and he threw sticks for Jethro. His favorite part of the day.
Draining half the coffee, he eyed the computer. Like so many other members of his unit, he signed up for the 1Night Stand service, but kept his profile inactive. He didn’t trust himself alone much less with some random woman. When he’d broached the subject of enlisting Madame Eve’s services with Doc, he received a cautious approval to consider the idea.
Of course, a one-night stand with a stranger is not asking Naomi out on a date. He leaned away from the computer. One night, no strings, some fun and a trial run to see if he could survive an evening out with her. If he completely tanked it with the stranger, then no harm and no foul.
And if he didn’t screw it up and got laid, would he be able to look Naomi in the eye and ask her out? It seemed strangely disloyal to be even considering the idea.
You met her a few days ago and can’t say more than fifty words to her, so how is it disloyal? He couldn’t answer his own question. So he continued to stare at the TV screen and let the game distract him again.
At halftime, he pulled Madame Eve’s site up and read through the agreements. He logged into his profile, but after filling in the data, he couldn’t hit