are you decently attired such that we might go into public without getting arrested.”
Public? “Oh. Yeah, I’m dressed.”
“Cool. I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes.” He hung up.
Okaaay. Nothing had been said about any public appearances. This wasn’t a date. What on earth did he have in mind?
She was staring out her living room window exactly eighteen minutes later when his GTO purred its way into the parking space in front of her apartment. Purse already in hand, she bolted for the door, excitement churning through her belly.
Seth was already out of the car and striding around to the other side to open the door for her. She almost stopped in her tracks. He looked good enough to eat. And demand seconds. Tight black V-neck T-shirt, leather jacket and ratty jeans that broke over his boots just the right way. On his head was a black Fedora. He was definitely a guy who could pull off hats.
Dayum. Maybe she could take him somewhere after all.
“Wow,” she said as she skirted around the door he held open. “You look great.”
“Wow yourself,” he said, his lopsided grin wreaking havoc with things down south.
Did they really have to go anywhere?
When the clean smell inside his car unleashed a torrent of flashbacks, she put the question to him as soon as he got in the driver’s side. He planted his arm across the seatback and turned to look out the rear window as he backed out. The position gave her a great view of his neck. How she wanted to nibble that thick vein, lick it, feel his pulse throbbing inside.
“Well,” he answered, “I hope you don’t get mad, but Brian called a few minutes before I called you. There’s a get-together at a friend’s house, and he wanted me to go hang out with them. I shut him down, but when I was talking to you, I remembered everything you were saying last night, and…I thought this might be a good thing for you. If you don’t want to go, say the word. We’ll get sushi instead.”
Ah, sushi, the one interest they did share. But she wasn’t hungry. She shrugged. “I don’t mind going. Candace will be around, right?”
His scoff had her lifting an eyebrow. “Have you ever seen those two in the last year when they’re not attached at the hip?”
“Hmm. Do we have a certain measure of hostility about that?”
“I wouldn’t say I have hostility about it.” He straightened in his seat and zoomed out of her parking lot. “He’s in a fool’s paradise, and I hate it for him. That’s all.”
“Why do you say that? They seem pretty solid to me. She would never hurt him; that much I’d bet my life on.”
“Every relationship I’ve ever seen is like a bubble ready to burst, and most of them do.”
“Some of them don’t.”
“I guess I’m too cynical to think any of them around me are going to remain intact.”
Insanely curious now, she glanced over at him, sizing up his body language as he manhandled the gearshift. If they hadn’t passed through the yellowish wash of a street light, casting the tense lines of his face into stark relief, she might have thought these were simple observations of his.
“So who burned you?” she asked casually, smoothing her palms over her jeans.
He waved a dismissive hand. “An hour ago I was standing over the miserable, wasted heap of a good friend who would rather lose everything he’s worked for than even make an effort to get over the woman who keeps walking out on him.”
She didn’t buy it, but if it was a conversation that was going to bring down the night, she didn’t want to have it. “I’m sorry about that. But don’t let it sour you. These things work out all the time, and sometimes they don’t, but that’s life.” She shrugged and fell silent, staring out the window as the buildings gave way to skeletal trees missing their summer foliage. God, she hated winter.
The solid warmth of his fingers curled around her hand. She looked over to find Seth watching her in between glances at the road. “Didn’t mean to get heavy on you, there.”
“It’s okay.” At least she knew there wouldn’t be any weirdness on his end, if he had such a foul outlook on relationships. “Honestly…I wouldn’t know about the drama, myself. The one serious relationship I had, it was just… nice. All the time. So any speculation on my part about these things is just me talking