The Player Next Door - Kathy Lyons Page 0,35
stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. It’s about focus and time. There’s only so much—”
“Bullshit.”
Mike dropped his arm and glared at Joey. “You don’t have to understand it. Just know that it works.”
“Fine, it works. You’re a monk. But I’m giving you until your next barbecue to get your head out of your ass or I’m moving in.”
“What?”
“I’ve got a thing for smart blondes.”
Mike rose to his most intimidating height. “You’re un-invited.”
“I’ll crash it.”
“I could pick you up and throw you across the room.”
“Not without ripping up your shoulder, you can’t.”
It was a measure of how insane Mike was that he actually considered it. But after a few furious breaths, he realized the ass was right.
No reason Tori couldn’t date Joey if she wanted another jerk in her life. At least he was better than Edward, though only marginally. But first—before either of those losers made their move—he was going to make damn sure she understood what his “friends” were like.
“We done?” he asked, his tone surly.
“Yup. See you tomorrow.”
It took him ten minutes to shower, an eon to drive home, and then thirty seconds to get to Tori’s house. Though God knew when he found her, she wasn’t doing anything he’d envisioned on the way over. She hadn’t tumbled off the roof or redesigned her rock garden—again. And she hadn’t been baking, as far as he could tell. Nope. She was sitting alone in a dark house holding a flashlight between her teeth as she paged through a book on Mayan architecture.
“Tori?”
She jumped, obviously startled, and the flashlight fell out of her mouth. It dropped with a thud onto the still unfinished floor. “Mike! I didn’t hear you come in.”
He didn’t know how she could have missed him stepping through the back door and calling her name. But then again, his mother used to joke that a nuclear bomb could go off during practice and he wouldn’t hear it. That kind of focus was an asset as long as prowlers didn’t sneak into your house while you were deep in temple designs.
“What are you doing?” he asked rather than follow his own illogical train of thought.
“I got frustrated.”
“With the Mayans?”
“What? Oh! No. I’ve always been interested in Mayan religious thought, but I’d never looked before at their architectural feats.”
He nodded, guessing where her mind had gone. “So all this home improvement has got you thinking about the ancient way of building.”
“Not really,” she said with a smile. “More about how they lived without electricity.”
He looked at the floor behind her and saw the electrical how-to book. He scanned her fingers quickly. No burn marks that he could see, but then again, it was kind of dark in here. “What happened?”
She shrugged. “I broke my electricity.”
“How?”
“Well, if I knew that—”
“You’d have already fixed it. Right.” He squatted down before her. Her cheeks were rosy from the heat—the air conditioning was out with the electricity—and there was a light sheen of sweat on her face. It occurred to him that his mother would be screaming bloody murder if her electricity went out, even if she’d been the one to break it. His cousins, too, would be bitching about an electrician and cursing their bad luck. None of them would be sitting calmly in a corner and reading a book by flashlight.
“Do you want some help?” he asked, impressed again by her odd, level-headed approach to life.
She sighed, and her eyes dropped down in disappointment. “I’ve called an electrician. I just don’t have the focus to figure it out.”
He dropped down beside her on the floor. “It’s not a failure to hire a professional.” He looked around. “How old is this house anyway? It probably has some tricky wiring.”
She sighed. “It’s all tricky. Don’t tell Edward, okay? He’ll just claim I’ve come to my senses.”
He frowned at her. “Why would I tell him?”
“Why would he bang on your door after midnight and stay for a half hour last night?”
“Because he’s a moron.”
She nodded, clearly accepting his pronouncement. “Did you tell him about us?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “No. Because there is no us. That’s what I came to tell you.”
She frowned at him. “You already made that clear.”
He nodded. “Yeah, but I didn’t explain why. I want to now.”
What the fuck was he saying? He had no interest in sharing this with her, and yet here he was settling down beside her. And as he stretched out his legs, he realized that this felt right. Talking to her felt really…right.
“Want me to get some beer?” she asked.
He