Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,11
pheromones there.” Law chuckled. Eve and Sawyer were definitely still in their honeymoon phase. The band started making tuning rumblings.
“Are they playing another set?” Maya asked.
“Yeah, one more short one before closing.”
She sighed—once again, she seemed sad, which wasn’t usual for her—and handed him the remote. “Well, this is pointless.”
She moved for her coat, and he said, “Actually…” But wait. Was he insane?
“What?” she said impatiently.
“I have the app on my TV upstairs, too, if you want to go watch up there.” Yes, he was insane. “It’ll be quiet.” Like, very, very insane.
“Really?”
“Yeah, the app allows more than one log-in, so I have it in my apartment, though I don’t think I’ve ever used it up there.” He realized that didn’t address her shock, and honestly, since his subscription came with three log-ins and he only had two in use, what he really should do was give her the third. But he liked having her watch soccer at his bar. Since she’d found out he had the app, she’d taken to coming in at night, parking herself in front of the TV he now thought of as hers, and cueing up the day’s league highlights. He’d even gotten a little into it himself.
Weirdly, she hadn’t even given him crap—well, not much—about his secret Wi-Fi. Probably because it benefited her.
“You’re inviting me up to your apartment to watch football,” she said, clearly still not quite believing him.
“Well, I’m not inviting you up. I’m not going to be there.” He gestured at the still-buzzing bar. “I’m just saying you can go up there if you want.” He fished his keys out of his pocket and held them out. Her mouth fell open. She was agog. Fair enough. He was kind of agog himself. He didn’t know what had possessed him, except he was pretty sure he hadn’t imagined those flashes of sadness in her eyes earlier. And her soccer team made her so happy.
He also hadn’t truly expected her to take him up on the offer, so he was extra agog when she grabbed the keys out of his hand and hopped off the stool.
Well, damn. “Will you be able to figure out the TV?”
“Yes, Benjamin. I can run a light board. I aced video editing in college. I can figure out a TV.”
Ah, that was more like it.
And she must have figured it out, because after she left, he didn’t see her again. Knowing she was upstairs, in his personal space, while he carried on like normal down here was strange. There was an intimacy to it, which should have been the wrong descriptor, because she was there and he was here. After closing up, he rushed through only the most pressing cleaning tasks, telling himself he’d come down early and finish in the morning.
Upstairs, he pushed open the unlocked door to his apartment, his heart beating faster than he could explain away as a result of having run up the stairs. The place was dark, but he could hear the TV.
“Hey,” he called as he made his way through the dining room that connected the kitchen and living room, announcing his presence so as not to startle her.
“Hey,” she said back, and there she was, cozied up on his sofa. He sat on the other end and looked at the screen.
“Benjamin,” she said, without emphasizing his name in that annoyed-schoolmarm way she usually did, “this”—she waved her arms around—“is awesome.”
“What? The apartment?”
“Yes, the apartment. But also your giant TV. Watching a match on your giant TV. All of the above. What’s with this place? Why is it so huge and nice? Who even are you?”
He shrugged, trying not to show how pleased he was by her approval. “I grew up in this apartment.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. Well, my parents had a house when I was born, but they moved up here—they owned the building—when I was little, so this has always been home.” When they retired, they’d bought a little house up the lake a way, and Law had done a remodel on the apartment to make it less of a family place and more of a swish bachelor pad—hence the giant TV. “What are you watching?”
“Just an old archived match. Sorry, I should have left when I finished today’s. This setup is just so amazing.”
She started to get up, but he motioned for her to stay. “You don’t have to go. It takes me a while to wind down after closing the bar.”