Will e-mailed her the link to Merriam-Webster.com.
Damn, that man was good.
Eleven
SHORTLY BEFORE SEVEN o’clock, Victoria knocked on Ford’s front door. She’d run late with her deposition that afternoon, and then had stopped at her condo to drop off her briefcase. While there, she’d debated whether to change out of her suit and heels, and then had thought better of it. Yes, it was a Friday evening, but after her conversation with Will, she felt it was important to underscore that this was a work meeting. She would simply pop into Ford’s place for a few minutes, get the lowdown on the search for Peter Sutter, and then be on her way.
To her surprise, however, it wasn’t Ford who greeted her.
Instead, a thirtysomething man with a shock of spiky, jet-black hair and dressed in a T-shirt and workout shorts answered the door. One of the guys who’d been with Ford that night at The Violet Hour, if memory served.
His eyes widened when he saw her. “Wow. I picked the wrong building to live in. And I just said that out loud, didn’t I? Shit.”
“Said what out loud?” Victoria asked, deadpan.
It took him a moment, and then he grinned. “Ooh . . . you’re funny, too.” He held out his hand faux earnestly. “Hi, I’m Tucker. Will you marry me?”
“Don’t you think it’s time you retired that lame line? You’ve been using that since college,” said a man from behind him.
“It’s not lame, it shows off my wry sense of humor and makes a good icebreaker.” Tucker turned back to Victoria for agreement. “Right? Good icebreaker?”
Before she could answer, a second man, holding a bottled beer, appeared in the doorway—the guy in the hipster hat whom Audrey had been eyeing at The Violet Hour.
“Hello, Ford’s new neighbor,” he cheerfully greeted her, extending his hand. “I’m Charlie. We hear you’re a divorce lawyer or something.” He cocked his head. “Huh. Have we met before? You look familiar.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Tucker said.
“I think we were at the same bar two weeks ago,” Victoria said. “The Violet Hour?”
Charlie pointed. “That’s it! You’re the girl Ford was checking out.” He tapped Tucker on the shoulder. “Remember, right before we joined the bachelorette party?”
Tucked nodded. “Oh, yeah. Man, he was really into you that night.” He paused. “Probably, I wasn’t supposed to say that out loud, either.”
“So. That’s some coincidence, huh?” Charlie asked her. “You two living next to each other now.”
“Like a freaky, kismet kind of thing,” Tucker agreed.
Charlie snorted. “Kismet? Who uses that word anymore?”
“Um, lots of people,” Tucker shot back.
“Yeah, lots of people like my grandmother.”
“Well, then your grandmother must be cool as hell, because Kismet happens to be the name of a comic book character. Marvel and DC,” Tucker emphasized victoriously.
Charlie rolled his eyes, then turned to Victoria. “Anyway.”
“Yes. Anyway,” Tucker said, looking a bit peeved.
Both men stared expectantly at Victoria.
“So, just to clarify . . . is Ford actually home?” she asked.
“Right. That.” With a chuckle, Charlie pushed open the door. “He’s in the shower—we just got back from the gym. He didn’t know what time you’d be stopping by, so he asked us to hang around until he got out.”
Victoria stepped inside the loft, checking out the place as she followed Charlie and Tucker. Layout-wise, the condo was the mirror image of hers, and the kitchen granite and shelves were basically the same, but that was about where the similarities ended.
“Wow,” she said, both surprised and impressed. Clearly, he’d invested a lot of time and effort into the place. Half of the open floor plan was designated as a living space, with a leather couch and chair, brick walls, and a sliding door that led out onto the terrace. But the other half appeared to be a combination dining/work space, with a striking reclaimed-wood-and-steel table and matching stools, and two entire walls of built-in reclaimed-wood bookshelves.
It was a great space, masculine and urban and yet also warm and inviting, too. The wall shelves were various heights and filled with a mixture of books, artwork, framed photographs, and other interesting odds and ends: an antique clock, a sculpture of a hand, and something that looked like a replica Star Wars blaster.
She walked over to take a closer look. Good thing this wasn’t a date, because if it had been, she would’ve been tempted to spend a good, long time examining all the nooks and crannies of those bookshelves, trying to discover what they said about the man who