What If You & Me (Say Everything #2) - Roni Loren Page 0,6

assure her he was there to help—and he’d kept his hands and hugs to himself. Thank God.

He’d never gotten an up close look at Andi before tonight, and he hadn’t realized how young she was. Or how beautiful. Big blue eyes with smudged black liner, a little silver ring in her nose, and a body that would’ve seemed boyish if not for the small, pert breasts he’d forced himself to look away from when he’d realized she was only wearing a thin tank top and the shadows of what was beneath could be seen in the porch light.

He had no business looking at her that way or allowing the surge of heat that had moved through him. At thirty-one, he probably looked like an old man to her for one, and two, he didn’t do that anymore. No flirting. No charming his way into a fun hookup. Those days were long past him. He wasn’t anyone’s good time. He was a goddamned charity case at best, a pity fuck at worst. He’d learned that the hard way when one of his buddies had tried to set him up on a date after his accident and the breakup with his former fiancée. The woman had let it slip on the date that she was doing it as a favor to his friend. He wasn’t interested in repeating that particular lesson in humiliation.

Not that someone like Andi would’ve been interested anyway. She looked like the type who dated skateboarders or vegans with full-sleeve tattoos or drummers in punk bands. Not disabled firefighters who’d been put out to pasture.

Hill grabbed the metal bar attached to the shower wall and eased down onto the bench he’d installed. He dipped his head and let the water run over him, his eyes stinging with the shampoo. Tomorrow, he’d go back to keeping to himself. He and Andi now had an agreement not to disturb each other. Perfect.

He didn’t need a chatty neighbor, especially one that made him think about things he shouldn’t, made him crave things he couldn’t have. He’d let himself slip a little tonight, getting caught up for a moment and joking with her when she’d made a clever reference to a David Allan Coe song his aunt used to love. But he couldn’t open up that kind of door with someone like Andi, even in a neighborly way.

He’d bought this duplex for the quiet, to start fresh somewhere, and to get a little rental income to add to his firefighter pension while he figured out what the hell he was supposed to do with the rest of his life. He didn’t want to be friends with his tenant. That was why he had a management company handle the rental logistics. He wanted to be anonymous in this new place, left alone. Andi looked like the type who would organize the neighborhood watch and throw block parties. No, thanks.

He lifted his head, wiped the water from his face, and took a deep breath, feeling better now that he’d come up with a plan of action and had shaken off the weird feelings the conversation with Andi had left him with. Nothing had changed. He didn’t need to worry about it. He met his neighbor. No big deal.

But as he settled down into bed that night, instead of being plagued by nightmares of fiery buildings collapsing around him like usual, he was plagued by dreams of fiery redheads.

He woke up in a sweat and didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

***

Andi weaved her way through the first floor of WorkAround, the coworking space where she spent her weekdays, feeling the ripple of energy from all those clicking keyboards. She adored the bottom floor of the building with its tall windows lining the back wall, the exposed red brick and ductwork, and the soaring ceilings. But what she loved more was that this floor was where the hot desks were located—desks that people could rent for a few hours or days. That meant a regularly rotating mix of interesting people, which was like candy for her extroverted self. On any given day, she could chat with a musician, an actor, a book blogger, a journalist, a day trader, a visual artist. The list went on and on.

People were endlessly fascinating to her, and though she knew the stereotype of a writer was someone alone in an attic room, her writer brain needed people. How was she supposed to come up with interesting characters if she