Page 53 of Bad Boy Next Door
The one with his feet on the pool ladder was well built, too, and seemed to have a permanent grin on his face under what looked, from a distance, to be designer sunglasses. Knock-offs, no doubt. Or stolen. The other brother was thinner and looked nervous and jumpy.
Between them, Nick’s broad body filled every inch of his chair, his long legs spread wide, and I felt a sharp pang of longing. An urge to jump off the balcony and into his lap.
Even though I’d seen Nick almost every day since I’d found out the truth—I missed him. I missed him so much. This man. This big bear of a man. This gentle giant.
But I couldn’t trust him.
Still, his attempts to apologize had been wearing me down, and I wondered if he’d spotted the flowers in the pool. From up here, their pink and red blooms practically glowed against the green muck, but I wasn’t sure about the angle from his chair.
His apology card had been sweet, if corny. A big-eyed cartoon kitten offering a slice of chocolate cake on the front, with the words “Can You Ever Forgive Me” inside, and a simple “Please,” in heavy printing below that.
I’d nearly caved when I got that latest offering—especially since I felt bad about what I’d done with his chocolates.
I sighed. I’d been dumb to imagine I could trust him.
I was born without the happily-ever-after gene—or even the happy-for-a-little-while gene—but maybe it was time to cave and go back to the way things were between Nick and me before I freaked out. Back to sharing breakfasts and dinners, joking around—and most of all fucking.
Nick might be a liar, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t have sex. Did it? Every man I’d ever known had been a liar, and yet I’d survived. All would be fine as long as I didn’t let myself get too attached.
And now that I thought it through, it might be easier for me now Nick had shown his true colors, taking any possibility of a future off the table. He’d crushed my expectations minutes after I’d set them.
Or was I rationalizing? Going with what my body wanted? Talking myself into a world of emotional pain for some physical satisfaction?
I rubbed my legs together, trying to quiet the throbbing ache that was missing Nick. My phone rang.
The well-built brother looked up, and I quickly stepped back from the railing, hoping I hadn’t been spotted.
I glanced at the phone as I pushed open my apartment door.
“Hey, Crystal,” I said. “Everything okay?”
“I miss you,” she answered. “I wish you were living with me in Sunnyvale.”
“I miss you too, kid.”
“You wouldn’t believe how shitty the food is,” she said. “My roommates are terrible cooks. It’s like I have a choice of either getting fat or starving to death.”
“Why eat their food? Why not do your own thing?”
“You know I can’t cook.” She said this like I was being ridiculous. And maybe I was. If I’d been born without the relationship gene, Crystal had been born without the cooking gene. Not that I’d ever given her a chance to try.
“I should have taught you.” I switched the phone to the other ear so I could open the fridge and grab some leftover pasta. If we’d had a mom, or if Frank were a legit grown-up, they would have taught us both to cook.
Crystal told me about her classes and the boys she found cute as I took the lid off the glass storage dish, grabbed a fork, and started eating out of the bowl. Even cold, the pasta was good, the tomatoes bitingly fresh and the olives and capers adding just the right amount of acidity and salt. Although…
I put Crystal on speaker, grabbed a small block of parm and a micro plane I’d found at a thrift store and grated cheese onto the dish. After thirty seconds in the microwave, it was perfect.
“Be careful,” I told her as she described one of the boys she was crushing on. “You trust men too easily.”
“No, I don’t,” Crystal said defensively. “And even if I do, it’s better than your way—never trusting anyone.”
Touché, I thought, as I took another bite of pasta. Although I’d take my way over hers any day. Her way left her wallet exposed and open, her body unshielded from punches, and her heart laid out and ready to be crushed—all of which had happened to my little sister, more than once.
“How’s the strip club business?” she asked.
“Not as bad as I expected.” I popped an olive into my mouth.
“At least you’re not a stripper,” Crystal said, and I could hear her turned-up nose through her voice. “That would be majorly depressing, not to mention disgusting.”
