“Will you do me a favor?”
“What’s that?” I ask, turning back to him.
“Will you come to my place to eat your breakfast? I mean, that is, if you don’t have any other plans this morning. Then after that, would you mind showing me around the neighborhood a bit? I don’t really know the area all that well anymore.”
“Surely Aria or Wes would be a better choice.”
“My sister is making art and is not to be disturbed unless there is a zombie apocalypse and Wes is working. Come on. It’s just breakfast and a tour.”
“I’m not having sex with you again, Brecken.”
“I’m not asking you to, Rina.”
I shouldn’t do it. I mean, he may be saying this isn’t about sex, but we have that thing. That inexplicable chemistry. A pulsing tension. He also looks at me like he wants to fuck my brains out again. So there’s that. Plus, didn’t he mention this as a date not even two minutes ago?
I should say no instead of what I’m doing right now, contemplating.
Contemplating anything with him is a mistake.
But the truth is, I don’t have much planned today. Laundry and cleaning and cooking meals for the week but I can do some of that later before I meet up with Oliver. I couldn’t even stand being in my apartment because I felt like I was crawling out of my skin. I’m paranoid again and I don’t like it. So maybe a distraction isn’t the worst thing for me today?
Even if it is with him.
“I have to leave by three.”
He grins just as they call his name. “That’s perfect. I get you to myself for a whole day. I wonder all that we can do during that time.”
Yeah. Definitely a mistake.
5
brecken
“This is the place,” I tell her, stepping back and letting her walk into my apartment first, my heart already pounding in my chest at her being here. With me.
She glances around, taking it all in, and then she pivots back to me. “It’s beautiful. The light is stunning.”
For some reason, I was expecting something sharper to slice from her tongue. Something cutting because that seems to be how we’ve interacted up until this point. Even that first night in the bar in New York.
Her reaction takes me by surprise, and I chuckle, rubbing a hand at my mouth in an attempt to stop it.
She smirks, reading me fully before turning back around, heading for the sliding doors that partly make up the back wall of glass, leading to a private terrace. The outdoor space is actually why I rented this place. There is only one other condo in this building, and they have a patio beneath me, but I have two balconies, this one and one right off my bedroom upstairs. They face into a private courtyard only shared by the residents below who are an older couple.
She stops on the edge of the kitchen in what I guess is a breakfast area, her hand on the marble slab of the counter. “But you do know you have no furniture, right?”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
She laughs, spinning around in a circle, her head falling back, hands in the air. “More room to dance and twirl, I guess.” Skipping back over to me, she snatches the bag with our food from my hand and plops down onto the floor, right in the middle of the large, open space. “Usually when someone invites you over to eat at their place, there is at least somewhere to sit.”
“You’re sitting. I fail to see the issue here.”
She rolls her pretty emerald eyes at me. “You didn’t move anything with you?”
“Nope. Just the boxes you see. I left most everything in my apartment in New York.”
“Seriously?” Her eyebrows hit her hairline. “I thought i-bankers were all about the flash and dazzle. Like the plastic and ortho surgeons. Always needing to prove their dick is the biggest.”
“My dick is the biggest. That’s an easy one because everyone knows it, so I never had to show it off. Besides, all that flash and dazzle isn’t really my style.”
She stares curiously up at me. “We could have eaten at my place.”
“Noooo. Your place has furniture. A bed. Mine does not.”
“If you don’t have a bed then where did you sleep last night?”
“Wanting to see my bedroom already,” I quip, joining her on the floor and taking my sandwich from her outstretched hand. She cocks an unamused eyebrow, unwrapping her own sandwich and taking a bite, though her eyes are still on me. Evidently, she’s waiting for a real answer. “I slept in a sleeping bag.” I laugh, and she does too. “All my furniture is coming tomorrow. My mom and Aria had a really good time telling me what I needed to get and will likely decorate the place for me knowing them. Aria already said she has the perfect color for my walls that will look amazing with my sectional.”
“Do you own it? I thought you said you’re only here for a year.”
I frown at the reminder of why I’m sitting here with her in the first place.
“The furniture is rental as is the apartment, but they said I could paint as long as it’s a neutral color.”
We fall silent, introspective, digging into our food and I watch her—something I can’t seem to stop—as she looks around, staring at each corner of my apartment.
I like Rina.
She’s different.
She has a mouth on her that I find challenging and amusing. She’s got a face and body that makes me want to thank a god I never quite believed in before.
But there’s more to her than that.
Something I can’t quite put my finger on. There was something that drew me to her instantly that night. Something that got under my skin.
Maybe it’s that she’s a walking contradiction. Easygoing yet rigid. Confident yet afraid. Sassy yet sweet. It’s as if she seen and experienced things in a way others haven’t. Despite her defiance, there is a vulnerability she works to hide. And that strength above whatever she perceives as a weakness might be what turns me on most about her.
She finishes up her sandwich, crumbling the paper into a ball and stuffing it back inside the bag. She jumps back up to her feet, grabbing something I can’t see from her purse before skipping over to the wall by the back door. “When do you paint?”
“Um. Next weekend, I think. What are you doing?”
“Writing you a message,” she tells me, scribbling something on my wall. “You can’t read it until after I’m gone though.” She cocks her head in my direction, her eyebrow raised in warning as she makes sure I haven’t moved. “Did you know that Beacon Hill got its name because at one point a beacon sat on top of the hill to warn people about foreign invasion?”
“I do now. What else do you know, trivia queen?”
She smirks, returning to whatever she’s writing on the wall and I can’t tear my eyes away from her.
Have you ever heard the expression playing with fire because you love the burn? Yeah, that’s me about now. Or maybe the better saying is, I simply can’t help myself. Rina drives me up a fucking wall. Strangely enough, I dig that about her.
I suppose you’d call her a perfect storm. A converging of multiple cells that leave nothing but chaos and destruction in their wake. But damn, all I want to do is have her storm plow through me so I can say I lived through it.