21
961 Words
“Hmm.” He pretends to think. “The short one with the extra toe on her left foot?”
“Oh my God. This is ridiculous. You know exactly who I am—”
“Oh yes,” he sighs dreamily. “You’re the one with skin like fresh cream and hair the color of autumn and eyes like thunderclouds over the sea.”
After a moment I ask, “Have you been drinking?”
I feel his chuckle all the way down to my toes. “No. I’ve actually been napping. And having seriously dirty and wonderful dreams of you. Come over, I’m still in bed.”
I put the phone to my chest, close my eyes, and inhale a big, calming breath.
“Hello?”
I put the phone back up to my ear. “I’m here.”
“Did you drop the phone?”
“No. Sort of. It doesn’t matter. Listen, what I’ve been trying to say is—”
“I just want to get to know you better,” he interrupts with sudden intensity. “No strings. No expectations. No pressure. Don’t blow me off yet. Okay?”
Dear God. This man is going to be the death of me.
I turn my back on the flowers and walk slowly down the hallway into my bedroom. I go into the bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror.
“You’re not saying anything,” he prompts. “What’re you doing right now?”
I answer honestly. “Looking at myself in the mirror and trying to decide if I should hang up or not.”
“Please don’t,” he softly begs.
Something in the center of my chest melts. Warmth spreads throughout my body.
Fuck.
I whisper, “I have this really awful feeling that you’re going to be my Kryptonite.”
“So you have a Superman complex. Interesting.”
His tone has switched from pleading to teasing, lightning fast. I wonder if it’s because he could sense I was about to not only hang up on him because it was getting too intense, but erase his number forever, move to the sss jungle, and join an all-female cult that worships cats and carbohydrates as divinities.
But because we’ve moved to safer ground, I ditch that plan and stay on the line.
“Actually Batman was always my favorite.”
“Really? Why?”
He sounds genuinely interested, so I tell him. “Because he’s not really a superhero. He doesn’t have superhuman strength, or amazing powers, or really any advantages other than money and technology. He’s just a man with a f****d-up past trying to do the right thing.”
The silence that follows throbs with something I can’t describe. Then, in a husky voice that cracks more than once, Brody says, “On a scale of one to ten, how weird would it be if I told you I just fell in love with you?”
I don’t know why, but that makes me laugh out loud. “Eleventy-seven.”
He laughs, too. “Oh good. No worries, then.”
After our laughter dies down, he says, “Moving on—you haven’t yet thanked me for the flowers.”
I roll my eyes. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do this entire call?”
“Pretend you’re not as into me as I am into you. Your usual MO. But that’s beside the point. Did the florist send the big drapey white orchids like I asked?”
“They did.”
“And are they as amazing as they promised me they’d be?”
“They are.”
He sounds smug. “Good. You can go ahead then.”
“Go ahead and what?”
“Thank me! Tsk. Where are your manners, Slick?”
“Slick? Did you just call me Slick?”
His voice turns practical. “I figure you’ve probably been called every variation of red, in honor of your hair color, so I thought I’d go with the general, overall impression you made the first time I saw you.”
I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not. “You thought I looked . . . slick.”
Without hesitation or artifice, he quietly replies, “I thought you looked like the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”
Blood rushes into my face. A dull, hot throb in my cheeks quickly spreads to my ears and neck.
“Uh-oh,” says Brody. “She’s gone radio silent again.”
“Normally I’m not this easily rattled, but I must admit, Mr. Scott, you really know how to throw me for a loop.”
The smug tone makes a reappearance. “Aha! So you know my last name! You’ve been stalking me on the internet, haven’t you?”
I say drily, “Let’s not get carried away.”
“Speaking of getting carried away, what’re you wearing to my party on Saturday?”
In spite of myself, I chuckle. “Number one, that was the absolute worst segue I’ve ever heard. And number two, I never said I was coming to your party.”
“You are, though, right? The flowers totally worked?”
He still sounds playful, but I hear the undertone of seriousness. I sigh, rubbing a hand over my burning cheek. “No.”
“You know what that tells me?”
I look at the ceiling, hoping for a stray asteroid to demolish my building so I won’t have to continue this conversation. “I can hardly wait to know.”
“That you’re afraid.”
“I’m not afraid, Egosaurus, I’m just otherwise engaged.”
“So be otherwise unengaged. I told you: bring him.”
- Writer
