Now there’s something to contemplate later.
Kicking off my shoes, I walk on silent feet toward the bathroom. And then I’m rewarded—Heidi is there, humming to herself while she picks up about fifty different beauty products she’s scattered around my bathroom. One by one she’s dropping them into a quilted overnight bag.
My happy buzz dies instantly. “Going somewhere?” I ask.
She lets out a shriek, whirls around, and lunges at me with a hairbrush.
“Ow!” I yelp as the brush connects with my chest. “What the hell?”
“Jason!” she squeaks. “You scared the bejesus out of me. Don’t sneak up on a girl!”
“I do live here,” I point out, possibly unreasonably. “What are you doing?”
She glances into her bag. “Packing up. Who wants to know?”
“I do.” And now I’m getting the feeling I’ve fucked things up in some fresh new way. “What’s the matter?”
“Not a thing,” she says briskly. “And luckily I don’t have a heart condition. That’s the second time today that you scared me senseless.”
“I haven’t seen you today!”
Her eyes narrow. “No kidding. But your lovely housekeeper Esme has now seen me naked, seeing as you didn’t mention you had a housekeeper. We startled each other this morning right after my shower. The poor woman dropped a bucket of water. It took us a half hour to clean it up.”
“Uh-oh,” I say slowly.
“I’ll say.” She zips up her bag and sets it on the floor.
“But back up. Why are you packing? Where are you going?”
“I don’t have all the details worked out yet.”
“Where will you sleep tonight?”
“In your teammate Bayer’s bed.”
“Say what?” A hot pang of jealousy shoots through my chest.
“Before I go…” Heidi sets down her bag and grabs a folded paper out of her pocket. “Here’s your itemized grocery receipt, as well as your change.”
I open the receipt and scan it. “Forty-three dollars. Thank you.” The amount of change is a puzzle, though. “Didn’t I leave you two hundred bucks? There’s only seven dollars here.”
She points at the last line on the page. Assorted gratuities, $150. “You tipped the concierge for helping me bring twenty-seven grocery bags into the building—a dollar a bag. You tipped Esme for her trouble. You tipped your drycleaner delivery person, the FedEx guy, and someone who delivered a shipment of hockey tape to the rink earlier. He looked like he was having a bad day.”
“Wow. I’m so generous,” I say drily. “Did all my teammates display the same largesse?”
“Nope,” she says, dusting off her hands. “Just you. And the very last expenditure was for a new pair of lucky panties. For me.” She lifts her perfect chin and levels me with an angry gaze. “You’re not the only one who’s allowed a superstition or two. And my lucky panties have obviously lost their magic.”
Every time her rosebud lips say the word panties, a zap of electricity shoots through me. “Am I familiar with this pair? The black lace? Did you retire them? I don’t think a pair of panties can get any luckier than those got on Saturday night. They should be framed and hung on the wall, probably.”
“Not exactly.” She licks her lips. “I threw them right in the trash. This new pair could be an improvement. They can steer me toward a guy who stays off the blogs for at least twenty-four hours after testing my suspension.”
“What?” I blink. “The blogs?”
With the world’s most impatient eye-roll, Heidi pulls out her phone and shoves it in my face.
I immediately recoil. “Oh, gross! That headline!” The Latin Lover Strikes Again. Yikes.
“Yes, it’s horribly racist,” Heidi snaps. “But what about the photo?”
“Forget the Latin shit,” I argue. “They can’t use ‘lover.’ That’s my sister for Christ’s sake. Ew.”
“Your…” Heidi snatches the phone back from me. “Sister? But you showed me her picture! And that girl looks nothing like you.”
“I have two sisters,” I grumble. “Tell me this—do you look exactly like your sister?”
Heidi’s eyes widen. Slowly she shakes her head.
“Then you ought to understand that Jackie and I favor my dad. He’s half-Brazilian and half-Cuban American. But—newsflash—my mom is a white lady from Canada. Not that the author of this blog post was interested in that detail.”
Heidi gasps. “Oh no!” She covers her face with her hands. “I’m a horrible person. I made a shallow assumption based on imperfect observations of implied ethnicity! No wonder I didn’t fit in at Bryn Mawr.”
Didn’t I say this girl is hilarious? I grab her hands from her face. “No, Hot Stuff. The real stupidity here is believing a gossip blog. Like you don’t know any better than that? Please.”
She gazes up at me. “I’m sorry. I mean—I’m not supposed to care. You can hook up with whoever you want. I’m not supposed to get jealous. You warned me.”
“Aw. You were jealous? Is that why I tipped half of New York City?”
She drops her chin.
“You’re right,” I whisper. “You’re not a good girl at all. I think you need to make it up to me.” I cup a hand under her drooping chin, and find her sad blue eyes. “I can’t stop thinking about you. Come over here and kiss me.”
Confusion crosses her features. “Jason, you gave me very clear rules. ‘There are only one-way tickets on the Castro train.’”
She does a startlingly good impression of me. And she’s right. This is entirely out of character for me. For the first time in years, once isn’t going to be nearly enough. I’m starting to clue in, although it took long enough.
“Okay, listen,” I try. “The Castro train left the station without me. I threw away my own rulebook way back when I kissed you in the carwash. Or maybe it was all the way last spring, when you sassed me for eating the last blueberry muffin.” Silas was right. We’ve been circling each other for months.
“What are you saying?” she whispers.
“I’m saying that you and I should be a thing.”
It’s quiet for a moment while we both take that in. I can’t tell which of us is more surprised. I mean it, though. She’s more to me than a one-night stand.
“But that’s confusing,” she says eventually.
“Tell me about it.” I never had any trouble with my one-night rule before now. “But you’re all I can think about. So let’s just see where it goes. We could start right now. Come here and kiss me hello.”
She doesn’t move.
“Look.” I chuckle. “I’m sorry to confuse you. And I know my track record sucks. But I think you like me, too. So kiss me, or tell me I’m wrong.”
Heidi tips her head to the side and considers me. But she doesn’t move.
I snap my fingers, just to be a dick. “I’m waiting.” There’s a part of me that’s still fighting to keep my distance. But that part is quickly overruled as Heidi stands up straighter and looks me dead in the eye. She wants this, but she’s afraid to trust it, too.
Although it’s torture, I stay where I am and wait. But when she moves forward, I can no longer control my expression. I give her a hungry, desperate look as she steps into my personal space.
“Good girl,” I whisper, as my hands pull her body against mine, the way I’ve dreamed of doing these past few days. My soul exhales as I take her into my arms.
But I don’t kiss her yet. It has to be her choice.
Slowly, she takes my face in both her hands, rises up on her tiptoes, and brushes her lips over mine.
I make a low, needy noise. But she sets herself back down on her heels and releases me. “That’s all I get?”
“What do you want?”
“You,” I grunt. “Naked. Often.”
“I’m still thinking,” she says at close range, as her fresh, citrus scent overwhelms me. “You were a one-night stand. I don’t know how to wrap my head around this.”
“Why don’t you wrap some other things around me while you think about it? Just try me out.”
“Like a free sample?” She squints at me.