“Ye-ah.” The corners of his eyes were creased in confusion.
He had a right to be confused. I’d done my best to keep my Mrs. Lopez jealousy to myself. I had no idea what went on behind that closed door when Soren visited. I might have paused in front of it a few times to listen in, and I’d certainly never heard any sounds that would lead me to the conclusion he was engaged in manual labor. Physical exertion . . . that was trickier to pin down.
“Why the Mrs. Lopez interrogation all of a sudden?” Soren helped me down the last few stairs before shoving open the building door.
“No reason. It just seems weird that for someone who’s so strapped for time would choose to spend so much of it tending to a woman’s plumbing.”
Soren rubbed his mouth, his eyes smiling. “What warm-blooded guy wouldn’t want to spend his free time tending to a woman’s plumbing?”
My cheeks flamed when I realized how I’d worded it; they heated even more when I replayed his response in my head. What did he mean by that? Was he getting it on with Mrs. Lopez? Was he really just doing home improvement when he visited her . . . or was he doing her?
I had no reason to believe he was. But I didn’t have any reason to believe he wasn’t.
Soren stepped off the curb to hail the first cab that came speeding down the road. As it pulled over, I scrolled through my phone to find Ellis’s address to give to the driver. Soren helped me inside, making sure not to step on my dress, before sliding in beside me and slamming the door.
When I listed off the address, Soren let out a low whistle. “Never thought I’d make it to that part of town in my lifetime.”
“No? Even with your dreams of playing professional ball?”
“I have dreams of playing pro ball, not dreams of living in the biggest house money can buy.” Soren shifted closer to me, the length of his body running down the span of mine. He’d put on cologne. I could smell it in the confines of the taxi and damn if it didn’t feel like it was luring me in.
“You don’t want a big house?”
“What do I need a big house for?”
I thought about that for a minute. I supposed a person really only needed a big house if they were planning on having a big family. Even then, I’d seen a dozen people share a one-thousand-square-foot space harmoniously.
“Okay, so maybe not a big house, but one of those expensive, flashy cars, right? The kind footballs players roll up to clubs in, shiny wheels, Italian makes, zero-to-sixty in two seconds or something?”
Soren gave me a funny look. “I’ve never even gotten my license. I’m a big city, public transportation kind of guy.”
“What if you get drafted to some team in a place that doesn’t have the same kind of public transportation? Like, I don’t know, Texas? What are you going to do then? Hire a full-time cab driver to haul your butt around?” I twisted in my seat so I was facing him, which wasn’t the best idea.
In the darkness of the cab, fractals of light cutting across him as we drove, he looked so good, smelled so good . . . to take a term from his book, he was the epitome of Hayden-Nip. Driving me totally out-of-my-mind wild.
I scooted toward the door and cranked the window down an inch.
“If that happens, then I’ll get my license, buy a car, and haul my own butt around. Thanks for checking.”
“Yeah, but it’ll be one of those flashy, expensive foreign ones right?”
His face drew up like he was considering it for the first time ever. “Nah. I’ll probably just get one of those hybrids. The ones that get crazy good gas mileage.”
“A hybrid?” The image of him squeezing into one of those little cars drew a smile.
“They’re good for the environment, too.”
“Now you’re an environmentalist?”
“‘Saving the ozone, one hybrid at a time.’ That’ll be my bumper sticker. Well, that, and another that says ‘My Carbon Footprint is Bigger Than Yours.’ You know, just to keep them guessing.”
I elbowed him. “You’re such a child.”
“Thank you.”
The rest of the drive passed in the same way—the two of us bantering, teasing, or laughing about something. I’d never known another person like Soren. I’d never experienced a relationship like the one we’d formed. We had an intimacy that came naturally, a simpleness that took me back to childhood. I felt good when I was with him. I felt a hundred other things too, but at the core of it all, I felt good. Happy. Content.
That was perhaps what scared me more than my physical attraction to him. The emotional attraction was dangerous. It couldn’t be so easily severed or excused away. Soren Decker was one fine-looking man, but my soul craved him more than my body did.
“Holy snikkies.” Soren stretched over me to look through my window as we pulled up to Ellis’s home. Which was more estate than home. “Think this guy’s compensating for something?”
“I’d rather not think about my agent’s gender-identifying body part, thank you very much.”
Soren huffed, still gaping out the window. “Yeah, can’t blame you. Especially since it must be the size of a mustard seed judging the size of his manor.”
When the driver stopped, Soren came around to open my door. I was suddenly nervous. I hadn’t been expecting that. Why? Nervous because of spending the evening with Soren? On the closest thing to a date we’d been on? Nervous because I was at Ellis’s place and expected to mingle with the social elite of the city?
Nervous because of something else? Because of something I wanted to get off my chest, even though it felt like it might rip me open in the process?
When I opened my clutch to pay the driver, Soren beat me to it. “Thanks for the lift.” Then he held his elbow out for me, waiting.
“I was planning on paying for the cab,” I said, lacing my arm through his.
He tucked my arm close to his side, which pulled me close against him. “So was I.”
“But I’m the one who invited you. You did me the favor.”
“Exactly. You invited me.” His shoulder rose as we moved toward the front doors. “You did me the favor.”
“By inviting you to some black-tie party with a bunch of people you don’t know?”
His head stayed forward, but he looked at me from the corners of his eyes. “By inviting me to spend it with you.”
“The dress. You’re saying that because of the dress, right?”
“You. I’m saying it because of you.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “And maybe because of the dress too.”
My free arm lifted. “I knew it.”
“It’s a damn fine dress.” He leaned in like he was about to tell me a secret. “But only because of the woman wearing it.”
My heart stalled, but before I could figure out what he meant by that, or ask him, a man was there at the front door to greet us with a tray of champagne and instructions to where the party was being held.
“Ballroom?” Soren whispered to me. “This boss of yours has a ballroom?”