He smiled at her. “I live in a big city. You live in DC.”
Whatever the hell that meant. Wren couldn’t really ferret the meaning out, but he thought it was some sort of New York versus DC battle that only Tyler seemed to be playing.
“Look, I’ll call you later.” She reached out to touch the side of Tyler’s arm. “I have to get to work and there are a few things we need to do before that.”
Tyler’s gaze switched from her to Wren and back again. “Maybe we can have dinner this weekend?”
She nodded. “Sounds good.”
Not to him. Wren thought that sounded pretty fucking terrible. “Does it?”
She ignored the comment as she ushered Tyler to the door and waved goodbye. “Talk to you soon.”
Then she turned on Wren.
“That glare could melt steel.” He might not be great with people, but he knew that was not the expression of a happy woman.
“Really?” That’s all she said.
He got the point. “What? I let him live.”
She let out a lingering sigh as she walked around him and grabbed a duffel bag out of the hall closet. “You could have been nicer.”
“Not really.” He thought he was rather controlled compared to what he wanted to do to Tyler. The guy had a grating personality. Fine on the outside. Supportive family. Right schools. Big job. But there was something. A chill that moved underneath that made Wren doubt the sincerity of anything the guy said.
She glared at him again, this time from over her shoulder. “Levi Wren.”
Fine. He would let it drop. After all, he was an old friend of hers and . . . nope. He couldn’t do it. “Tyler is entitled and annoying.”
“You don’t even know him.”
“I’m familiar with the type.” Wren noticed she didn’t exactly argue with that point. He should have let the topic drop, but there was one last thing he needed to know as he followed her to the bedroom closet. “You’re not actually going on a date with him, are you?”
She dumped the bag on the bed and started filling it. Put enough clothes in for about two days. “Who said anything about a date?”
Wren wanted to dump all of her clothes in there but refrained. “He did.”
She sat down on the bed and stared up at him. “He said dinner.”
“We’ve had dinner.”
She frowned. “Did we actually eat that Chinese takeout the other night?”
As if that were the point. “And we’ve had sex. Have you had sex with Tyler?”
“I think you’re regressing. You sound like you’re twelve.”
She wasn’t wrong, but he pushed ahead anyway. “Probably true but, for the record, getting naked means we’re seeing each other.”
Silence screeched through the room after that. Her mouth dropped open and Wren could almost hear her thinking, which was good because his mind had gone blank. He’d said words he never intended to say. He felt them to his soul, but that didn’t mean he meant to spill like that.
“Seeing each other?” She hesitated between each word.
Shit. Yeah, forget the plane. Now he’d really messed up. That comment had been an overreach. It also shook him that he even thought it, let alone said it out loud.
“I’m not sure what that means to you, but I’m wondering if I get a say in what we are and what we’re doing,” she said in a monotone voice.
He wasn’t sure how to respond, so he went with honest. “Unfortunately.”
One of her eyebrows lifted. “You’d rather order me?”
This was not going well. “Is that option open to me?”
She stood up. Something that looked suspiciously like a smile started to form on her lips. “You, Mr. Loner. The big brooding guy who values his privacy so much that no one even knows who you really are. You want us to date?”
Now it was his turn to be knocked speechless. “Did I use that word?”
“I picked it. Now, answer the question.”
She’d actually backed him into a wall physically . . . hell, in every way possible. He didn’t know when it happened, but there he stood, pushed against the doorway with his one arm tangled in the clothes on one side of her closet, with her right there.
“Admittedly, I don’t sound like much of a catch in your description.” Any smart woman would run. He kept waiting for her to do just that.
“I’m surprised you want to put a label on what we’re doing.”
He wasn’t sure he was the one who did that, but bringing that up struck him like a bad idea. “Anything I say now will sound dirty.”
“Be serious.”
“I was. Was being honest, too.” This part he was very clear on. “I don’t like the idea of you seeing anyone else.”
“And in exchange you’ll say we’re dating.”
Damn, she almost stood on top of him now. “The direction of this conversation has me nervous.”
“I refuse to believe you actually get nervous.”
When she said things like that he wondered if she knew him at all. Either that or he was a much better actor than he thought. “Again, I am human.”
“You seemed pretty human last night.”