. . . . . . .
When the waitress brought the check to the table, Nik handed the waitress her credit card.
“This one is on me. I’m still mad at you for paying for our drinks from Saturday. I owed you.”
He pursed his mouth and considered.
“Okay, fine, but you get all of the leftovers. Deal?”
He said that like it was a punishment. Which, considering how spicy some of their leftovers were . . . he might be correct about that.
“Deal. I can have them for lunch tomorrow, in between all of the cupcakes.”
As they walked to her car, he elbowed her.
“Yes?” she said, in answer to his look.
“I know you’re pretty nervous about all of the Fisher stuff. Do you want me to follow you home just to make sure everything is okay? I mean, I’m sure everything is fine, I just thought I’d—”
“Yeah,” she said. “That would be great.”
Why had she agreed to this so quickly, she wondered on the short drive to her house. She usually hated it when men got all protective about her safety, like she was some delicate flower who didn’t know how to protect herself.
But that hadn’t been what Carlos had done, and she’d appreciated it. After her panic from this afternoon, it would be nice to have backup for those thirty seconds it took for her to walk through her apartment. Plus, not to be shallow, but the way Carlos’s T-shirt clung to his biceps . . . she was pretty sure Carlos could take Fisher down easily.
But wait a second. Was she really going to get some dude she hardly knew to do a walk-through of her apartment just because she got a few nasty text messages? That was ridiculous. She was a grown woman; she’d lived on her own for years; she could take care of herself. She should text him right now and tell him that she was fine and didn’t need his help.
Yeah, she’d do that. She reached in her pocket for her phone. When she got home, she’d text her girlfriends and tell them how stupid she’d almost been.
Well, she’d text her girlfriends if she was still around to text them.
She could hear Courtney’s voice in her head.
What do you have to lose here? Are you really worried about looking silly in front of a man you barely know? Who cares?
She cared, damn it.
But her friends would kill her if she sent Carlos away and anything happened to her.
Okay, fine. She put her phone back in her pocket.
She parked in the lot behind her apartment building and met Carlos on the front steps.
“Thanks for coming inside with me. I feel like an idiot,” she said as she unlocked the door.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’m a pretty impressive dude; people feel like idiots around me all the time. I’m used to it.”
Despite her rising anxiety, she laughed as they walked up the stairs to her second-floor apartment.
“Did he have a key?” Carlos asked in a low voice.
Nik sighed and stopped on the stairs.
“I never gave him one, but I left my keys around all the time, and it’s easy to get keys copied. And there was one time when I forgot my keys at his house for a whole weekend and had to get my set of extra keys back from Dana. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but . . . I’m paranoid now, I guess.”
Carlos put his hand on her shoulder, and she relaxed against it.
“Are you ready to go inside? Or do you need a minute?”
She pulled away from him. She never should have done this, but she had no choice now.
“No, no, I’m fine. Let’s go in.”
He took the key out of her hand and unlocked the door. She could have done that herself, but okay. He pushed it open slowly. Why had she turned off all of the lights before she left her house? Energy-saving nonsense. Now she felt like one of those women in horror movies. One of the ones who got killed in the first fifteen minutes.
Wait, no. Those women never had the sense to get someone else to come with them when they had a bad feeling.
Carlos pushed the door wide open and stepped through it in front of her.
“If the demon gets me, tell my mother I loved her.”
Apparently they watched the same kind of movies.
She followed close at his heels as he walked into the living room and flicked on the lights. Everything looked the same as when she’d left it two hours before: her laptop on the desk against her big bay window, her remote on the floor by her coffee table, her T-shirt and—oops—bra on the top of the couch where she’d thrown them off after getting Carlos’s text. She saw a smile around his eyes when he turned in that direction, but he didn’t let it reach his mouth.
“Is there anywhere to hide in this room?” he asked her under his breath. She shook her head.
She started to walk down the hallway that led to her bedroom, but he put his hand on her shoulder to stop her.
“Let me go first.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. She stared daggers into his back as she followed him down the hallway. Just because she’d accepted his offer to make sure Fisher wasn’t around didn’t mean she was okay with him ordering her around in her own apartment. This had been a terrible idea.
When she walked into her bedroom, he’d already flung open the closet doors and was running his hands through the crowded coat side of her closet. He turned around well after she was satisfied that there was no one hiding among them.
“Are all of these coats . . . yours?” he asked her. “You do realize you live in Los Angeles, right?”
“Shut up. It gets cold here sometimes. And I go to New York at least once or twice a year.”
He shook his head, with a smile in his eyes.
“Mmm, yeah, that totally means you need twenty coats, absolutely.”
She tried not to grin back at him and failed.
He stepped around to the far side of her bed, then went into the hallway and threw open the hall closet. She supposed that Fisher could have hidden in there, if he’d been hiding his contortionist talents from her. He glanced at the shelves full of extra bedding, towels, and boxes of sparkling water, and closed the door without a word. He stepped into the bathroom, and she heard the shower curtain swish across the rod.
“All clear in the bathroom, too. Anywhere else?”
She walked down the hall to the kitchen, simultaneously so relieved she was ready to collapse and feeling so stupid she wanted to hide among all the coats in her closet.
“I mean, I suppose if someone was really trying, they could hide in the refrigerator, or under the couch, but I somehow doubt that. I think we’re all clear.” She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of wine. “I’m sorry for dragging you along on this wild goose chase. I don’t know what got into me. Wine?” She glanced over at him, standing in her living room, and saw him peer under the couch. She smiled and poured two glasses.
“Here.” She handed him a glass and sat down on the couch. “Thank you. I’m not usually . . .” She shook her head. “Anyway, thank you. I hope you’re not too much of a man’s man to drink rosé.”
He sat down next to her and picked up the wineglass.
“No such thing.” He took a sip of the wine and glanced over at her. “You should get your locks changed.”
Okay, that was enough telling her what to do.
“I know I should get my locks changed; I’m not an idiot,” she said.
He put his glass down.
“Hey, I’m sorry. Of course you aren’t. I didn’t mean to suggest that.” He looked at her, then looked away. “I’m used to taking care of all of the women in my family, so I have the tendency to go overboard sometimes. I didn’t mean to tell you what to do.”
She picked up his wineglass and handed it to him.
“It’s okay, really. I didn’t mean to snap at you.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t usually give in to fits of paranoia like this, and I hate it. Sorry for taking it out on you.”
He smiled at her and patted her thigh. She hated herself for wanting his hand to linger there a lot longer than it did.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of. Every woman needs a big strong man to come and protect her; that’s not your fault. It’s just because you’re naturally weak and helpless, just by virtue of, you know, being a woman and all. You needed a man like me to do the hard work of looking under your bed. I understand that you aren’t capable of stuff like that.”
She smacked his arm.
“You asshole.” She was laughing so hard she had to put her wineglass down. “You had me going for at least five or six seconds there! You were so close to me throwing this wine in your face and literally kicking you out of my apartment.”
Carlos laughed and relaxed against the couch cushions. He’d been a little worried that she’d get furious at him for that, but he also thought it might break some of the tension. One of the things that he already liked so much about Nik was how independent she was; he should have known that telling her what to do would piss her off. Angela had gotten mad at him just a few weeks ago for taking her car in to get serviced; she’d said she was fully capable of doing it for herself. He’d told her it wasn’t that he didn’t think she was capable of it, it’s just that he’d felt like it was his job to do it. That hadn’t made her less mad.
She waved at his wineglass.
“Drink, drink, I promise I won’t knock the glass all over you.”
He took another sip. He usually made fun of Angela for drinking rosé. She could definitely never find out that he drank it with Nik and liked it.
“But really, don’t feel bad,” he said. “It’s totally normal to freak out about stuff like this. And my stint in the ER during my residency really opened my eyes to how often this stuff happens to women. I mean, fine, he wasn’t here and you felt silly that you had me come up, no big deal. But too many women ignore those feelings or don’t want to feel silly, and I’ve seen some of the aftermaths. Feeling silly is definitely better.”
She took another sip of her wine and leaned back. When she’d sat down on the couch, she’d sat down right in the middle, so he’d had no choice but to sit right next to her. They were so close they were almost touching.
“I almost called you on the way here and told you I didn’t need you, but I knew my friends would have yelled at me and told me not to be a fool.” She paused. “I think I’ve given other people similar advice, now that I think about it. It’s always easier to give people advice than it is to take it yourself.”
Should he put his arm around her? He really wanted to, but she’d just had a dramatic breakup a few days ago, and she might smack him and order him out of her house. But she was curled up on the couch next to him like that, all cozy with her wine; this seemed like a prime situation for making a move, right?
“Speaking of giving advice,” she said, “you said that you spend a lot of time giving advice to teenagers, and I’m totally curious about your job. What does it mean, to be the assistant director of a teen clinic?”
Okay, it seemed like she just wanted to talk, as they sat here shoulder to shoulder in the dim lighting on her couch while holding glasses of wine. Great.
“Excellent question, and one that I’m still kind of figuring out the answer to. I’ve only been doing it for about six months, but I love it so far. Basically, all of the health care of the kids that the medical center serves—who are in the twelve to nineteen age group—is routed through our clinic. The goal is to recognize that teens are in a special place, both mentally and physically, and to serve their needs as best as we can.”
“I wish my doctor’s office had had a teen clinic when I was a kid,” she said. “I always remember feeling so grumpy about still going to a pediatrician when I was a teenager, surrounded by babies and toddlers.”
She took another sip of wine and picked a piece of lint off of his shoulder. He felt lulled by her touch, the warm night air, by her presence.
And also probably the wine.
She stood up to get the bottle of wine from the fridge and brought it back over to the couch.
“You said you’d only been there for six months—where were you before that?”
She tipped the wine bottle toward his glass and raised her eyebrows at him. He nodded. Was she trying to get him to linger? Had the whole “I’m afraid of my ex” thing just been bullshit to get him to come up to her apartment? Would he care if that was the case? He grinned to himself. Would he care if a hot girl made up a story about being scared of her ex-boyfriend to get him up to her apartment? Hell no, he would not care.
“I was at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital on the Westside. I liked working there a lot, but this job is different from what I’d been doing there, and it’s a lot of fun. Plus, it was great to come back to the Eastside and be closer to my family.”
But wait. He didn’t know this girl that well, but from his few interactions with her, she seemed pretty forthright and honest, almost to a fault. He didn’t really think she’d make up a story if she wanted him in her apartment. She would just ask him if he wanted to come upstairs.
Plus, if someone was pretending to be scared, they would have acted much more scared than she did when they walked in. She hadn’t been clingy or crying or any of that stuff. She’d just looked tense and angry. And she even hadn’t hinted for him to come over; he’d been the one to offer.
“I spend so much time with L.A. people who are from somewhere else; it’s always fun to meet a real local,” she said. “Do you have a big family?”
He rested his hand on the couch, right by, but not on, her knee.
“Yes and no—it’s a big extended family, but Angie’s my only sibling. But we grew up right around the corner from my mom’s sister, Tia Eva, and her daughter, my cousin Jessica, who is basically like a sister to me. She’s the one I told you about at the bar who I got the ‘Is that you?’ idea from.” He smiled. “That’s another reason why this was a good time to move back to the Eastside; Jessie’s pregnant now with her first kid, and my whole family is over the moon.”
She tucked her hair behind her ears and looked up at him. He liked the way she concentrated on him when he was talking, like she was really listening to what he had to say.
He also liked the way the neckline of her shirt kept dipping lower and lower. He had to force himself to not let his eyes linger for too long on her cleavage.
“Are you over the moon about the baby, too?”
Her shirt dipped off one shoulder. He really wanted to reach over and push it off all the way. It took him a minute to remember what she’d asked him. Right, right, Jessie’s baby.
“Oh yeah, definitely. You’d think that after being a pediatrician for years now I’d think babies are a dime a dozen, but I can’t wait until Jessie has hers. Not that I’m ready in the least to have one of my own, but that’s what’s going to make Jessie’s so fun. Being an uncle is going to be great. All of the fun and none of the responsibility.” He laughed. “Plus, this way, my mom will get off my ass about giving her grandbabies because she’ll have Jessie’s baby to hang out with.”
She looked at him sideways.
“Or, she’ll be on your ass even more because she’ll be so excited about the one baby that she’ll want more.”
He held his finger up to her lips.
“Shhhhh, don’t say that. She knows it’s going to be a long time before that happens. I have too many other people to take care of right now. I’m just glad that I’m back on the Eastside. I can be closer when the baby is born, as well as for things like killing spiders—real and imaginary—late at night for Angela.”
She took the last sip of her wine and smiled at him.
“She’s lucky she has you. I was lucky that I had you around tonight, too.” She sat up straight and put her feet on the floor. “Do you have to be at work super early in the morning? It’s getting late.”
That sure sounded like his cue to go. Damn it. He looked at his watch and barely noticed what it said.
“It’s getting pretty close to my bedtime.” He put his hand on her arm. “Are you going to be okay tonight?”
Her eyes shot to the door, but she nodded anyway.
“Of course. I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me.”
He’d been on the point of standing up. Instead, he settled back down on the couch.
“Well, when you say it like that, I’m worried about you. Do you want me to . . .” He was going to say, “Do you want me to stay?” but that sounded like he was inviting himself into her bed. And while he’d love to get an invitation there, he didn’t want to look like even more of an asshole than he already had tonight. “Do you want me to stay until one of your friends can get here?”
“I feel ridiculous even thinking about doing that, but . . . maybe. Courtney has to be up at the crack of dawn, so I don’t want to call her. I can call Dana, though. I don’t think she’s filming tomorrow. Oh God, that reminds me! Instagram!” She pulled her phone out of her pocket.
He had no idea what the hell that meant in this context.
“Instagram?” he asked.
“Fisher Instagrams his whole life, for ‘branding’ and his fans or whatever. If he’s updated in the last few hours or so, at least I’ll know what he’s up to.”
She typed something into the search bar on her phone while she talked.
“I blocked him on everything, so he can’t contact me, but if I’m logged out, I can still see . . . oh my God, Carlos. Look at this! He’s in Vegas!”
She turned her phone around so he could see the video of Fisher dancing terribly at some club. He let out a shout of laughter.
“Wow.” He scooted closer to her so they could both watch. My God, she smelled good. He wanted to stay this close to her on the couch for a long time. “Is this guy for real? Play it again.”
She played his video four or five more times, and they laughed harder every time.
“This is almost as good as the middle-finger ring picture,” she said, still laughing.
He raised his eyebrows at her.
“What middle-finger ring picture?”
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I didn’t show you. You and Angela left before we looked at his texts. Look at this picture he sent me.”
She scrolled through her phone and pulled up a photo of a blurry middle finger with a blue engagement ring on it. He recoiled.
“Oh my God. He seriously texted you this?”
As she’d scrolled to the photo, he’d seen flashes of a few of the texts Fisher had sent her after the proposal. That fucking bastard.
“I know. I know.” She was still looking at the photo, and not at him. “You don’t have to say anything. I have terrible judgment in men; we all know that now, but this is really incredible, right?”
He stood up. He was glad for her that Fisher was out of town, but now he had no more excuses to stay here.
“It’s so incredible that I need to go home now to process that. And also because I have to be up, awake, and ready for patients at eight thirty a.m. tomorrow.”
She walked him to the door.
“Sorry for keeping you up, and thanks again.”
She reached out to hug him, and he pulled her in tight. Her body nestled up against his felt so good. He wanted to hold on for much longer and forced himself to let go.
“Glad I could be here. Good night. And if you want to stack a chair behind that door after I leave, feel free. No one will know about it but you.”
She laughed and reached up to kiss him on the cheek.
“I just might do that, thanks.”