“Oh, my washer is on the fritz and Connor won’t let me bring in a repairman because apparently they all moonlight as assassins, so I had to use the basement laundry. That was superfun. I got to fold my granny panties in front of Connor.” And she’d ended up folding his sleek boxers alongside her clothes. She’d told herself she’d taken his little pile of clothes with hers because it only made sense to save water and energy. It wasn’t some deep-seated cavewoman need to ensure her man wasn’t forced to wear clothes he’d picked up off the cave floor and sniffed.
“You could have used mine. Next time tell Connor he can scan my apartment for assassins. Then you can do your laundry and we can gossip and drink. I’m dying to know what’s going on with Hottie McHotPants, and I can’t wait a minute longer. He is looking fine, by the way.”
He’d looked a little mad when she’d waved him off to walk Lincoln, but she wasn’t sure she felt comfortable talking about what she needed to say with him anywhere in the vicinity.
She felt his eyes on her, watching as always. When she looked up and saw him circling back around with her dog, she felt . . . comfortable. She wouldn’t have imagined it, but his presence seemed to soothe her as though nothing bad could happen as long as he was around. Everywhere she went, she could feel his gaze on her and hear those words in her head.
I want you.
She’d told herself to be professional, but it wasn’t working. She dreamed about him at night, like he’d managed to plant a seed in her head with his offer to let her explore their chemistry, and it had grown and shoved out all other thoughts.
She dreamed about what would have happened if that elevator door had never opened. She fantasized about him shoving her against the wall and pushing her skirt up and getting between her legs.
“He is looking well. We’ve come to a meeting of minds.” Well, they had come to a sort of agreement. She did her job and he did his. She cooked twice a day, but she was starting to wonder if Connor wasn’t a little like Lincoln. Lack of meat had made him crabby. He ate, but it was grudgingly.
How could anything ever work between them?
“What is that supposed to mean?” Kiki asked with a scowl. “A meeting of minds? That’s not the part of him you should be meeting up with.”
“It means that we understand we’re opposites who have to work together, so we’re keeping necessary space between us.” Except he’d sat right next to her the night before. He’d plopped down on the couch as she’d watched the news, and their hips had touched. She’d meant to mention it to him, meant to move over, but then he’d looked so comfy that she hadn’t wanted to move or disturb him. But then she’d kind of leaned closer. Only the pinging of the oven had stopped her from melting against him.
“Why?” Kiki rolled her eyes. “God, you’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Look, I get that you have your convictions and you think that one day your vegan prince is going to come, but you have to see that it’s silly to expect a man to check every item off your list.”
That made her sound like a complete idiot. “I am not trying to check off some list.”
“Really? You won’t explore anything between you and Connor because Niall the Great meets all your criteria.”
“Niall the Great?”
“It’s what I call him. Tom calls him Niall the Douche. He’s, like, your perfect guy. Same political convictions, rabid vegan. Hell, he works for Greenpeace.”
“He’s also married.”
Kiki’s jaw dropped. “What?”
It wasn’t right or fair, but she’d kind of been okay with Connor’s edicts since they’d kept her from having to tell Kiki how badly she’d screwed up. “He’s married. I bet he lied about a bunch of other stuff, too. Likely, he never worked for Greenpeace. He’s probably off somewhere clubbing seals as we speak.”
“Oh, honey. How did you find out?”
“Connor. He made Niall tell me. It was awful.” She’d cried all evening and then slept like a baby because Connor had been there with her. Now she couldn’t sleep at all. She got up in the middle of the night for water just so she could make sure he was still there, as if his mere presence reassured her.
“I knew there was something wrong with that douche bag. You can’t just meet someone online and expect to really get to know them.”
“We talked for hours. I thought it was better that way because we could get to know each other’s mind before getting the bodies involved.” She knew exactly what Kiki was going to say. She was naive.
“You’re so naive, sweetie. Bodies are always involved. And a person doesn’t show you who they really are on the Internet. You have to stop trying to find your perfect vegan lover and find the right one.”
That wasn’t exactly fair. “I’ve dated plenty of omnivores. They’re the ones who can’t bend for me.”
Kiki sat back on the bench as though settling in for a nice long argument. “So Connor’s been eating takeout every night?”
She’d been a little surprised when he sat down with her for dinner that first night after their fight. He’d just taken his spot across from her and asked where his plate was. She’d set another place and then they’d found a nice routine. “No. He eats what I cook, but he did buy booze. It’s nonorganic and I’m fairly certain it wouldn’t pass the fair trade test.”
Kiki pointed at her. “There. Right there. Not everyone has the same values you do, hon. This is what you do to every single person who gets close to you. I love you, but I’m constantly waiting for you to figure out that I’m not good enough.”
Lara shook her head, horrified that she felt that way. “That’s not true. I would never think that way. I know I talk politics a lot, but I don’t expect everyone to do what I say.”
Kiki suddenly had tears in her eyes. “I don’t know. I’ve done things you wouldn’t approve of.”
What was Kiki hiding? She always seemed so upbeat. Was she really so close-minded that her best friend didn’t feel as if she could talk to her? “I might not approve, but I would still love you. Kiki, people do stupid stuff all the time. God, I run a tabloid. I have no room to judge. I would just try to help you.”
“But you are judging. You’re judging Connor without really giving him a shot. He’s trying.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he let you send him off with the dog and he’s been eating vegan. Sweetie, a man like that doesn’t suffer silently. He goes and does what he wants unless he wants something else more. I think you’re the something he wants more. A man like Connor doesn’t come around very often. You shouldn’t let him slip through your fingers.”
“We haven’t known each other for very long. I don’t really know if my fingers want him yet.” She was lying, but she just wasn’t ready to admit the truth.
“So? You knew Tom for years before you slept with him, and how did that work out?”
Kiki had several very good points. None of them actually solved the real problem. “I’m scared. After what happened with Niall, I’m scared that Connor is playing me to get me to do what he wants or to make his job easier . . . I don’t know. I just don’t trust how I feel about him.”
“You’ve been out of the game way too long. You know, I think you stuck it out with Tom those last two years you were together. You should have just gotten out. You weren’t happy with him.”
She hadn’t been. Tom had gotten possessive. He’d made demands on her time that didn’t make sense. It all culminated in the nastiest fight of her life and a broken engagement. They’d gotten back to being friends, but she was still a little wary. Tom had changed when they started having sex. They were much better as friends. What if she had that effect on Connor, too? Although it wasn’t like she and Connor had a real friendship to fall back on. On the other hand, that meant she didn’t have as much to lose. “It was comfortable. Well, it was and it wasn’t.”
“You didn’t want to admit you’d made a mistake. You thought Tom chec
ked off all your boxes. He was politically in the right place. He was smart, attractive, supportive.”
“He lied about being a vegan.” Tom had claimed to convert when she’d done it. They were in college and he’d been right beside her. He’d shoved it in her face when they’d broken up, telling her he’d never believed in any of it and had only done it to get her into bed.
“Honey, very few people can live that way.”