Ryan (Mallick Brothers 2)

"Nice place," I offered, moving over into her kitchen space that was an exact replica of mine and putting the glasses down. I made quick work of the cork and set the bottle to breathe before looking at her again, finding her a few feet inside the door, but still half the apartment away. "I really like the painting," I told her truthfully.

She gave me a smile then, relieved. "I saw that other one you had delivered and I saw this one and thought it was a similar style."

"Aspen."

"Sorry?"

"The painting I have. That's what it's called."

She nodded at that. "Moody blue," she said, moving to stand at the other side of the island. "That's the one I got you."

I nodded at that, looking over to the small Christmas tree in the corner of her apartment, covered in carefully chosen gold and white ornaments. "How was your Christmas?"

"Quiet. Peaceful. The usual. Yours?"

"Wild. Loud. The usual," I offered, leaving out that a huge topic of conversation had been her. "So, have any cookies to go with this?" I asked and she beamed as she moved into the kitchen, squeezing past me without hesitation to get them out of a plastic container she had on her counter.

"Oatmeal, chocolate chip, chocolate chunk, peanut butter, coconut, and chruscikis."

"What the hell is a chrusciki?" I asked and she put down the container and reached inside for a little bowtie thing covered in powdered sugar.

"Polish cookies. Deep fried and horrible for you, but the best things ever."

"You had me at horrible for me," I said, deciding against reaching into the container for my own and reaching out to take the one from her hand, my fingers brushing hers in the process. I watched her face, seeing the way her lips parted infinitesimally at the contact before I put the cookie in my mouth.

"Good?" she asked when I started nodding.

"Fuck yeah. I need to give my housekeeper this recipe. Or my mother. Whoever will make them for me more often."

"Anytime I make them I will drop some off outside your door," she suggested, cheeks a little pink and it was right then that I realized she hadn't had her uncle drop off the gift to me like I had just assumed. She had done it herself. She had willingly stepped outside of her apartment. Just to give me a Christmas present.

That sounded a fuckuva lot like progress to me.

"You know, you're free to wait until you know I'm home to drop shit off."

"I don't want to, ah, interrupt anything."

"Like my busy night on the couch answering work emails?" I asked with a smirk.

"No, I meant if maybe you had... company."

Women.

She didn't want to interrupt if I had company of the female variety.

And I swear to fuck I was seconds away from claiming that would never happen just so her pretty little face would come to my door. But fact of the matter was, no matter her little strides, I couldn't see her all of a sudden being just a fully functioning person ready for a relationship anytime soon. While I might have been patient and wasn't ruled by my goddamn sex drive, I didn't see anything happening with us that way.

But I could hope for a friendship at least.

So I couldn't make promises about never dating. Because while my brothers were right and I was in a dry spell, I knew that eventually, I would find a woman in my travels and take her to bed again.

"Door is always open, honey," I said instead, knowing that it was the best I could give her.

"Okay," she said, giving me a false smile and motioning out to her living room. "Do you want to sit down? A Christmas Story is on. You know... on a loop for the rest of the night because you can never get too much of A Christmas Story."

"Sure," I said, grabbing the glasses and the bottles and moving over to her living area where there was only one place to sit.

And it was a small couch.

And she was going to be plastered to me on it.

Oh, yeah, stepping across the hall had been the best idea I'd had in a long fucking time.SIXDustySo... he was in my apartment.

No reason to completely lose my cool.

Except he was in my apartment in his perfect gray suit and red tie and nice watch and perfectly mussed hair and scruffy face and gorgeous eyes and his sweet smile and his fancy bottle of wine.

That seemed like a pretty legit reason to freak, didn't it?

Since the night of the alarm, I had been up and down. One day, bordering on depressed, the next somewhat hopeful. It was an unusual pattern for me that my therapist had picked up on easily and poked and prodded me about until she finally got answers about it.