“This is the best you’ve got?” Reid demanded, hands fisted on his hips as he looked around. “It’s too small. Selena…”
“Don’t say it!” she snapped, then was shocked that she’d spoken so firmly to the man. He was her boss, after all.
The woman hovered awkwardly by the doorway. “We have a fitness area, pool, and a fire pit where the residents gather on Friday nights for happy hour. Everyone brings their own drinks and gets to know one another.”
“That sounds nice.”
“Sounds cheesy.”
Selena swung around, her mouth hanging open. “What’s cheesy about people getting to know their neighbors?”
He moved closer. “First of all, you work hard all week. I’ve seen you over the past few days. You’re exhausted every night. And secondly, Friday nights sound like a hookup time. I don’t like it.”
She thought about that for a moment and acknowledged that he might be right. Then again, he might be wrong. “I don’t know. It sounds pretty nice. I come from an area where I never knew the person who lived across the hall from me. Never even saw them enter their apartment although I know someone lived there because there was occasionally music coming through the door. So, I think it might be nice to get to know my neighbors.”
He moved closer, towering over her and his expression darkened. “You don’t need to do it in a singles environment.”
Selena agreed, but she was just being stubborn now. “And what if I want to meet single men?” she challenged him.
His eyes narrowed even more. “If you want to date someone then…” he stopped short, not finishing his sentence. Instead, he looked over at the receptionist. “She doesn’t want the apartment,” he announced, then took Selena’s elbow, ushering her out of the apartment.
Reid was livid, so angry with Selena and the world that he felt like his head was going to explode. Opening the Jeep’s passenger side door, he waited for her to get in. “You can’t really want to meet a bunch of sleazy, single men.”
She humphed a bit, but he relaxed when she slid onto the seat. “I might.”
He couldn’t stop the laugh, because he knew her well enough to know that she was just talking out of her ear now. “No, you don’t. And if you want to date, I’ll take you out.”
With that, he closed the door and walked around the car.
He took a moment to wonder what the hell he’d just said. Selena was a goddess, no doubt about that, but she was sweet and nice. Completely unlike the women he normally dated. She was the kind of woman that a guy married. Not the kind that had relationships like what he normally had with women.
Hell, he couldn’t even call his interactions with women “relationships”. They were mutually satisfying liaisons that ended when he grew bored. Granted, most of the women he met and took out to the various social functions around town were a bit air headed. They looked nice, smelled nice, and knew the score. They were fully aware that whatever they did together would not end in anything that could be defined as a relationship and he preferred his affairs exactly that way.
So why was he getting all bent out of shape at the idea of Selena finding a guy that might give her what she most likely needed? She was a marriage and kids, two cats and a dog kind of woman. She wasn’t the fool-around-with kind of female. She was hearts and roses. She’d probably expect her man to take her out for Valentine’s Day dinners and snuggle on the couch watching a movie on the weekends.
The idea…well, it used to make his skin crawl but… he could imagine that with Selena. She was stunningly gorgeous with an incredible body. Definitely more toned than the other women of his acquaintance. From what he’d seen from the women he’d taken out to dinner, they starved themselves. Selena’s legs…those muscles could only come from exercise, and hard exercise at that.
No, Selena definitely wasn’t his type. But that didn’t mean he wanted her to find some jerk who would have sex with her on a Friday night after happy hour and forget her name when he saw her poolside on Saturday.
How disgusting was that?!