I glared at Dominic’s laptop on the bookshelf.
He’d tripped over my power cord two days ago and bent the jack so my laptop wouldn’t charge. The replacement cord he’d bought was supposed to arrive on Tuesday, and he insisted I use his laptop in the meantime.
“Don’t judge me for the enormous amount of porn on there,” he’d said, his face coloring red. “That how I survived here.”
I wanted to remind him who he was talking to, but didn’t. God, he was so adorable when he was embarrassed.
I opened the silver MacBook and launched Skype, not paying any attention to it as I checked my email. So when it rang with an incoming call, I didn’t realize I’d clicked ‘Accept’ until I’d already done it.
The box expanded to fill the screen and a brunette, seated on a couch with a glass of wine in one hand, came into view. She was pretty but kind of wholesome looking, like she had that cute librarian thing going on. Probably ten years older than me.
I felt my eyes grow large as she peered at the screen, stunned to see me seated on the other side of the camera and not her younger brother Dominic.
“Hello,” she said, sounding curious. “Who are you?”
Shit! It was too late to slam the computer shut, she’d already seen me.
“Uh, hi. I’m . . . a friend of Dominic’s. Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
She leaned forward to her screen like she was taking a closer look at me. A faint smile curled on her lips. “You’re American? And pretty. Where the heck did he find you?”
“Naked in a blindfold club” wasn’t going to work, so I skewed the truth. “I’m on a long vacation in Tokyo.” I had to find something to distract. “You’re Meredith?”
Oh, that was the wrong thing to say. Her faint smile got wider. Yes, I knew his sisters’ names. And the smile she gave me now was identical to the one I often got from the man in the room next door.
“How long have you two been together?”
Together? Like a couple? “We’re not dating.”
She blinked her skeptical eyes at me, probably staring at my bedhead and my braless tits beneath my tank top. “It’s, what, eight-thirty in the morning there?”
She had a point, but I didn’t care for her passive-aggressive statement. “And? Just because I fuck him doesn’t automatically make him my boyfriend.”
Shit. Why couldn’t I keep my stupid mouth shut?
She gasped and frowned. “I can think of one thing it makes you.”
My annoyance with the bitch went from zero to sixty in much less than four seconds. “Yup, you’re right, that’s what I am.” I reached forward to slam the computer closed—
“Wait, wait! Crap, sorry.” Her scowl intensified, but I could tell it was at herself. “It’s none of my business. Please, I’m sorry.”
I drew back my hand and shot her a dark look.
“I’m glad he’s . . . made a friend,” Meredith said. This was free from judgment and my heart rate ticked down a notch. “You know my name. What’s yours?”
I wanted off this call as soon as possible. I didn’t want her to ask whatever her next question was going to be. “Payton.”
“Where are you from?”
Ugh. “Chicago.”
Meredith’s pretty eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, wow, small world. Dom’s got a place in Chicago.”
I swallowed hard. Dom. The flashback to our first night together was unavoidable. “Yeah, I think he mentioned that. Hey, he’s still asleep, so I’m—”
“What do you do?” She took a sip of her wine and set it down on the desk. When I didn’t answer immediately, she blinked and tilted her head to the side. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me you’re like a model or something.”
“Or something.” At least I didn’t have to lie to her.