Page 77 of Reckless
“You’re staring,” she said.
I looked down at the mug.Amber tea.Strong.No sugar.Good.
“At your apartment.”
“You can stop.It’s not that exciting.”
“It is to me.”
She frowned slightly.“Why.”
Honest question.
“Because it looks like you live here.”
That made her pause.
She held her mug and gazed at it as she said, “That is the strangest compliment anyone has ever given me.”
I shrugged.“Most places I am look staged, professional but yours looks inhabited.”
“You say inhabited like it’s attractive.”
“It is.”
“My apartment has dishes in the sink.”
“Yes.”
“Evidence of you and of a life being lived.That is worth more than anything in my penthouse.”
She sighed.But then she looked around as if seeing the room through my eyes for the first time.She sucked in her lips and curled both hands around the mug.“Your apartment looks like no one lives there.”
I stared at her.She shrugged one shoulder.“That was also a compliment.”
“No, it wasn’t.”I said and met her gaze.
“No, it wasn’t.”
I laughed and she smiled into her tea.
I leaned back against the couch and let the silence sit.It wasn’t the silence from the car anymore.Today felt like a beginning.
“Did you actually need a different dress?”I asked after a minute.
Kelly snorted.“No.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“I did need five minutes not hearing Charlie breathe.”
“Fair.”
“And my apartment felt safer than the driveway.”
I turned to her over the rim of the mug.“Safer from what.”
She considered the question.“All of it.”
