“Can’t argue with that,” he muttered.
I pressed my lips together and hoped I didn’t get lightheaded.
“Colorado bleeds black and purple in spring and summer, though, Mara. Careful where you wear that tee,” he warned.
“I like the Rockies too,” I replied.
He shook his head, turning toward my hall.
“Can’t swing both ways,” he said as he moved into the hall.
I watched him move. I liked watching him move. I liked it more watching him move down my hallway toward my bedroom. I knew I liked it so much I would fantasize the impossible fantasy that such a vision would happen so often it would become commonplace.
I wondered if I could call out to him that I really needed to run an errand. Like say, take care of an old relative who needed me to get her out of her wheelchair and into her bed. Then read her a bedtime story because she was blind. Something I couldn’t get out of that would make me seem kind and loving but would really be an excuse to escape him.
Then I realized that would be rude and I followed him.
When I hit the bathroom, he said, “This shouldn’t take long and you can get back to making dinner.”
Oh boy.
Should I ask him to stay for dinner? I had plenty. He was a big guy but I still had enough. I just had to cut up another chicken breast or two. Add a few more veggies.
Could I survive a dinner with him? Would he think candles, music and dinner was a play he had to somehow extricate himself out of without seeming like a dick? Or would he know it was just my way of saying thanks?
Crap!
I listened as “Midnight Rider” became America’s “Ventura Highway” and I did what I had to do.
“Would you like to stay for dinner as an, um…thank you for helping out?” I asked. “I’m making stir fry,” I went on.
“Rain check,” he told the faucet, not even looking at me and I was immensely disappointed. So much so I felt it crushing my chest at the same time I was not as relieved because his answer meant all was right in Mara World.
Then he continued talking, making Mara World rock on its foundations.
“Knock on my door when you’re makin’ your barbeque chicken pizza.”
I blinked at his head.
Then I breathed, “What?”
“Derek tells me it’s the shit.”
I blinked at his head again.
They talked about me?
Why would they do that?
Derek was definitely a firm Nine. LaTanya was too. Nines could be friends with Two Point Fives but male Nines didn’t talk to each other about Two Point Fives. They talked about other Sevens to Tens. If they were younger or were jerks, they made fun of Ones to Threes. But they never talked about Two Point Fives and the really great pizza Two Point Fives could make. Ever.
His head tipped back and his eyes hit mine. “Derek tells me your barbeque chicken pizza is the shit,” he repeated and explained, “as in, really fuckin’ good.”
Derek was right. It was really good. I made my own pizza dough and marinaded the chicken in barbeque sauce all day and everything. It was awesome.
Seeing as I was unable to respond, I didn’t. Mitch looked back at the faucet and carried on rocking my world.
“Or when you’re makin’ your baked beans. Derek says those are even better. But tonight, I gotta take a rain check because I gotta get back to work.”
They talked about my baked beans too? This meant they talked more than a little about me. This was more than a passing comment, “Oh you gotta try Mara’s barbeque chicken pizza. It’s the shit,” or something like that. This meant more than a few sentences. My baked beans were so good they had to be a whole other topic.
Ohmigod!
I remained silent and tried to level my breathing. Mitch kept working. Then he kept talking to the tap.
“You got great taste in music, Mara.”
Oh God. I liked my music. I liked it a lot. I played it a lot and sometimes I played it loud. Damn.
“I’m sorry, do I play it too loudly that it bothers you?” I asked. His neck twisted to the side but his head was still bent so his eyes were on me but he wasn’t exactly facing me yet he was.
“No, at least not so it’s annoying. I can hear it now ‘cause I’m in your house. The Allman Brothers, “Midnight Rider”, America’s, ‘Ventura Highway’, great taste.”
God, of course. I was an idiot.
“Right,” I whispered, “of course.”
Then something happened to his eyes. Something I didn’t get but something that made a whoosh sweep through my belly all the same. It was stronger than normal and it felt a whole lot nicer.
“Better than your taste in baseball teams,” he stated and it hit me that he was teasing me.
Holy crap! Detective Mitch Lawson was in my bathroom teasing me!
“Um…” I mumbled then bit my bottom lip and checked the impulse to flee the room.
“Relax Mara,” he said softly, his eyes going super warm. “I don’t bite.”
I wished he did. I really, really did. Just like I wished I was at least a Nine. He’d never settle for anything lower than a Nine because he didn’t have to. As a Nine, I might get the chance to find out if I could make him bite me and I’d get the chance to bite him.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“But I am serious,” he went on, his eyes holding mine captive in a way I didn’t get but I still couldn’t look away no matter how much I wanted to.
“About what?” I was losing track of the conversation.
“I expect a knock on my door, you’re makin’ pizza or your beans.”
“Um…okay,” I lied. There was no way I was knocking on his door when I made my pizza or beans. No way in hell. In fact, I was moving the first chance I could get.
“Or just anytime you feel like company,” he kept going and I felt the room teeter.
What did he mean by that?
“Um…I’m kinda a loner,” I lied again and he grinned.
“Yeah, I noticed that. Your imaginary friend who was over watchin’ TV last night sounded a lot like LaTanya though. Now she sings loud and it skates the edge of annoying. Luckily it’s more funny than annoying and it only lasts an hour.”
Oh damn. He called me out on a lie. And double damn because I also sang with the kids on Glee. Hopefully he didn’t hear me but he wasn’t wrong. LaTanya thought she was Patti LaBelle’s more talented sister. She diva’ed her way through every episode of Glee that we’d watched together and we’d watched every episode of Glee together.
“Um…” I repeated, my eyes sliding to the mirror but I wish they hadn’t because I could see his broad shoulders and muscled back leading to his slim hips. I could also see him straightening which meant I had his full attention. Not that I didn’t have it before just that now I really had it.
“Mara,” I watched him call, my eyes at the mirror and they slid back to his then he kept talking. “What I’m sayin’ is, I get it that you’re shy…”
Oh God. Totally a police detective. He had me figured out.
He kept speaking and before he did, his body moved closer. I held my breath as he held my gaze. “But what I want you to know is that I’d like you to come over but because you’re shy, you gotta walk that breezeway, sweetheart. I’m tellin’ you you’re welcome but I made the first move, you need to make the next one. You with me here?”
No. No, I wasn’t with him. He’d made the first move? What move?
And he’d called me sweetheart which made the belly whoosh move through me like a tidal wave.
I was pretty certain I was going to die right there, totally swept away.
Then it I hit me as I stared into his beautiful eyes. They were so dark brown they seemed fathomless and if I wasn’t careful, I would drown in them. But I was careful and I knew who I was and what zone I lived in. So when it hit me, I understood.
Derek and LaTanya were both Nines. Brent and Bradon were firm at Eight Point Fives in the gay world, the straight world or an alien world (both Brent and Bradon were gorgeous, very cool and very, very nice). But they all liked me. We were not only neighbors, we were good friends. And Mitch had been living across the way from me for four years. He was a good guy. He fixed faucets. He smiled warmly.
Therefore, he was trying to be a good neighbor and maybe even a friend.
“I’m with you,” I whispered.
He came closer and when he spoke his voice dipped lower. “That mean you’re gonna knock on the door tellin’ me you’re makin’ pizza sometime soon?”
“My barbeque chicken pizza takes planning and preparation,” I explained, his eyes flashed and I finished. “It’d have to be this Saturday when I have a day off.”
He got even closer. I pulled in a breath because he was now really close. His head had to tip down really far and if I moved up on my toes, just a tiny bit, I could actually touch my lips to his.
I felt another belly whoosh.
“Works for me,” he murmured.
Oh. Wow.
“’Kay,” I breathed.
He stood where he was. I stood and started drowning in his eyes. He didn’t move. I didn’t either. I felt my body lean towards his a centimeter such was his hot guy magnetic pull at the same time I licked my lip. His eyes dropped to my mouth but not before I saw them get even darker and more fathomless. My heart started to beat in my throat. His cell rang.
Then his eyes closed and the spell was broken as he moved a bit away growling, “Fuck.”
He pulled his cell out of his back jeans pocket, flipped it open and put it to his ear as his gaze came back to mine.
“Lawson,” he said into his phone and I moved further away thinking distance was a good thing. He was a good neighbor. He didn’t need to be being neighborly and have the person he was being neighborly toward throw herself at him. That would be wrong. “Yeah, right,” he continued. “I said I’ll be there, I’ll be there. I got somethin’ I gotta do. When I’m done I’m on my way. Yeah?” He paused and kept hold of my gaze. “Right. Later.”
He flipped his phone shut and shoved it back in his pocket.
“Work?” I asked.
“Love it most the time, hate it right about now,” he answered.
“Unh-hunh,” I mumbled like I understood what he meant when I didn’t. Changing a doohickey wasn’t the height of entertainment that you didn’t want to be torn away from to do work you loved.
“Gotta get this done, Mara,” he told me.
“Okay,” I replied.
He stared at me and didn’t move. I did the same.
Then his grin came back and he repeated, “Gotta get this done.”
“I know,” I said. “You have to get to work.”
“Yeah and I gotta get this done.”
I blinked then said, “So, um…can I help?”
“You can help by lettin’ me get this done.”
What did he mean? I wasn’t stopping him.
“Please,” I motioned to the sink, “carry on.”
His grin became a smile. “Sweetheart, what I’m sayin’ is,” he leaned in, “you’re a distraction.”
I was?
Oh God! He was saying he didn’t need me hanging around chatting with him.
I was such a dork!
“I’ll, uh…go make dinner.”
“Good idea.”
I nodded. “And thanks, um…for, you know,” I motioned to the sink again, “helping out, especially when you’re so busy.”
“Any time.”
“Well, I hope it doesn’t happen again,” I pointed out the obvious. “But thanks anyway.”
A sound came from deep in his chest. I realized it was an immensely attractive chuckle and he said, his voice deep and vibrating with his chuckle, “Mara.”
There were many things I wished in my life. Many. Too many to count.
But the top one at that moment in time, scratched at the top of that list in a way I knew it would stay there a good long while, was that I wished with everything that was me that my life would lead me to a new life. One where I would hear Detective Mitch Lawson say my name in his deep voice that vibrated with his laughter time and time and time again.
“I’ll just go,” I whispered and turned to leave.
“I’ll show you the valve to turn off the water another time,” he offered to my back.
“Thanks,” I said to my bedroom.
Then I was out the door.
Detective Mitch Lawson left not ten minutes later. He was carrying his toolbox. He lifted a hand in a wave as he walked through my living room-slash-dining-room space. But he stopped at the door, his eyes leveled on mine and he said two words.
“Saturday. Pizza.”
Then all I saw was my closed door.