“My dad used to say ‘Never assume anything. Everything comes with conditions and a price to pay.’ He might be right.” ~Johnny Outlaw
We’re easy, almost too easy. I’m starting to worry that maybe I went into this relationship with Dalton blinded by the instant attraction instead of taking the safer, slower get-to-know-you route. He left L.A. five days ago and completely planted himself into my thoughts, demanding all my time and attention. I guess I can’t blame him for that, but I’m not used to being this into a guy. At this rate, I’ll be checking myself into the Johnny Outlaw Rehabilitation Center for Once Functional Women.
I bet there’s a waiting list a mile long for that rehab program.
A knock on my front door coaxes me out of my head and back to the present. I spin around my desk chair and get up to answer it.
Looking through the peephole, I see my new neighbor. After unlocking the deadbolt, I open the door and say, “Hi, Donny.”
“Hi, ummm, it’s Danny,” he says with a smile and little awkward two finger salute.
I mentally admonish myself for the mistake. “Eeks, I’m sorry. Danny, yes, Danny. It’s been a crazy few weeks. Sorry about that.”
“It’s okay. Sooo,” he continues. “I’d mentioned a party when we spoke last. It’s tomorrow night if you’re interested in coming. Just wanted to extend the invitation again.”
“Tomorrow?” I ask, sounding surprised and a bit ridiculous when my voice goes up an octave. “I umm, yeah, I’ll stop by.”
“Great!” He claps his hands together as if his job here is done, and backs down my two steps to the shared landing. “Around eight?”
“Sure. Eight. Can I bring anything?”
“No, just you.”
“Okay, see you then. Thanks.”
He smiles, revealing two small dimples in his cheeks. “See you then.”
I shut the door and get back to work.
When Danny says a party, he means a party. I can hear the music through the walls and muffled voices through the open doors of my patio. It’s not even nine o’clock and his place is packed. Popular guy apparently.
I should have invited Tracy over. I haven’t seen her all week. We’ve talked business on the phone, but I still haven’t gotten the lowdown on why she came to Vegas and blew off the family celebration of her engagement. I’m gonna get her to spill at Sunday brunch tomorrow. In the meantime, I have a party to attend that makes me all kinds of nervous. I won’t know anyone there except Danny and I don’t know him at all.
Dressed casually in jeans and a fitted shirt, I grab my gifts and head next door. I knock three times and wait, but no one answers. Just when I start to open the door, it’s pulled open and I go stumbling right into Danny. “Oh!” I say, surprised.
His hands grab hold of my arms and we steady ourselves. “Hi there. Glad you could stumble by,” he says, chuckling.
“I knocked… three times, but no one answered.” I shake my head and the incident off, following him just inside the door. With a smile I offer up my goods. “Welcome to the neighborhood.” I hold out a bottle of champagne and a measuring cup full of sugar. Fortunately I put plastic wrap over it or it would be all over his steps right now.
“Thank you and ummm…” He looks at the cup of sugar, his eyebrows pulled together, perplexed. “Sugar?”
“Yes. You know, to save you the trip when you run out. Now you have it.”
He smiles, and it’s sincere. When he looks at me, he says, “That’s the most clever gift I’ve gotten in a while. Thanks.”
I hand him the last gift, which makes him laugh. “You got me a Bite Me T-shirt. Awesome. Thanks.”
“It’s my company.”
“It is?” His face shows his astonishment.
“Don’t be all impressed. It’s really just free advertising if you wear it. I’m totally just using you,” I joke.
“I dig it and you can use me anytime. Hold this.” He hands me the T-shirt, sets the cup and champagne on a side table, and then unbuttons his shirt.
“You don’t have to wear it now,” I say, looking around at anything other than his tan and very toned body.
“I want to and thanks for the new duds.”
Stripping it off garners everyone’s attention, almost to the point of hearing a needle skid across a record. When I look back at Danny, he takes the shirt from my hands and pulls it over his very fit stomach. Not that I notice his abs or that defined V that his muscles make. Nope, didn’t notice any of that.
He nods toward the kitchen. “Let’s get you a drink.”
Fifteen minutes later, I’m standing on his patio and some guy whose name I forgot is talking my ear off about something, but he lost me on differentials. Holding my finger up, I say, “Excuse me. I’ll be back.”
I escape, my glass already empty, the fast consumption of my drink needed to get through a conversation with that guy. Walking back to the kitchen I notice every female here is pretty, but not just average pretty—model pretty. Danny’s a good looking guy but doesn’t he know normal looking women? Oh wait, maybe that’s my role at this party.
“Can I refresh your wine?” Danny comes up behind me.
“I’d like that.” As he refills the glass, I ask, “Is every woman here a model or what? I have to say I’m a little intimidated.”
“Not all of them, but most,” he says matter-of-fact. He tops off my glass. “And you have nothing to be intimidated by.” He licks his bottom lip while looking into my eyes.
After sipping my wine, I ask, “Do you only date models?” I lean against the counter, hoping to steer the topic away from me.
“No. But I have dated a lot of models, most are more or less friends these days.”
The wine is starting to go to my head. I should have eaten dinner before I came over. “Most of the women here are friends you’ve dated?” I briefly question if that even makes sense.
Laughing, he smiles, tilting his head and looking amused. “Ummm… I kind of meant, most of the women I’ve dated I’m still friends with.” He looks around as if taking a tally. When he turns back to me, he says, “I’m not currently having sex more or less with any of the women at this party.”
“The night’s still young.”
“It most definitely is,” he adds just as a woman in a skin-toned dress wraps her arms around him.
“You’ve been avoiding me, Danny,” she slurs.
He takes her arms and in one smooth move, he turns, freed from her clutches. “Not avoiding, just playing host to all my guests.”
She eyes me up and says to him, “Come spend some time with the gang in the living room. We’re your guests, too.”
With a roll of his eyes, he smiles, then chuckles under his breath. “If you’ll excuse—”
“It’s fine. Tend to your guests.” I raise my glass to him.
Looking over his shoulder, he asks, “You’re staying, right?”
“I’ll stay a little longer.”
With a nod, he turns and walks with her into the other room.
I rummage around the dining table snacking on hors d’oeuvres and pretending to be completely comfortable in my aloneness. A waif of a girl breezes up to the table and takes a cracker, eats one bite and then disposes of the rest before pulling a cigarette from her bag and heading out to the patio. I set my plate of food down, feeling guilty for eating now and decide to drink more wine.
Moving out to the patio, the night is nice—clear skies and cool, but not cold. I can hear the ocean in the distance and lean on the patio wall toward the water. His patio overlooks mine, which needs a good sweeping. Maybe something I should do tomorrow or maybe not.
“I love the location,” Danny says, leaning his back against the wall next to me.
“Worth every penny.”
“I think you got a better deal a few years ago, but yeah, still worth every penny.”
I tap my glass against his beer bottle. “Let’s hope I did. Ha!”
“You’re not home much or you’re a very quiet neighbor. Do you travel a lot?”
“I travel a little. Not much for work if I can help it. I went to Vegas recently.”
“I’m still amazed I live next to the woman who created the Bite Me Lime. That’s so cool.”
“And what do you do?”
“If you listen to my agent—”
“Ahhh,” I say, “You have an agent.”
“Hey, hey. Not so harsh.”
I laugh. “Sorry. Go on.”
“Well, according to my agent, I’m an aging underwear model…” My eyebrows go up as he continues, “…But now I’m a photographer most of the time, location scout sometimes. It pays the bills and I love what I do. Something different every day. I never get bored.”
“I bet not. Sounds interesting.”
“Do you mind if I ask you something personal, Holli?”
Even in the soft light of the living room that’s seeping outside, I can see his eyes fixed on me. Makes me want to blush from the intensity. I laugh instead, my usual comfort reaction. “I think you have every right after what I asked you in the kitchen.”
“Well,” he starts, but pauses to glance down. “I’ve been wondering… if you think I should upgrade to hardwoods through the lower level.”
I burst out laughing and hit him on the arm. “You had me going the way you were so serious. You have a sick sense of humor, you know that?”
“I do,” he says, laughing. “Actually, I was wondering if you have hardwoods I could see?”
“Yep, I do. Stop by anytime.”
“How about now?”
I look at him and then to my patio, trying to remember if I straightened up earlier. “Sure.”
As we walk over to mine, he asks, “I’m thinking dark wood, but being near the beach makes me want to go light.”
“I went light.” I unlock the door, and walk inside.
He stops just inside the door. “Wow, for the same floorplan, your place is a lot nicer.”
“I’ve done a little renovation here and there. Make yourself at home.” I close the door and follow him around.
“Can I see what you’ve done upstairs or is it off-limits?”
“You can peek in my office, but not in the bedroom please. I have issues with hanging up clothes, so they end up on the floor and in my chair, piled high.”
He makes his way up and I go into the kitchen to get a glass of wine since I left mine at the party. My phone buzzes on the counter and Dalton’s name flashes. I hear Danny talking to friends at his house from my patio when I answer, “Hi.” I feel like I should join Danny, but stay in the kitchen.
“Hi. You’re up?”
“Yes, I’m still up.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve missed your voice,” I say, not realizing how much I have until I hear it again.
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. I miss everything about you. Especially that tattoo… and your pus—”
“Cool digs,” Danny says, startling me when he walks into the kitchen.
“Oh, thanks,” I reply, my attention divided. I raise my finger to let him know I need a minute. He nods and walks into the living room. “Dalton?”
“Holliday, who’s there?”
“My neighbor stopped by to see my hardwoods.”
“Hardwoods? Is that code for something?”
I burst out laughing, but suddenly realize he’s not joking. “No, it’s only code for flooring.” Trying to bring him around, I lighten it up by saying, “I know how sexy the topic of flooring is, but no, it’s not code… I don’t know where I was going with that.”
“Not at all,” he says, chuckling. “Get rid of the neighbor and let’s get back to talking about what I miss about you.”
“I like that idea a lot. Let me call you right back.”
“K.”
When I hang up, I join Danny in the living room. “Do you like what you see?”
He nods, a small smile appearing. “I do.”
“So you’re gonna go for it?”
“I might. It’s hard to decide. Sometimes you want to know for sure before pulling the trigger, so to speak.”
Leaning against the sofa, I’m suddenly thinking we might be talking about two different things entirely. Feeling the need to clear the air, I say, “Danny, I just started seeing someone.”
He plays it off as he heads for the door. “Oh, yeah, sure,” he says, “no, um, flooring. We were talking hardwood flooring, right?”
“Yeah, right.” I take a deep breath, hoping the uncomfortable tension escapes the room when he opens the door wide.
“I should get back. You in for the night?”
“I think so,” I reply, kicking off my shoes.
“Thanks for coming and for the housewarming gifts. I’ll have to come up with an excuse other than needing sugar to pop round.”
“There’s always eggs.”
“True. See you around.”
“See you around.” I walk to the door and close it after he enters his apartment without looking back. With a deep breath, I sigh. Danny is my neighbor. I don’t date where I sleep and if my calculations are correct, we have about 2 feet between where our heads lie. That’s too close for comfort. Anyway, I have Dalton.
I pick up my phone and call him back. He’s on an adrenaline rush from the show and we both benefit from the good mood as he catalogs everything he loves to touch on my body and exactly how he loves to touch it. Since he’s not here, I replace his hand with my own and he replaces mine with his. It’s not the same as him, but with his dirty words and breathy moans, we both end the night on a high.