LEXI

“Please don’t be grumpy tonight,” I say, the second Brad opens his door. “Can we please try to have a nice time?”

Brad, looking absolutely stunning in dress slacks and a nice shirt, gives me a half smile. “That’s the first thing you have to say to me?”

“I’m just continuing the happy hour conversation!”

“That was thirty minutes ago.”

I make a faux-angry face. “Please?”

Bradley isn’t the most open book in the library, and these last few weeks he’s been hard to decipher. All I know for certain is that something’s up, and by using my powers of deduction, I assume it’s something at work.

He’s been spending more and more time at the diner, less and less time at the gym. Not that I mind, but the man ate me straight out of waffles. That’s never happened before.

Tonight is my brother’s birthday party. It’s been two weeks since we ran into Leo at the gym, and I sensed deteriorating conditions between the two partners. Not that Bradley would actually talk about any of it—he claimed he was just fine.

On top of his work thing with Leo, I could tell Bradley had been nervous about this party all week, even if he wouldn’t admit it. Little glances, quick comments—I’m not an idiot. Just because he doesn’t talk about his feelings doesn’t mean I can’t see them.

That’s why I’d invited him over for happy hour. All the way across the hallway to my apartment. We’d shared a couple cocktails and watched the first half of that British baking show again. The entire time he’d been a surly mess, and I can only assume it’s because work headaches were meeting personal life headaches.

“I’ll try to be positive,” he says with a frown. “Do I look okay?”

“You look fabulous.” My hands come up to play with the buttons on his shirt, and I wink. “In fact, you look mighty handsome.”

“Is that right?” He leans a hand high against the doorframe, and I snuggle under it. “How handsome?”

“So handsome I think I won’t be able to control my hands.”

“Only your hands?”

He leans down, his frame big, bulky, and oh-so-sexy. If anything, he’s gotten sexier as the days have gone by, and we’ve begun to relax around one another. Things are almost the way they were before... but better.

Because we kiss now, and we kiss a lot. At happy hour, I’d finally had to kick him out of my place because I’d ended up straddling his lap with his hand down my pants.

I’m already confident in the way I feel about him. I want him. I want to be with him. I want to throw myself fully into this thing, but I need some reassurance that he’s ready to do the same. I want the stupid date.

One of his arm curls behind my back, and I groan. “You know I can’t resist that.”

“I’ve noticed,” he says, holding me to his chest.

There’s something about the way he’s all stretched out, tall and hard and strong, that has me unable to pull away. I can’t hardly breathe when he holds me like this, let alone argue.

I look up at him. “What were you saying about my hands?”

“Forget your hands,” he murmurs. “What do you say we skip this party all together? Your brother won’t mind.”

The talk of Lucas, of birthdays, brings me back to reality. “You’re sexy, Bradley Hamilton, but your beautiful arms are not getting you out of this dinner.”

“Lucas doesn’t want me around.”

There it is. The thing that’s been dragging Brad down all afternoon. My arms squeeze around him tighter and tighter until I’m squeezing as hard as my muscles will allow. “Of course he does.”

“Did you tell him I’m coming?”

“Sort of.”

“What the hell, Lexi?” Bradley pulls away from the door and gives me a look of alarm. “You didn’t tell Lucas you were bringing me?”

“I told him I was bringing a friend.”

“He’ll think it’s Kitty. The man is crazy about Kitty.”

“I never specified which friend, and nobody asked.”

“Now I’ll let him down for two reasons. Not only is his asshole friend there, but I don’t have boobs, and my name’s not Kitty, so he’ll be extra disappointed.”

“I didn’t really think about that.”

He exhales a breath. “I’ll just stay home. Pick up Kitty along the way.”

“Maybe she’s busy.”

“Kitty’s never busy.”

“No.” I reach for his hand and latch onto it tightly. “I told my family I was bringing a plus one, and you are my plus one. I’m not ashamed. Are you?”

I have him in my crosshairs on this one, and he knows it.

“I’m not ashamed, but—”

“Great. Let’s go.”

“Hold on a second,” he says, following me into the hallway. “Your family will be there?”

“Yes, it’s a birthday party.”

“The way we used to do birthday parties was at a bar with a shitshow of friends.”

“Well, we’re all grown up.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means we’re going over to my family’s house for dinner.”

“I can’t. No, I can’t. I thought this would be a party. With drinking. At a restaurant.”

“Am I understanding this correctly?” I stroll into the hallway, not bothering to keep my voice down. “You want to sleep with me, but you won’t join me and my family for dinner?”

He glances up and down the hall quickly, his eyes darting around. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Essentially.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Well, family’s important to me,” I tell him. “And you are important to me, too. I’m going to dinner. Come if you’d like. If you don’t want to, that’s your decision.”

He looks painfully torn, and I’m aware that I’ve put him between a rock and a hard place. The thing is, he and Lucas used to be such great friends. I find it incredibly hard to believe that they can’t be friends still, if one of them would just make the effort.

However, they’re both boys at heart, and they’re both stubborn individuals. Normally, I wouldn’t interfere. I haven’t pressured Lucas into trying to talk to Bradley once over these last few years, but the circumstances have changed.

Whoever I eventually bring home—a boyfriend, a husband, the potential for either—will be a part of my life, and I can’t have two parts of my life separated in such a huge way. If Bradley is serious about us, I need to know we’ll face all parts of life together. And that includes my family.

I’m at the elevator and pressing the button before he catches up to me.

“If they kick me out, you can’t hold it against me,” he growls. “I’m making the effort to show up.”

My heart skips a few beats. Through his grumpy exterior, I sense tiny tendrils of nerves. I reach out and rest my hands against his biceps. “They’re going to love you. They already do, we just have to get back into the swing of things. They’re not going to kick you out.”

“Famous last words.”

“Come on,” I say, pulling him into the elevator. “Let’s make out on the ride down. I hear it provides great endorphins.”

The doors shut behind us, thankfully leaving us alone, and I hit the button for the lobby. The second we start descending he takes me in his arms and winds himself around me, pressing me hard against the elevator wall.

His mouth descends on mine, and it’s not the playful, goofy make out session I’d anticipated; it’s a hungry, carnal desire that’s rife with tension. A squeak of surprise slips out of me, only until he pulls me tighter still, and the squeak fades to a low murmur of appreciation.

His tongue is doing amazing things, and I let the blackness of bliss take over. I can feel Brad’s desire to have me, to touch me. I can also sense his need for me to hold him, to reassure him, to show him this will all be worth it.

I’m so lost in him that it’s not until someone clears their throat behind us that my eyes fly open. Brad moves at the same time, and we knock foreheads against one another as he scrambles to right me and straighten my clothes.

“Ow!” I hiss, holding a hand to my head as we pretend to be super classy individuals and keep our chins high while parading through a lobby filled with people.

“What is it, ladies’ night?” Brad murmurs once we’re through the thick of it. “There were at least twenty of them.”

“There were six,” I mutter. “And yes, it was probably ladies’ night.”

He groans. “What do you think they saw?”

“Enough to make them jealous.” I wink at him. “You’re not embarrassed by a little PDA, are you?”

I, myself, am feeling exceptionally embarrassed, but I don’t show it. We’re going to dinner with my family, which means I have to be the one to stay sane this evening.

“PDA?” He raises an eyebrow at me. “The way your hips were moving wasn’t PDA. That was a full on dry hump.”

“Leave my hips out of this! It was your tongue down my throat.”

“I recall you being the one to say let’s make out on the ride down.”

“Right. Let’s make out... not practice sexing each other through our clothes in front of ladies’ night.”

We both pause as we step onto the sidewalk, turn to face one another, and break out into nervous titters of laughter.

“They got a show, didn’t they?” I say, reaching for his hand. I rest my head against his shoulder as we stroll to the parking lot behind the building where I keep my car parked. “Oh, well.”

“They interrupted.”

“Interrupted? Jeesh, how far were you planning on taking things in that elevator?”

His eyes blaze as if this opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

“Oh, don’t even go there,” I tell him. “I can read your mind.”

“It’d be fitting, wouldn’t it?” He spins me around as we reach my car. We’re locked into an embrace. “We began our courtship in an elevator, it only makes sense to—”

“What, consummate our relationship in an elevator? How romantic.”

“Wait and see. I’ll change your mind on this.”

“Get in the car, buddy, before you get turned on by your own twisted mind.”

“There’s only one reason you’re uncomfortable,” he says, trapping me against the car, one arm on either side. “And that’s because you like where my mind’s at.”

I’m a little out of breath against him, the moon blurring with the city lights to create a mystical sort of glow around us. Every once in a while, I’m still in awe that this is happening. Us, here, together.

I hadn’t even realized I’d been missing something. But over these past few months with Bradley in my life, an ache that’d existed so deep inside has started to ease, one I’d barely recognized to be there in the first place.

Being with him brings a whole new element to life. I’d been happy before, and my world had been sunny. Add in Bradley Hamilton, and my universe sparkles.