BRADLEY

Just pizza my ass.

The woman is not dressed to eat pizza.

She’s dressed to turn a man’s mind inside out, drive him wild with a desire to get his hands on her. My fingers itch to run themselves over the silky black fabric, trail down the lace bits along the edges, and then finally, deliciously sweep onto that soft-looking skin.

I can’t seem to pull my head out of my ass to formulate a full sentence, so it’s a good thing we’re okay with silence. When she steps through the door to my apartment, I leave it open an inch because—let’s face it—dressed like that, she won’t be here long.

For a moment, a small stretch of time there, I’d been annoyed at myself. A flash of white hot jealousy had stricken me at the sight of her standing in the hallway, holding a large pizza while dressed like every man’s fantasy woman.

I’d suspected, not unreasonably, that she’d been waiting for someone else. Most likely a man. Therefore, when Kitty had danced her way down the hallway, my body, some parts more than others, had practically wept with relief.

Somehow, even over all these years of tense existence next to one another, I hadn’t been able to relinquish my possessiveness over Lexi. A problem that had started the very first day I moved to the neighborhood.

Dylan Jones stole her kickball that day. He subsequently lost his front tooth, luckily only the baby one. Maybe I’ve always been a bit irrational over her, but then again, it’s Lexi who brings it out. I’ve dated other women and felt completely at ease with their independence. Yet with Lexi, my subconscious turns into a caveman.

“Bradley,” she says, loud enough to make me think it’s not the first, probably not even the second time she’s said my name. “Are you okay?”

I realize I’m standing in the doorway with her trapped between me and the frame. I’m also staring because her robe has fallen open, and there’s a hint of skin between the waistband of her shorts and her tank top. A swatch of pale, tender-looking skin just begging for my lips to press there.

“Oh, yeah, right,” I say. “Pizza.”

She blinks up at me, hiding a smirk. “The kitchen?”

“Right.” I move into the apartment. My hand has better things to do, namely disobey my every wish and act only on my desires. The desires of Bradley Hamilton and his penis.

Because instead of walking into the kitchen by myself, I rest a hand against Lexi’s lower back. I’m guiding her toward the counter as if there’s any possible way she could get lost. It’s a large one bedroom—with one bedroom being the key word.

Lexi stills the second my fingers rest on her skin, and I almost trip over her as I keep moving. The result is a disastrous moment where I nearly bowl her over with my forward momentum.

In an attempt to recover, I reach out, my arm wrapping around her as she stumbles and lunges for the pizza. I lunge too, but I’ve got a pizza in one hand, and the other wrapped around her waist.

This time, the result is far weirder than the first go around. She straightens, runs a free hand through her hair, and turns awkwardly to face me. My hands are still firmly gripping her waist.

“I think I’m okay,” she says, glancing down. “I can stand on my own, thanks.”

“Right, of course. Almost lost the pizza there.”

My fingers still don’t move. The softness of her fabric, the curviness of her hips is holding me captive. I can’t possibly let her go. I’ve touched the forbidden fruit, and now I need a taste.

Her gaze, formerly joking, now turns to me with a hint of confusion. Instead of pulling away, however, she merely reaches beyond me and sets both pizza boxes on the countertop.

Hands finally free, my thumbs make small circles just above her hips, just below her ribs, and she squirms under it, her mouth forming a circle in surprise.

“Bradley,” she says, quieter. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” I look down at my hands, as if they’re attached to someone else. A robot, maybe, or an alien. “You...you’re so soft.”

“I’m soft?”

“Your clothes,” I correct. “So smooth and silky.”

She hesitates a moment, debating the proper reaction, and then she tilts her head back and laughs. It’s like a sunburst in the room, enlivening the place in seconds.

“Kitty did tell me these worked magic on men.” Lexi leans in, playfully walking her fingers up my chest. “Are they working their magic on you, Bradley Hamilton?”

I nod. It’s instinctual. Only after the fact do I catch myself and grimace. “No, it’s just...so interesting. The fabric, I mean.”

“It’s from France.”

“So classy.”

She laughs again. “I like to pretend.”

“You are,” I say, my gaze finally leaving my fingers to land on her face. “They are perfect for you.”

Her laugh freezes, and she falls quiet. The silence takes over, bringing the moment to more of a standoff, and yet somehow, I’m still stuck here. My thumbs make one more circle—to feel the fabric, I tell myself.

Not because every time I make that circle, Lexi’s eyelids flutter and her lips pucker. A flush of pink goes to her cheeks, and she inches a step closer. That’s not why at all.

But she does all those things, and this time, we’re standing near enough to one another that if I simply leaned forward, we could kiss. It’s not the first time I’ve stood in this position. It’s not the first time I’ve wanted to kiss her.

All those years spent slow dancing with her as “just friends” at every freaking dance have built up a lifetime of tolerance for moments like this. I’d spent most of those evenings beating back the urge to tell her I wanted to be more than friends. Eventually, it became second nature.

This time, however, things have changed. My tolerance for her is at an all-time low. Three years without being this close to her has brought me into a drought. I’m the cactus, and she’s a summer rain. I’ve gone three years without a taste of water, and now I’m powerless against it.

My defenses have gone, and it turns out that without defenses, she’s easing her way back into my life hard and fast. Pretty soon, I won’t be able to imagine a way of living without her. Again.

“What are we doing?” she murmurs, her fingers stilling on my chest.

She spreads her hand out so her palm is over my heart, feeling the beat. She listens, carefully, before turning her gaze to mine. I can’t help but notice she glances at my lips first, quickly enough so that it’s almost unnoticeable, and then my eyes.

“We’re, uh...exchanging pizza,” I say, but my brain is only half working. I’m not even a hundred percent sure that’s what I said. When she offers a half-smile, I know I haven’t convinced her. “I’m feeling your pajamas.”

“Right, right.” She glances down to where I pinch the fabric of her shorts with my fingers. “Nice, right?”

“Very nice.”

“The pizza?”

“Right.”

I force myself to step away from her, and it’s like pulling two magnets apart. It’s a battle to get started, but once we separate, a wave of reality hits us both. We stand on opposite ends of the kitchen. I’m leaning against the wall, she’s got a hip perched against the sink.

Whatever just happened was a force of nature. A chemical reaction. Spontaneous combustion of some sort. Clearly not logical. Now, we are trying to pick up the pieces and make sense of them.

“So, do you always wear that...” I gesture to her figure. “For ladies’ night?”

She groans, rolls her eyes, and ends on a smile. “It’s a tradition. Kitty bought us all these in France last year for Christmas, and we have girls’ nights and pretend we’re living in Paris. Without leaving the Cities.”

My mouth unnaturally parts open. “You’ve had those since Christmas? And this is the first I’m seeing them?”

“Okay, perv,” she says on a laugh. “Simple explanation for that. We haven’t talked since then.”

“Sure we have,” I say, though it’s a stupid argument. “I said hello to you in the hallway.”

“I said hello back,” she says. “That’s different. We were neighbors, not friends.”

“What are we now?”

She begins to answer, stops, then tries again. “I’m not sure.”

I nod. “Let me get you that pizza.”

“Bradley.” She hugs herself. “Why? What made us fall apart?”

I shrug and continue toward the pizza. As much as I want to put our friendship back together, I want it to pick back up and resume without a beat. I’m not one for painful or emotional discussions if I can help it. Best to move things along and forget about it.

“Fabulous,” she says, sarcastic. “And here I was thinking you actually wanted to patch things up between us.”

“I do. I don’t see what that has to do with the past.”

“We can’t just move on without talking about it.”

“Why not?” I open the drawer to pull out a pizza cutter and, once I’ve retrieved it, she’s still silent. I turn to face her. “Why can’t we?”

“Because! We went from being best friends to practically being strangers. I never wanted that to happen.”

“Me neither.”

“Yeah? Well, what’d you do about it?” Her green eyes are blazing now, and her robe is swinging wide open. “I tried. I showed up at the hospital every day. After your surgery, I came over every day. Twice a day. Offered to help you with things, get you groceries, cook for you—”

“Take care of me!” I explode, smacking the pizza cutter on the counter so loudly it clatters. “You pitied me. I saw the way you looked at me. You and Lucas and everyone else. Poor Brad. Out of a career, out of a knee...I couldn’t carry my own pizza box up the stairs for awhile there.”

“You were injured. I was just trying to help.”

“Well, it didn’t help, okay?”

“How was I supposed to know that? At least I tried!”

“I didn’t need someone to take care of me. I needed my friends,” I roar back. “You don’t understand what it’s like.”

The guilt sets in immediately after my outburst. Maybe there’s something to this whole talking-it-out business. But it’s nothing good because I’m clearly not helping anything, and it’s only making me more agitated.

Meanwhile she’s standing across from me, and I can barely appreciate the sight because I’m so aggravated. Her outburst has her cheeks tinted rose, and her chest is heaving with each breath she takes. The top of her breasts rise and fall under the lace, and if I weren’t so fucking pissed, I’d be unable to stop staring.

As it is, I’m afraid to move. I don’t want to talk more, and I don’t want to blow up. I just want to move the hell on with our friendship, relationship, whatever, and forget about the past. With each passing second, I’m wondering if any of that will ever be possible.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice comes out a whisper, as if the fight has seeped out. “I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t bother to ask,” I mutter, and I hate myself for it. But it’s the truth. At least, it’s what I’d felt in the moment. “Nobody asked.”

“You should’ve said something.” Her eyes flash. Lexi’s never been one to take an unfair punch, nor should she. “A friendship is a two-way street. I apologized for my part, but I notice you haven’t for yours.”

“I’m fucking sorry, okay?”

“Wow. Very sincere.”

I take a deep breath, knead my forehead with my hand. This isn’t the way things should be going. I have my chance to right the wrongs of the past, to apologize, and I’m bumbling about like a drunken goat and messing it up more.

“Forget the pizza swap.” Lexi shakes her head and grabs a box off the counter. “I should never have stepped foot in that elevator with you. I regret it more and more every day. Let’s forget the date, too, okay?”

Her words shock me, slice through me. We’ve had our fair share of arguments before—arguments that rocked the house. Shouting matches. Near violent disagreements. And none of them, not one, lasted for longer than a few minutes. A few hours, maximum.

We’d always shouted it out, solved the problem, and moved on from it. It’s the way things were done, the way it worked for us. Now, she’s changing the rules, and I don’t like it. She’s walking away in the middle of a fight, and that’s never happened before.

“Lexi, wait—” I reach out, grab her wrist in my hand to try and stop her.

She turns to face me, fury on her face. “Not this time, Bradley.”

With that, I have no choice but to let her go, to watch her walk out the door, away from me. She slams it behind her, and I sense, more than hear, the rumbling of her footsteps as they carry her across the hallway and back to her own apartment.

Another door slams, and she’s gone.

I continue the slamming with a fist against the counter, the impact so intense that the pizza cutter rattles into the sink, and I curse the gods of pizza, the gods of friendships, the gods of apartment buildings for dredging this shit up.

Last time she walked out the door in a shouting match, I hadn’t talked to her for three years. The most miserable three years of my life.

How long will it be this time?

I curse again, wishing I’d handled the situation differently.

Then, in a moment of fury, I make a decision. I gather up the pizza cutter, a bright red plate that once belonged in Lexi’s apartment, and a stack of papers.

I’m not going to let it be my fault that I lose Lexi again.

I’m going after her until she pushes me away for good.