CHAPTER SEVEN

 

Evie

“Aren’t you the cutest thing?” I scratch the Pomeranian’s fuzzy orange head before taking him out of Max’s arms.

“Thanks.” He grins widely.

“Not you,” I whisper. I was prepared for this moment where I’d be face to face with Max again. Or more like face to groin, I realize as I start to stand back up from putting the pup on the ground. Damn if remembering him naked doesn’t shake me up a bit. I spent all night practicing how I would be so cool when I saw him, and how I wouldn’t let him affect my pulse or my temperature one degree. “I was talking about King here.”

“Sure. But I think he and I would both agree, in the cute stakes there’s only one winner.”

“Can you please not do that?” Thankfully my cheeks are radiating warmth from the bitter wind because otherwise the crew could probably tell this is embarrassing.

“You’re right,” he says. “We need to tape. I’m counting down the days until we’re finished here.”

He is? One quickie and he’s over it? Wait. Where’s my feeling of relief? The moment of giddy joy at not having to worry about him ruining this for me? Or... trying to get close with me. It’s kind of a letdown, actually. Can’t say I’m surprised though. Guys like him are all talk and no substance. What else did I expect him to do? “Then we should probably get on with it.”

“Agreed.” He holds out a piece of paper, and I try to take it without touching him. It’s an epic fail. My skin sizzles as his fingers linger on my wrist, and is that my heartbeat in my panties?

Then he’s drawing away, and I’m opening doggy date two’s note. “King and I like to chill and give back to the community. So today King wants to take you to a special to us place where we spend a lot of time. You’ll find King has quite the voice and sings along at the Montgomery Retirement Community.”

A short while later I’m situated behind a piano, stroking the ivory keys and trying to remember if I can recall the finger placements for Hot Cross Buns or Chopsticks. “If I’d known dating dogs was going to take so much more effort than dealing with human beings I might have thought twice.”

“Don’t know how to play?” Kelly asks, making notes on her tablet. Max is nowhere near me, but I can still feel his gaze on my skin. Everyone else stands around talking, and the dog. King. Well, he was snatched up by an old woman in a pink quilted dressing gown who has rollers in her hair and no teeth. Currently they’re sitting in a rocking chair across the room.

“It’s been a long time. No one told me I would need to know how.”

“You don’t really.” She looks up at me, placing the tablet on the piano’s top. “Just a few bars. Then we can sub in the music.” She claps her hands to draw the crew’s attention. “Who here knows how to play Moon River?”

The entire crew goes silent.

“From Breakfast at Tiffany’s?” Her voice lilts in exasperation.

“I do,” Max says.

“Right, of course,” I mutter as I rest my head in my palms.

A few seconds later Max slides onto the stool beside me. “Are you ready, or do you want to regret this for a little bit longer?”

“What am I regretting?” I glare at him. “Trying to find a nice date? Or...”

“Shh.” He presses his finger to my lips. “You can’t fib in front of old people.”

“Who says?”

“It’s a universal law.” He grins as his elbow bumps against my ribs. “Now copy my hands.”

I don’t know how many times we run those first couple minutes of song. Over and over until my fingers start to cramp, with Max bumping my ribs until I’m almost certain I’ll bruise, but I can’t stop the grin spreading across my face at the way he gets into the music, makes it fun. The little observations he makes about everyone in the room. And when he sings it’s something else.

“Okay. That’s enough,” Kelly says, bringing King back to us. “We really should finish this taping.”

As Max gets up and moves out of the shot, Kelly drops King in my lap. He’s a fluff ball of energy, shaking with excitement.

“Rolling,” someone calls out.

I press down on those first few keys, on the verge of cringing. Please don’t let me screw this up. Something hot spreads across my lap as King starts barking like crazy. At the other end of the room one of the old men clamps his hands over his ears and starts hollering about the noise. “Who let that fucking dog in here? People these days have no decency. Back in my day that mutt would have been kept outside in the snow.”

King escapes me, tearing across the room and leaving a trail of pee from my knee across the floor to the old man. All of us stare as the little dog stops, sniffs at the man, and then as though he hasn’t just emptied his bladder, cocks his leg and finishes on the guy’s shoe.

***

“I’ve never seen anyone move so fast,” I whisper. Talk about traumatic. The moment King finished whizzing on the poor guy, he’d scampered through the open doors. Max and a couple of the crew had taken chase after the tiny dog. It would have been funny watching three grown men chase a fluff ball through the snow, if Kelly hadn’t been ushering the rest of us out into the cold while apologizing profusely to the nurses. “Let alone a group of people. The entire place was in disarray.”

“It was pretty damn funny,” Max says, speeding through traffic.

I check my seat belt again, still not sure how I ended up in his car with the dogs in the back, but I have to assume it’s on account of the fact that I smell like pee. “Well, his owner is definitely not getting my date.”

Max chuckles discreetly, but I catch him and hope he withers under my glare.

“Come on, Evie. It’s not that bad. King had a little accident, that’s all.”

“I know that.” I drop my gaze to my still damp lap. “And I’ll be able to laugh about it once I’m changed.”

“I wasn’t laughing at you,” he says, pulling into an underground parking structure and finding a space next to the elevator.

“You weren’t?” I side eye him, not sure he’s entirely credible. “Where are we? Why are we stopping?”

He hops out and a few seconds later opens my door. “My apartment.”

“Why?” I allow him to guide me into the elevator, watch the numbers go up and up and up.

“I have to take the dogs back to their owners and I can’t take you with me because you’re not allowed to meet the guys.”

“Okay, but why not drop me at Puppy Love then? So I could go home?”

“Do you want to go home?” He’s right beside me, hands in pockets. No part of him is touching any part of me, and yet my skin feels covered in static, the fine hairs standing up in anticipation.

I flick a glance at his face to find him watching me. “How do you know Moon River?”

“Have you ever seen the movie?” he asks. “Audrey Hepburn, Mickey Rooney.”

“No.”

“It’s great. I used to watch it all the time with my sister after we first lost our parents. We’d pretend to have these extravagant parties in our little flat on the south side. Dee used to dump the nightshade on her head like a fancy hat. Do you want to watch it with me?”

“Maybe, but...” I point to the splotch on my jeans as the elevator comes to a halt.

Max steps out, leading the way. Those same women from the first time I came to his apartment are in the hallway again. The one with the glasses adjusts them as I pass. “Look, Gladys, it’s the same girl from last time. What do you suppose happened to her crotch?”

“Well, I never.” Maureen hits the back of her frail, sun spotted hand against Delores’s arm. “There’s a first time for everything apparently. Even philandering fuckboys dating the same girl twice in a row. Think he’s in love with her?”

“Did you just say fuck, Maureen? How unladylike,” Delores chirps. “She’s a bit skinny, don’t you think? Those hips aren’t made for child bearing. And it looks like the poor dear has a worse bladder control problem than you do.”

“Come now, ladies. It’s clearly de rigueur to not wear any panties so that a fellow’s white stuff leaks out all over the place.”

“Hush your mouth, Gladys,” Maureen exclaims.

“Hey, handsome,” Gladys calls out, and Max turns to acknowledge her. “If you ever consider giving an old lady the time of her life, you call me. You hear?”

“Of course.” He winks at her before opening the door to his apartment and ushering me inside.

“They are some dirty old ladies.”

“They’re sweethearts,” he says, walking through his apartment and grabbing a towel as he leads me to the bathroom. “Completely harmless. How about you give me your jeans and I’ll toss them in the washing machine, then take the dogs back while you wash up?”

“Okay.” I partly close the bathroom door between us and then sit on the edge of the tub to strip out of my boots. “So your neighbors adore you, and your sister loves you. Even that assistant who is running the show at Puppy Love can’t hide the fact she respects you. You’re like the nicest playboy I’ve ever met.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he says. “But I’m not sure I am a playboy.”

“No?” I undo the zip on my jeans and then work them down my hips. “What would you call it then?”

“Reformed maybe. Or a one woman kind of guy in need of hands on experience.”

“Pull my other leg.” I bundle up my jeans and hand them to him through the door. I’ve come across my fair share of guys who ping my radar. They’re usually the ones I end up sleeping with and wondering why I was so stupid to do so. Max shouldn’t be an exception, but he is, because I’ve slept with him and yet we’re still doing this dance. It’s worse in a way. I shouldn’t get my hopes up.

“You’ll see,” he says. “I’ll leave a pair of my sweats out here for when you get out of the shower. Be back shortly.”

***

“Are you crying?” he asks, tapping the sole of my foot with his finger.

“Nope.” I wipe under my eyes and try not to sniffle. This scene with the cat is so sad. How Holly can dump Cat in the pouring rain as though she doesn’t care is heartbreaking, and then she realizes that being alone and only having yourself to look after isn’t better. That they need each other. So she jumps out of the cab, desperately calling for the ginger tabby. It’s so touching.

“You look like you’re crying.” He tickles my foot again from where he’s resting against the headboard of his bed, which is where we ended up when we realized there was no hope for the Barclay chew toy he once called a couch. Halfway through the movie I got engrossed and ended up stretched out with my head propped in my hands at the foot of the bed.

“Nope. I don’t cry.” I don’t relate to the woman who thinks it’s better to be alone at all. My life is filled with people and pets; my bosses, Abby, Spot, Ducky, even Garrett’s brother’s cat. And I have friends. I just don’t have time to see them, so how could I possibly connect with Holly Golightly?

“I did. The first time I watched this movie. And the second. Possibly the third time as well.”

“Really?” I shift onto my side and rest my head on my elbow. I can’t imagine him getting teary at all. Mainly because it’s really weird to imagine a guy who is built like him crying. Those weeks when I was first hired to be Abby’s nanny, and Garrett stomped around completely miserable without Erin were strange enough. And secondly, Max is always joking, rarely serious, let alone emotional.

“Sure.” He shrugs, like it’s nothing to admit it. “But I was only a kid who had recently lost his parents. Everything made me cry. Hell, that Halloween, candy corn made me cry.”

“Candy corn makes everyone cry. Awful, disgusting candy,” I say, uncertain how else to respond. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t know.” He plucks at the comforter, momentarily dropping his gaze. “It’s just really easy to talk to you.” When he lifts it again, the genuine warmth in his eyes makes my heart skip a beat. “I like that about you.”

I shouldn’t be here in his apartment. In his bedroom. Or on his bed. But it doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself that, I’m struggling to recall why it matters. “Max?”

“Evie?” He wiggles his eyebrows as he scrapes a hand from my ankle to midway up my calf.

“Do you have a lampshade I can wear as a hat?” I smile at him.

His grin grows so wide until he shines with it. Bouncing from the bed, he wanders out of the room. When he reappears, he’s holding a black lampshade with a dangling fringe, and two flutes of champagne.

I don’t know where he came from, or how I ended up here in this upper level apartment in Chicago with a man who is much more likely to break women’s hearts and pussies than anyone else I’ve ever met, but damn, is he gorgeous. Jumping up, I snatch the lampshade and pop it on my head. “Fred, darling?”

“Yes, Holly?” He swaggers into the room, climbing onto the bed with me. His mattress is spongey beneath our bare feet.

I twist so that I’m glancing at him over my shoulder, touch the brim of my lampshade hat and bat my eyelashes. “How do I look?”

“That hat really suits you.” He hands me a glass of champagne. “I have to say. I’m almost blown away.”

“Why, thank you, darling.” I sip the golden, bubbly liquid. It’s dry but sweet. “Have I told you how utterly happy I am right now? It’s quite divine.”

“Are you?” he asks in a very normal Max voice.

“Mmm-hmm.” At least right now, I am. I sip more champagne. The bubbles go straight to my brain. “We should throw a party, darling. It’ll be wild.”

“You’re wild,” he says huskily, his gaze dark and hungry while he takes the flute from my hand. “Completely and utterly wild.”

“Well, you know what they say, Fred?” I elegantly wind my arms around his neck, emulating Audrey Hepburn’s sheer grace, and failing miserably. Although none of that seems to matter as his hands land on my butt with a firm grip.

“What’s that, Holly?” His lips roam from my neck to my shoulder.

“You should never love a wild thing,” I whisper. “You’ll only end up looking at the sky.”

“Perhaps,” he agrees, pulling me down to the mattress and stripping me bare. “But damn it, what a beautiful view.”

“That it is.” I take the lampshade from my head and drop it off the side of the bed and onto the carpet as he spreads my legs and kneels between them. His palms are hot silk on my thighs, his focus on how he touches me heavenly. I bow off the bed with a hissed intake of breath as he finds my clit with his thumb.

“Just one thing,” he murmurs, catching my eye. “My name is not Fred.”

“Ohohoooh, Max.” I fall completely out of character as he drops his face to my pussy and uses his tongue on my girly bits. Christ, it feels amazing. I curl up around him, my hands knotted in his hair, holding him where I want him. My legs are over his shoulders, crossed at the ankles. It’s like all my birthdays have all come at once, then he flicks the tip of his tongue across my clit, and so do I.

I’m still panting as he crawls above me, holding one of my legs captive over his shoulder. Gripping my hip, he penetrates me. The angle makes it feel incredible, like he’s pushing and stroking all those hard to reach places that haven’t been touched in far too long. No cobwebs for this girl anymore. No sense of sanity either. He clouds my judgement with orgasms. One after the other. Takes his own only after I’m a gooey molten mess who can’t quite remember if she’s Holly or Fred. Or if she’s just plain crazy for thinking it might be okay to go on sleeping with him, seeing him, even if this warm and fuzzy feeling might actually be her internal douchebag alarm.