Five

FORD SMILED WHEN he opened his front door and saw the woman standing before him. “You’re early. Sorry, the place is little messy.”

Brooke Parker, his closest friend since fourth grade, walked in. She looked around, taking in the spare piece of drywall, paint bucket and brushes, and various tools he had spread out around the living room and kitchen area, which he was currently using as a workspace. “Wow. What’s going on here?” She stepped over two large boxes that contained the factory-style oak-and-steel shelves he’d picked up this morning.

“Fixing a hole in my bedroom wall. Then I decided to put up a few bookshelves. Beer?” he offered.

“Sure.”

He headed into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and grabbed a bottle for each of them.

Brooke used a bottle opener to open her beer. “A hole in your bedroom wall, huh? How did that happen?”

“I, uh . . . sort of threw a candle holder at it the other day.”

“Ah.” She took a sip of her beer and then checked out the boxes stacked on his kitchen island. “And the . . . Campaign Faucet set in brushed nickel?” she asked, reading the label.

He shrugged. “Thought I’d update the fixtures in the powder room while I was at it. Maybe put in a new vanity, too.” When she raised an eyebrow—fine, maybe he had gone a little overboard in Restoration Hardware today—he changed the subject. “What’s Morgan up to tonight?”

Looking every inch the happy newlywed right then, she smiled at the mention of her husband, Cade Morgan. “He’s out shopping for crampons with Vaughn and Huxley.”

“Sounds intimate.”

Chuckling, she took a seat in one of the barstools in front of the granite island. “It’s for their Mount Rainier climb. I told you they’re doing that next month, right?”

“You’ve mentioned it.” Several times¸ actually.

“I was thinking about flying out to surprise him after he finishes the climb. Hopefully get a photo of him in all his mountain gear.” Brooke cocked her head when she saw him fighting back a grin. “What?”

“It’s cute, seeing you with your smitten, my-husband-is-so-hot-he-even-climbs-mountains glow.”

“Well, my husband is hot. But don’t ever tell him I said that. Because that man’s ego is already healthy enough.” She frowned, reached underneath her leg, and pulled out a purple, penis-shaped lollipop. Two inches long, and curved upward in a semierect state, it was a surprisingly realistic rendition, complete with veins and two testicles.

“Interesting,” Brooke said, looking amused.

“Don’t ask,” Ford grunted. Those damn lollipops kept popping up everywhere—that was the third one he’d found in his loft today.

Holding it by the stick, Brooke wagged the purple penis pop in front of him. “Yeah . . . there’s a zero percent chance I’m not going to ask about this, so you might as well start talking.”

“The short version is that I ended up entertaining a bachelorette party last night.”

The corners of her mouth twitched. “Are you moonlighting as a stripper now?”

Ford threw her a look. Cute. Well aware that the quips and running commentary wouldn’t end unless his friend got the information she wanted, he proceeded to tell her about last night.

Tuck, Charlie, and he had hung out at The Violet Hour with the bachelorette group until nearly closing time, when someone—and by “someone” he meant Tuck, who clearly had been trying to buy more time with the redhead—had the bright idea that they should continue the party at Ford’s place, since he lived right around the corner. And although Ford had come to the conclusion, somewhere around midnight and his third drink, that at age thirty-four he was probably a little too old for these kind of “Bachelorette party—whoo-hoo!” antics, he’d gone along with the plan for Charlie’s and Tuck’s sakes.

Big mistake.

When they got back to his loft, one of the women, a brunette named Charlotte, made it abundantly clear she was into him. Actually, if anything, she came on a little too strong, breaking out the dirty talk in his kitchen while everyone else was partying in the living room. Nevertheless, when she stuck around after the others left, stripped off her top and skirt, and headed for his bedroom, wearing nothing but a thong, high heels, and a coy smile, he’d followed without thinking much about it.

Hey, he was a single guy. Of course he’d followed the woman wearing nothing but a thong and high heels into his bedroom.

But when they got there and began fooling around, something felt off. Yeah, his body was responding in a physical sense, and, no doubt, some part of him kept thinking, Hey, asshole, you have a dirty-talking, half-naked woman in your bed—what’s the damn hang-up? But mentally he just . . . wasn’t completely into it.

He was hardly a saint when it came to sex. He’d always had an easy time getting along with women, probably the product of having a female best friend, a sister, and a mother he respected the hell out of. He liked women, enjoyed talking with them, flirting with them, charming them, and yes, sleeping with them. He hadn’t had a lot of luck with long-term relationships—and, admittedly, he rather enjoyed the alternative—but he never lied, he never cheated, and he was always careful to make sure no one got hurt.

And he’d never used anyone for sex.

But he realized in that moment, as he and Charlotte fell onto the bed and his eye caught sight of that stupid hole in his wall, that most of the evening he’d been going through the motions, trying to let his friends, and the bachelorette party, and alcohol distract him so that he wasn’t just sitting at home thinking about the regrets he had about his dad. And while he didn’t need some deep, emotional reason to have sex—hell, sex was fun, who needed more reason than that?—he also prided himself on not ever having sex for a bad reason. Like sleeping with a woman he wasn’t even into just because he could.

So with that in mind, he’d told Charlotte that he thought they should slow things down.

This . . . did not exactly go over well.

She was surprised at first, and then her eyes filled with tears as she began pouring out her story to him. How this was her first night out since breaking up with her boyfriend, whom she’d been with for six years. How he’d panicked about getting married and had dumped her, which had totally wrecked her self-confidence, and so tonight she’d wanted to do something fun and wild, like picking up the hottest guy in the bar so she could say screw you to her ex and feel back in the game again.

Naturally, Ford had felt like shit after hearing her story. So to compensate, he drew on the primary thing he’d learned while being best friends with a woman for over twenty years.

He’d simply listened while Charlotte talked.

Somewhere along the way, she began asking for his opinion, as a guy, about the situation with her ex. Thinking this was a great way to keep them in the friend zone and ease over the earlier awkwardness, he stayed up for two hours chatting with her, and then covered her up with a blanket after she passed out on his couch. In the morning, he woke up to hear her rustling around in the living room. Embarrassed, she immediately apologized for falling asleep, so to be a nice guy, he made her a cup of coffee and acted like this kind of thing happened all the time. And when she cheered up after that and asked if he’d like to get together sometime for drinks and talk more, in order to not hurt her feelings, he’d said sure.

This was the part of the story when Brooke interrupted by thunking him—literally thunking him—on his head.

“You just said you aren’t even into this girl,” she said incredulously.

They’d moved out onto the deck while Ford had been telling her all about his adventures the previous night. Leaning against the brick ledge, he rubbed his head. “First, ouch. Second, just because I’m not into her doesn’t mean I have to be a dick.”

“I guarantee she left your place this morning thinking you’re interested in her.”

He waved this off. “No way. After I said we should slow down, we just hung out and talked. You know, like you and I do.”

She rolled her eyes. “You men can be such boneheads about these things. She doesn’t know you the way I do. She’s vulnerable right now. Her ex turned out to be an asshole and then you come riding in—”

“There was no riding.”

“—being the good guy, looking the way you do”—Brooke gestured to him—“wanting to talk and slow things down and be all sensitive with your coffee and your little blanket. What woman could resist that? My God, why didn’t you just cuddle a puppy shirtless while you were at it?”

He mentally filed away that seduction technique for future reference. “So, you’re saying I was supposed to just toss the crying, heartbroken woman out of my condo in the middle of the night?”

“Of course not. That would’ve made you an asshole.”

Ford considered this for a moment. “So, from the female perspective, basically anything I could’ve done last night to get myself out of an awkward situation would’ve resulted in me being either a bonehead or an asshole.”

She smiled, patting him on the shoulder. “Now you’re catching on.”

“You know, Parker, these male-female heart-to-hearts of ours are just so helpful.”

She laughed. “Somebody has to keep you in your place. You’re too charming for your own good.”

She ruffled his hair, and a comfortable silence fell between them as they leaned against the brick wall, sipped their beers, and looked out at the view of the Chicago skyline.

Then she looked sideways at him. “About all these home improvement projects of yours . . . how long are we going to pretend this isn’t some male angsty excuse for you to bang on things and work out your grief and frustration?”

“Probably when I’m done remodeling the kitchen.”

She half-smiled at the joke, but then the look in her eyes turned serious. “I’m here anytime you want to talk. I love you, you know.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close. “I know.” When he and Brooke were kids and his dad was in one of his foul moods, he used to hang out at her house whenever he’d needed a break. During those times, he hadn’t said much about the situation with his dad—talking about feelings was hardly his forte—and he didn’t say anything further right then, either.

After a few moments she broke the silence in typical Brooke fashion. “So, about this sex problem you’re having . . .”

Seriously.

“There is no sex problem,” he growled, fully aware that she was teasing him in order to lighten the mood. But still. “Just the wrong girl at the wrong time.” He cocked his head, suddenly remembering something. “But you should’ve seen this brunette in red heels that was also at the bar last night. She was . . . something.” He grinned. “With a girl like that, there would never be a wrong time.”

“Aw, it’s cute, seeing you with your smitten, I-just-saw-the-most-beautiful-girl-across-a-crowded-bar glow,” Brooke said.

He brushed off her teasing. “I don’t do smitten.” That kind of vulnerability and willingness to put himself out there to be rejected by someone . . . well, that was something he’d never been able to do. Never had any desire to do. Instead, he kept things light and casual in his relationships, never getting too close to anyone, always just having fun.

And his entire adult life, he hadn’t seen anything that had made him want to handle things any differently.

*   *   *

VICTORIA FLIPPED THROUGH her mail as she rode up the elevator to the fourth floor. Seeing how her plans for an afternoon siesta had been interrupted by the ubiquitous Mr. F. Dixon and his saw and drill, she’d gone out for a walk in her new neighborhood. She had a quiet evening planned—assuming a certain someone didn’t have any more drywall to tear down or raucous penis-pop parties planned—and figured she’d order pizza and veg out on the couch with a movie.

Once inside her loft, she tossed out the junk mail and set the rest on her kitchen counter. She’d just pulled out her phone to look up Piece Brewery and Pizzeria, a restaurant she’d discovered during her walk that seemed promising, when she heard a man’s voice out on her balcony.

She froze at the sound, her heart pounding, until she saw through the sliding glass doors that her balcony was clear.

Right. The man’s voice wasn’t coming from her balcony, but the one next door.

She exhaled—holy crap, that had freaked her out—and then realized something. If the man’s voice was coming from the balcony next door . . .

It had to be F. Dixon.

Between her run-in with the woman who’d left his place this morning with a satisfied smile, and the way he kept intruding into her space in the less than forty-eight hours she’d lived in the building, she was a little curious to get a look at the guy.

Okay, maybe a lot curious.

She tiptoed to the sliding doors of her balcony—before realizing that was a touch overdramatic since he couldn’t hear her, anyway—and peered through the glass.

Not seeing anything at first, she had to readjust her position to get a better angle. Then she spotted him on the balcony next to hers: a tall man wearing a baseball cap. He leaned against the ledge with his back to her, and even when he angled to the side he had the baseball cap pulled down too low for her to see much of his face.

But what she could see was that he wasn’t alone.

A woman with long, blond hair stood side by side with him on the balcony. She held a bottled beer in her hand, and looked at F. Dixon with a serious expression. From their body language, there was no mistaking the fact that the two of them were close.

Victoria couldn’t help but wonder if the blonde had any clue about the brunette who’d just spent the night at his place.

“I love you, you know,” the blonde said to him.

Victoria would take that as a no.

She couldn’t make out his response, but, really, it didn’t matter. After eight years of being a divorce lawyer, she knew his type—men who wanted to have their cake and eat it, too, when it came to women. They led women on, they lied, they cheated, and in the end, people got hurt.

Sometimes really hurt.

Are you still there, Victoria? Help is coming, I promise.

Shoving the memory aside, she tried not to gag as F. Dixon put his arm around the blonde’s shoulders and pulled her in close. Aw, wasn’t he so sweet and affectionate? Why, he looked so caring, one would never guess that just last night, he’d had another woman in his bed.

The jerk.

Thinking that she’d seen enough of her neighbor for one day, she stepped away from the sliding glass doors and headed back into her kitchen to order that pizza.