As soon as the call was over, I sat down on the floor. Bruno trotted up to me, but I could barely look at him. Why had Lucy left so hastily? And her response just now, her excuse…it had just been that—a hardly-believable excuse. Couldn’t she have woken me up just to say goodbye? And on the phone just now, had I been imagining how on edge she had seemed?

Walking over to my desk, I opened up my laptop and began typing. “Lucy Morrison” hardly provided the results I hoped for; it was one of the most common names in L.A., apparently. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and went over every interaction we’d ever had, concentrating on last night’s.

The way she’d looked at me on the hill, then here in my penthouse—she had to care, didn’t she? Sure, she’d been cautious at first, but she had just been worried about her job; she would’ve been stupid not to be hesitant.

And yet, none of that accounted for the strangeness I sensed in her, her uncomfortableness around me. Something was up; that was for sure.

I went to the gym, but that didn’t help anything. Lucy wasn’t there, only one of the girls from a few months ago—Samantha, I think.

“I’ve missed you. Why don’t we go for a post-workout drink?”

I placated her, and, after my weights, went with her to the bar on the corner. Inside, the first few minutes of chatting was fun, but, by the time my beer was foaming on my lips, I was regretting agreeing.

Already, I was comparing Samantha to Lucy; I couldn’t help it. And Samantha, as beautiful as she was, was as different from Lucy as cats are from dogs.

As she spoke, I found that I was barely listening: “Ugh, why did we choose this place? The crowd is nothing like L’Orange.”; “Why haven’t you been returning my texts?”; “This bar is boring. Want to get out of here?”

I stared at her dazedly, as just what she was asking me finally surfaced at the same time as the answer.

“No. No, I don’t. Goodbye, Samantha.”

She stormed out of the bar, and I couldn’t down my drink and get out of there fast enough myself. Once outside, the fresh air hit me like a slap in the gut, but came with a realization that left a smile on my face.

I liked her. Lucy. Lucy Morrison. I really, truly liked her—a lot. And it was scary and reasonless and inconvenient, to say the least, but I did. I liked this petite blond woman with the shy smile and the goofy laugh. I liked her.

In my car, I cruised back home too slow, smiling as people cut me off, flipped me off, tailgated me. None of it really mattered. All that mattered was that I was seeing Lucy in two days, and it was going to be great.

* * *

My Monday date with Lucy was fun—we ate tacos until we could barely move and shared one of every flavor margarita—but our Tuesday date was fantastic.

I’d been invited to another Hollywood wrap party, and Lucy, after some coaxing, had agreed to come.

As we walked in, she turned to me and asked me the same question she had already asked five times before.

“Are you sure they won’t mind that I’m just in my work clothes?”

Taking a look at her so-called “work clothes”, I couldn’t stop the smile from forming on my face. I thought she looked sexy in her white button-down blouse and black slacks, and that was all that mattered, right?

“No.”

Her eyebrows arched in surprise.

“What? But Khabib, you said…”

I nodded, slipping my arm through hers.

“I know, I know. And I lied, but you want to know what?”

Although Lucy only responded with a glare, I carried on, anyhow.

“I don’t mind—in fact, I think you look stunning.”

Despite herself, Lucy let the crack of a smile appear through her scowl.

“Well. If we get kicked out or anything bad happens, I’m holding you responsible.”

Taking her hand, I gave it a squeeze.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Luckily, we’d arrived late enough that most of the long-winded, tear-spilling speeches were over. So, as we sipped extravagant drinks neither of us could remember the names of, the party was only starting.

Marley Brooks and Janine Banks were as wild as could be expected, starting the dance floor in their barely-butt-covering dresses. Celia Patterson remembered me from last time, cocking her bleach-blond head at me and beckoning me over with a long, fake pink nail.

For my part, however, I could only blissfully smile back. Not because some super-hot Hollywood starlet still remembered and wanted me after one night, months ago, no. I was smiling because of the incredible woman on my arm, the one who made me want to get up and dance.

So we did.

Marley and Janine may have started the dance floor, but Lucy and I made it really happen. With no more than one drink downed apiece, we grooved up a storm. We did every cheesy dance move in the book—discoed, waltzed, Macarena-d, you name it. We jumped and swayed and spun, getting nearly everyone at the party out there on the dance floor with us, laughing and whooping along to the beat.

And, as the music brought us closer and closer, joined our dance moves into a combined, silly, off-beat bob, even as my breath grew ragged and my side hurt from the laughing and the boogying, still, I couldn’t stop.

It was too much fun, this hilarious movement with this shy woman I couldn’t quite place. I couldn’t let go of the warm, soft little hand in mine, couldn’t turn away from her beaming face, no. I could only keep going, and let this night take me where it would.

Finally, Lucy’s red face rose to my ear.

“Can we take a break?”

Practically gasping in relief, I nodded.

Taking her arm, I led her out the door, down a hallway that I was hoping led outside. As we walked, I slung my arm around her shoulders and squeezed.

“I didn’t take you for a dancer.”

She smiled, but didn’t meet my eye.

“I’m not. It was just…the drink, or the music, or you…maybe all of the above.”

“You keep on surprising me, you know that?”

Now, I couldn’t tell whether her face was red from exertion or embarrassment.

“You’ve been a continual surprise to me too, Khabib.”

We had reached a door which, sure enough, led to an outside fire escape staircase.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I…I don’t know. I remembered you from when I was a receptionist, so I knew you’d be fun and charming. I just never figured…”

She took a deep breath of the cool night air.

“What?”

“I don’t know, for you to be so…humble, or human, I guess. I thought all you cared about was partying and having fun. I realize the irony that I’m saying this in the middle of a party we’re having fun at, but still.”

I took her hand and squeezed it.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Lucy. These past few years, it feels like I’ve been asleep the whole time. Something about you woke me up, reminded me of parts of myself I’d all but forgotten. I’d started to take my loneliness as a given, my loss of real feeling as part and parcel of being away from where I’d grown up. But you, with your sweet, genuine smile, and that way you look at me—deep, straight into my soul—I can’t help but try to be the man you see in me.”

She was looking at me with those saucer-big eyes again, looking so beautiful that I could have kissed her right then. Only I didn’t, couldn’t. I had to say this, first.

“And it’s like you’ve somehow kept something everyone else has forgotten, a vulnerability to life, a willingness to feel, that everyone else has done away with. Lucy, I can’t tell you how many women I’ve talked to who look at me with glazed, guarded eyes, a suspicious unwillingness to feel. You look at me like I’m the only person in the world. You, Lucy Morrison, are nothing short of staggering, and unlike any woman I’ve ever met.”

She turned her face to look at the bright, round moon.

“What about what your parents want for you? Don’t they expect you to…I don’t know…go home and find a wife, or something?”

Now, she was looking at her hands, so embarrassed and awkward and cute that I had to kiss her, didn’t have any choice. When I broke away, I leaned down and took her face in my hands.

“Lucy, haven’t you heard a word I’ve been saying? How could I go back and find a wife—or find anyone else, really—when I’ve found you?”

This time, she believed me; I could see it in her eyes as I leaned in to kiss her again. And yet, as I held her, she didn’t give in to me fully, not as much as I would’ve wanted.

So, we stood there, just holding each other. Out there in the moonlit night, on the rickety staircase, with the music from the party wafting through the open door. We stood there, my arms around her, pressing her to my chest. If she could feel my heart beating, then she knew just how happy I was—and how nervous.