NICK
She fell asleep on my chest, with a smudge of caramel on her lip. I touched her bangs gently, halfway hoping it would wake her up, because honest to God, I was having so much fun talking to her in bed, I didn’t want the night to end. But instead of her eyes fluttering open when I touched her and softly said her name, she started snoring, a small honk from one nostril.
Such a cutie.
Very carefully, I took her half-finished glass of wine from her hand and placed it on the nightstand. I wet my thumb in my mouth and cleaned the caramel off her lip to make sure it didn’t get her hair sticky, and then I made sure the pillow was under her head. Once I had slipped out of bed, I pulled the blanket up on her side to keep her warm. I gathered up the glasses, the apples, and the wine and headed for the kitchen, lit only by the small bulb under the microwave. I made it exactly two steps before I stubbed the living shit out of my toe on something.
Somehow I managed to stop myself from roaring, “Motherfuck it!” at the top of my lungs and instead managed to whisper-yell it at the microwave. Once I was reasonably sure I wasn’t going to pass out from the pain, I set down everything on the counter as carefully as I could and tried to figure out what the hell I’d run into.
It was her purse.
When I went to put it back where it had been before I jammed my toes into it, I found the bag wasn’t just full. It wasn’t just heavy. It was unbelievable. Picking it up by the shoulder strap, I gauged its weight like I was curling a dumbbell. The thing had to weigh fifteen pounds. I gave it a shake, expecting to hear I-didn’t-even-know-what . . . clanging bottles from a full six-pack or something. A whole shitload of lead shot rolling around. But nope. Nothing more than some soft rattles, like maybe lipstick, and the sound of some keys. Again, I did a biceps curl with it. Maybe twenty pounds. Jesus. It fascinated me. It was like an optical illusion. I had no idea at all how something so small, and made out of white leather, could weigh so much . . . It was like a hundred-pound chicken or some shit. Fucking boggled my mind.
Purely out of curiosity, I put one hand on the bottom of the bag. The whole base was rigid, and something came up the sides all around it. Reminded me of a Tupperware container my grandma had.
I felt along the ridge and the corners. I tapped it on the sides. There was something solid in there, not plastic. Metal maybe. Like a metal box, hidden in the bottom of her purse. My best guess, given what I’d seen today, was some type of portable safe.
I had to know more about her. I fucking had to.
I slid my hand inside her purse, all the while keeping an eye on the bedroom to make sure she was still asleep. At the base of the bag, I felt something metal. It didn’t feel like a portable safe, though; no matte powder coat, no sharp edges. It felt smooth, and like there was some sort of decoration on top. The problem was, in order to see it, I was going to have to dump all the shit out of her bag. And that was a serious proposition, likely to cause one hell of a racket. But as long as I had her purse open, I might as well figure out a thing or two while I was there.
Carefully, I removed her wallet from the side pocket of the bag. It was nothing fancy, brown leather with little flowers and a snap closure on top. As gently as I could, I snapped it open. There, in the front ID window, was her driver’s license. I knew for sure it wasn’t a fake, because fuck knew I’d had some experience with fake New Mexico IDs. This one was real, and her beautiful face smiled back at me. Stella Peretti, thirty-four. It gave her address, which I placed as being right near where the old guy she’d been helping lived. Using the light of the microwave, I snooped a little further. Credit cards, a library card. Totally upstanding and normal. A punch card for a frozen yogurt place on Central, the hole punches in the shape of ice cream cones. She had eight out of ten punched, and on the back she’d written, Note to self: Thumbs-down on the watermelon sorbet. Yuck.
I shoved the card back into its slot. What the fuck was I doing? No matter if she was a thief, she was also a woman with a private life, and I was prying into it without her permission. Riffling through her wallet after I’d spent a perfect night with her? That was the old me. And I was fucking sick of that dude.
So I put her wallet back in her bag, left it where I’d run into it on the kitchen floor, and headed back to bed. I got in beside her, pulling her body into mine. I nestled my face against hers and closed my eyes. Bad news or not, I wanted her. That was a fact. Tomorrow, I’d new-me the fuck out of this situation and straight-up ask her about her deal.
Except I didn’t get the goddamned chance, because the next thing I knew I was standing at the window in the blinding morning light, watching her get into a car that had an Uber sign taped inside the back window. No way, I thought. No way. I threw open my bedroom window, stuck two fingers in my mouth, and whistled to her. “Where the hell are you going, gorgeous?”
She spun around, her hair in a high ponytail, the dark-brown curls catching the light. “Hi! I’ve got stuff to do! It’s eleven in the morning!”
Eleven. Jesus. I realized I actually felt pretty hungover. But it wasn’t three beers and a glass of wine making me feel rough around the edges. I’d been all over her all night long; probably hadn’t slept more than fifteen minutes at a time. That was a Stella hangover I was feeling. Nah, fuck that. Stella withdrawal.
“C’mon. There’s an IHOP down the street. They’ll make you caramel apple pancakes.” I adjusted my balls in my boxers, and her eyes followed my hand past the windowsill. Her eyes definitely widened. Hell yeah. “I’ll make sure they give you extra whipped cream.”
She hoisted the world’s heaviest purse over her shoulder like it didn’t weigh anything at all. “Tempting!”
“I’ll show you tempting,” I said with a lift of my chin.
She shifted her lips off to the side, like she really was thinking about it. For about two seconds, I felt like I had her. I had visions of running my hand up her thigh underneath a full IHOP spread. But then she said, “Nope. I gotta jet. Thank you for a great night!”
Holy shit. What was going on here? Was she actually, really and truly, leaving? After the night we had?
I rubbed my face with my hand hard enough to know that I wasn’t, in fact, having a truly shitty dream at all. First, I chased her all around town. Now she was leaving me the morning after? Either I had seriously lost my edge, or I really had finally met my match. “At least tell me you left your number,” I called down to her.
She shielded her eyes with her hand. “I give that to the same number of people who buy me diamonds.”
I remembered what she’d said yesterday. “Nobody,” I called back at her.
She gave me an exaggerated wink and a big nod.
Goddamn it, if last night had told me anything, it was that we’d never be nobody to one another again. So it was time to up the ante. “I’ll drive you to up to Santa Fe. I’ll take you to India House on Cerrillos,” I said, to sweeten the deal. Or spice it up. Or whatever. “You think last night’s tikka was good? Just you wait.”
Her adorable smile glistened in the sunshine, but then she shook her head, making her long ponytail swing across her back. She hopped in the car, and I had to brace myself on the window frame.
A second later, she rolled down her window, looked up at me, and beamed. “Just teasing, lover! Go look in your bathroom! I always wanted to do that!” she called out as the Uber drove off.
Like a shot, I was in my bathroom. I flipped on the lights, and there it was. Her number, written in light-pink lipstick across the mirror. The digits had to be ten inches high at least, surrounded in hearts of all different sizes. I planted my hands on the sink and let my head hang down, laughing to myself. Fuck. In five seconds, I felt like I’d lost the lottery and won it all over again.
From the bedroom, I grabbed my phone and typed in her number. For a second, I thought about some clever shit I could say. But really, there was only one thing I wanted her to know. There was only one thing that needed to be said. To hell with playing it cool. To hell with being a badass. I’d told myself I was going to be honest, and that’s exactly what I was going to do.
I already know what we’re having for dinner tonight.
Ooh!
Indian again? Or maybe . . .
Chinese? I also really love Chinese.
I’ll buy you all the eggrolls you can eat.
But I’m having you.
We’ll have to see about that. ;-)
Fuck. I knew I shouldn’t want her so badly—not this fast, and not in light of what I’d seen yesterday. But I knew that was exactly why I wanted her so much. The thing I shouldn’t want was all I wanted. I’d never met a risk I didn’t want to take. And I definitely wanted to take Stella. Again and again and again.
I set my phone on the bathroom counter and turned on the shower. Stripping out of my boxers, I was just about to get in when my phone buzzed. I fully expected it to be Stella. But it wasn’t. Instead, it was a text that said:
Norton. I want my fucking money.
I didn’t recognize the number, but I knew exactly who it was from. I sure-as-shit did. Goddamn it.