How You Know It Won’t Work:
He steals your favorite pair of panties
My day off started with Mashed Potato throwing up all over the bed, which meant spending extra time doing laundry, so I could get the comforter clean. Then, after going to the basement, I discovered the only washing machine in the building was out of order, meaning I had two options: drive an hour to use my parents’ washer and dryer, or go to the laundromat next door.
Thank god I had quarters left.
After stuffing my bedding in my clothes hamper, I grabbed the bag of coins and slipped into my flip flops to make my way next door. Maybe I should have reconsidered walking out into public wearing black yoga pants and an oversized tee with a penguin in a pizza costume, but I’d seen what people wore in there. The sad thing was, I’d probably be on the best-dressed list.
Tuning out the noise as I entered the building, I kicked into autopilot as I made a bee-line to some open machines in the corner. After shoving my bedding into one, and clothes in the other, I focused on dividing my coins into the machines.
There was a group of guys howling in the opposite corner of the building, but I didn’t pay them any attention. Instead, I shoved my basket into the corner, and put my leftover coins into my purse, taking note of the time I had before the loads would be done.
Right before I could make my escape, somebody came up behind me, and a husky voice stopped me in my tracks.
“Didn’t get enough laundry done yesterday?”
I turned to see Caleb with a crooked grin splashing across his lips. Today he was in a forest green tee with blue jeans that hung low and tight on his hips.
“What are you doing here?” I crossed my arms over my chest, self-conscious over the stupid carton animal plastered on my shirt.
“Not happy to see me?” He stuck out his bottom lip like a two-year-old who was told he couldn’t eat dirt for dinner.
The guys in the corner, his friends I’m assuming, all laughed, watching our exchange. If they thought I was going to fall at his feet, they were wrong. I wasn’t that desperate.
I didn’t grace him with a reply, instead, I glared at him until he answered my question.
Sighing, he said, “I’m staying with friends in the area.”
I gaped at him. “What?”
Oakland wasn’t a very populated area when the university wasn’t in session. The population outside of college season was around five thousand people. It was considered a city when students poured in, adding over double the residents. It was great for the local plaza and businesses, especially the pizzerias and bars lining Main Street, but not so much for the permanent residents who liked the peaceful summers.
Almost nobody came around and stayed unless they were here for school or work. Why would Caleb pick here of all places? He had family an hour away.
He grinned. “Don’t look so sad, sweetheart. I mean, it isn’t like we’ll be bumping into each other often, right?”
Based on his smirk, that was exactly what he thought. But he didn’t know me very well. I worked, came home, and slept. It didn’t give me a lot of reason to bump into him.
I rolled my eyes. “So, what? You guys are all just hanging out in a laundromat? And Iris thinks that I’m boring.”
His shoulders shake in a silent laugh. “I normally hang out in more exciting places,” he informed me.
My eyes narrowed. “Like strip clubs?”
His front teeth sunk into his bottom lip, holding off his laugh.
He collected himself. “I actually don’t like going to strip clubs. It’s why I like women coming to me to take their clothes off.”
My face screwed. “You employ your sister to get those women?”
He leaned closer to me, eyes darkening into blue ink as they traveled down the length of me. “They usually come to me on a volunteer basis. I don’t need help getting women to strip for me, Paisley,” he stated, tugging on the tee I wore. A sexy smile teased his lips. “Now this little number could drive a man mad.”
We stared at one another, me trying to figure out if he was messing with me or being serious, while he gave nothing away. It wasn’t until one of his friends caught my eye that drew me away from my silent inquiry. I shook my head when I saw him gyrating his hips, the others encouraging him.
Caleb looked over his shoulder, snorting when he saw what the idiot was doing. Straightening his shoulders, he flipped off the group until they rioted.
“Sorry about them,” he apologized over the noise. “I’d say they aren’t usually like that, but I’d be lying.”
I adjusted the purse strap on my shoulder. “Doesn’t matter to me. If you don’t mind—”
“My buddy’s girlfriend wouldn’t let him wash his shop rags in their washer,” he blurted as I turned to leave.
My brows pinched. “O-kay.”
He coughed into his palm, shifting on his feet. “That’s why we’re here.”
I clicked my tongue.
“Well bye,” I said after a moment of awkward staring. “Good luck finding a sane woman to take her clothes off for you. Doubt you’ll find one in here.”
“You’re here,” he argued as I pushed the door open.
I twisted around. “Don’t even waste your time thinking about it, buddy.”
He drew his lips in, eyes slowly scoping out my body. They spent an uncomfortable amount of time on my hips. “Too late for that, sweetheart. Problem is, I know you can dance. I’m just saying, you’d be—”
“Crazy to let you finish that sentence,” I cut him off, getting the last word. I walked out, leaving his friends hounding him over my brush off.
Good. Maybe they’d be gone by the time I had to come back.
I thought the coast was clear when I walked back into First Choice Cleaners. There was no loud laughter or group of men in the corner. It was just me and my things, easing the worry of having to engage Caleb.
Or, so I thought.
It wasn’t until I cursed aloud after realizing I was a dollar short from drying my clothes that the same pestering voice cut through the silence.
“I didn’t think it was ladylike to swear?”
I tipped my head back and groaned. “And I didn’t think gentlemen lurked in the shadows like total stalkers.”
He walked toward me, not fazed by my comeback. Instead, he pulled out a dollar from his wallet and exchanged it for quarters in the machine on the wall.
“Never said I was a gentleman,” he answered, holding out the money for me.
I eyed him. “I’m not taking that.”
“Why not?”
“Because then I’ll owe you.”
He huffed out a laugh. “You need to dry your clothes, and I’m here. Might as well just take the money and say, ‘Thank you, Caleb. You’re my knight in shining armor!’”
Was he serious? Some girls probably swooned over having a hot savior, but it just made me cringe. Why couldn’t women be their own white knight? Or just badass princesses that could save themselves? Then again, I was no royalty. And the idea of armor made my boobs sweat just thinking about it.
I studied him for a long moment, my eyes lingering to the money he offered in his palm. Just as I was about to take the quarters, he closed his palm.
“What the hell is your deal?” I demanded.
“Get coffee with me.”
“Um. No.”
“Coffee in exchange for quarters,” he propositioned. “You’re getting free stuff either way. And owing me coffee is nothing compared to owing me money.”
His logic made absolutely no sense. “Wouldn’t I owe you both money and coffee. You’re awful at this, you know that?”
He swiped his thumb across his bottom lip, shrugging.
I brushed him off. “Forget it. I can just go home and grab more quarters.” Except I didn’t have any left in my apartment, or cash I could exchange for them.
Sigh.
“Just take the money, Paisley.”
“I’m not getting coffee with you.”
“Do you not like coffee?”
“I don’t like you!”
And, okay, I did hate coffee. It smelled great but tasted awful. It didn’t matter how much milk, sugar, or flavoring was in it, I couldn’t tolerate it. And there were days when I worked both jobs that seriously made me wish caffeine was in my life.
“Fine. Then food,” he bargained.
“Caleb, there’s no point. I’m not interested.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Are you saying that you don’t like food?”
My lips parted. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
His eyes lingered on my hips again. They were my problem area, the things I wanted to change the most about me. As much as I loved leggings, I hated wearing them in public because I felt like people stared at the way my hips were emphasized.
I remember walking to class one day and being complimented on my ‘beautiful birthing hips’ by an old guy in a pinstripe pimp suit. Okay, he was probably a professor. But with quips like that, I bet his side job was dealing out women on street corners.
Seriously—who told women they had nice birthing hips? It just made me want to rip my ovaries out so I’d never have kids.
Crossing my arms on my chest, I demanded, “Are you insinuating I’m fat? Because that doesn’t make me want to get food with you.”
Rocking back, he shook his head and looked around the room before locking eyes back on me. “You’re curvy, something that I happen to like a lot.” He leans in closer, setting his lips only a few inches away from mine. “Face it, Paisley; it’s easier to grab ahold of a curvy girl when she’s riding your coc—”
I stepped back a few feet, and held up my hand, while feeling heat prickle my neck. “Please shut up.”
“Have lunch with me.”
“You called me fat,” I pointed out dryly.
He rubbed a palm down his face. “You’re not a great listener, are you? I, in no way, called or even implied, that you’re fat. I’m saying that you like to eat, as most human beings do.”
Clenching my hands into fists, I stormed over to the dryer containing my clothes, and began taking them out of the machine. At this rate, it’d be quicker just to air dry them at home.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” I fired back.
“Oh for the love of—” He stopped himself, walking over to the machine and inserting the rest of the coins I needed. Grabbing my wrist to stop me from shoving the rest of my clothes into my basket, he took them out and put them back into the machine.
“Stop it!”
“You stop! Jesus, you’re impossible, woman.” His eye caught a tiny piece of hot pink lace at the bottom of the basket. My panties were already in his hand before I could snatch them up.
“Drop the underwear,” I hissed.
His crooked grin reappeared. “Nah,” he replied, winking at me. “If you don’t want to get coffee or lunch with me, then this will be payback enough.”
With that, he slipped the panties into his back pocket, then closed the dryer and pressed start.
“You can’t just take a stranger’s under things!”
“Good thing we’re not strangers. At this rate, we’re friends.”
My nose scrunched. “How do you figure that?”
“I rarely talk with anybody this long,” he said casually. “And never usually a woman. Hell, anytime I’m with women, we’re doing anything but talking. Catch my drift?”
I scoffed. “Whatever. Even if we were friends, which we aren’t, then it gives you no right to take my underwear. Friends don’t steal other friends’ panties.”
His palm flew to his chest. “Does this mean that you don’t want to borrow mine?”
I burst out laughing, pushing his shoulder over the unexpected reply. It felt good to laugh without forcing it. When he smiled without some ulterior motive, it softened his features, making the exchange somewhat bearable.
He sighed lightly. “But seriously, you could have just agreed to go to lunch with me. I had to get something out of this exchange.”
“You couldn’t have just been a nice person?”
He thought about it for a second. “I’m not a gentleman, remember? That implies I’m nice. Nobody said I had to be.”
I was over this conversation. “You know what? I have better things to do than talk to you about this. You better burn those panties when you’re done doing whatever disgusting thing you’re planning on doing to them, because I sure as hell don’t want them back.”
And that was tragic, because he took my favorite pair of boy shorts that showed just the right amount of cheek. Sure, I’d gotten them on clearance at Walmart, but they were hot pink with a little bow in the front. Plain, simple, but still kind of sexy.
I walked to the door, shoving it open. He followed behind me, hot on my heels. I jerked to a halt, with him plowing into my back. Stumbling forward and nearly falling on my face, his arm hooked around my waist to steady me.
“Damn, falling for me already,” he mused, and sending me what I supposed he thought was a sly wink. It wasn’t. He looked like he had a twitch.
I smacked his arm away. “You were the one who pushed me.”
He rolled his eyes. “You were the one who stopped without notice.”
I glared at him hard. “Well, excuse me. Next time I’ll put break lights on my fat ass so maybe you’d notice!”
He stepped closer to me, wiggling his eyebrows. “Is it wrong that this conversation is making me hard? You’re sexy when you’re flustered.”
I’m…what?
Nobody had called me sexy before.
Taken aback, I muttered, “You’re…you are…” I didn’t know how to finish, so I let my voice fade.
He grinned victoriously, and something told me so long as he was around, that grin would be a permanent feature on his face.
Tapping my foot against the pavement, I asked, “Are you just going to follow me around all day? I’d just love to add ‘stalker’ next to ‘creep’ and ‘perv.’ You’ve got quite the list going for you.”
“Who said I was following you? There’s only one exit, Paisley. We both needed to leave the laundromat, which means walking out the front door.”
“Ug! Go away!”
“You first.”
Neither of us moved.
“Do you not want me knowing where you live?” he guessed, studying my face. I didn’t want to show him any emotion, so I just blinked.
He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m not going to hurt you, Paisley. You have no reason to be afraid of me.”
There was genuine hurt in his tone, which immediately sobered my bitch-o-meter from a solid eight down to a two-point-three.
Damn it!
Staring down at my feet, I wiggled my toes. “I know you’re not. I just like my privacy, and I’m not used to having people I know around. Everybody tends to stay away from this part of town, because it doesn’t have as much to do as downtown.”
Oakland catered to the college kids because they knew they made up most of the local economy. It was why Main Street had restaurants, diners, clothes stores, thrift shops, tattoo parlors, and cafés stretching along the road. During the summer, it was nice to take walks and chat with the owners—most who were Oakland University alum who opted to make a living off the future generations that inhabited our tiny city.
Seeing new people around in the middle of August was cause for the newspaper to investigate. And I doubted Caleb needed that kind of spotlight on him. His big head wouldn’t fit the picture slot attached to the article.
The tension in his shoulders eased, and his expression lightened up. “Yeah, I get that. I like my privacy, too. But it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that we ran into each other. Iris never told me where you lived. Seems a bit odd that we’d bump into each other here of all places.”
My brows furrowed in, thinking about it. If he was implying that this was some weird act of fate, I didn’t buy into that. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in fate, but fate had better things to do than let me run into my coworker’s hot brother in a laundromat.
Although it was strange that the new washing machine in our basement was out of order, which had never happened before. At my old apartment, we’d had an old fossil of a machine that never once stopped working. This was the first time I’d had to come to the laundromat in my three years of living at this complex.
He tapped my nose. “I see the wheels turning in your head. Do you believe in fate, Paisley?”
Nibbling my inner cheek, I debated on my answer. I could be honest with him, but I didn’t want to give him the hope that something was playing on his side, his team. I couldn’t lead him on.
Reasonably, newer machines broke down more often. They weren’t built like they used to be, so it wasn’t that strange that the washer was out of order. It had to be a coincidence that we ended up in the exact same place at the exact same time.
“I believe in a lot of things,” I answered, skating around the question. “That doesn’t mean I have to share any of them with you.”
I nodded my head once and started walking away from him, stopping in my tracks when I realized he was probably watching me. Glancing over my shoulder, I caught him staring at my ass for the second time in two days.
“Do you mind?” I snapped.
His eyes sparkled as they found mine. “No. Do you?”
I huffed. He laughed.
He gestured toward my apartment building. “For the record, I saw you leave there earlier. Don’t worry, I don’t plan on inviting myself in. You’ll do that on your own soon enough.”
He gave me a cocky grin before turning his heel and walking the opposite direction.
And me? My eyes were locked on his ass until he disappeared.