Naked Read online

  “I love that book.”

  He looked at me. “Me, too.”

  “So, what, you’re not working at all? Just going wherever you want, whenever?”

  “Sleeping on a series of couches.” Alex paused to bite some cheesecake. “I’m sort of a professional houseguest.”

  “That sounds…” I laughed.

  He laughed, too. “Shitty?”

  “Sort of.”

  He shrugged. “I’m good at making a pain of myself by abusing hospitality.”

  “I don’t see that about you at all.” I thought of how he’d moved around Patrick’s kitchen, making himself at home, but not overstepping. “Besides, people wouldn’t invite you to stay if they didn’t like you.”

  Alex dragged his fork through the cheesecake and kept his gaze there. “Sure. I guess so. But now I don’t have to worry about it anymore, right?”

  Warmth eased over my cheeks at that, and I couldn’t keep my smile tucked away. “I guess not. I’ve got your first and last in my pocket, and it’s pretty much already spent.”

  “I guess you’re not treating for dinner, then.” He reached to jab his fork through the last bite of my cheesecake, and while I might’ve stabbed out the eyes of anyone else who dared do such a thing, I could only laugh at him.

  “No way. You invited me.”

  I don’t think it’s possible to know someone in just a couple days, a few hours. I didn’t believe I knew him then, no matter what I’d seen or said. But at that moment, I believed I could know him. More than that, I believed I wanted to.

  “That’s right, I did. The person who asks should always pay for the date.”

  He looked up at me with those dark eyes, that soft, smirking mouth, and I once again found myself without words and wondering how he managed to strike me so stupid with nothing but a glance.

  “C’mon,” Alex said as he got up from the table. “Let’s get out of here.”

  And I followed.

  The first clue I had that Alex had actually moved in was the different car in my parking lot. It wasn’t a new car, but whoa. Bright yellow Camaro with black accents? Not at all what I’d have picked for my new downstairs neighbor. It looked to be from the mid-to-late eighties, the only reason I could guess that close being that my brother, Bert, was something of a muscle car buff and would often wax poetic about a certain type.

  I pulled in beside it and stepped out to look it over. The car itself was in fine but not pristine condition, the interior a little more worn. This wasn’t even a showpiece car. This was a butch, wheels a-rollin’, smoke-out-at-a-traffic-light sort of car.

  I liked it.

  It had been only a few days since we’d sealed the deal without the spit on our palms, and I’d put the cash Alex had paid me with to good use—toward groceries and some bills, and added a new photo printer I didn’t need but really wanted. I hadn’t seen him since Sunday, though he’d left a message on my voice mail telling me he’d be moving in sometime this week. Judging by the car and the boxes stacked up in the front entry, he’d made a good start.

  His door opened as my foot hit the first stair, and I turned, setting the heavy printer box on the railing to rest my arms. “Hi.”

  “Olivia.” Warm and gooey caramel, smooth and yummy, that was his voice. “Hey, can I give you a hand?”

  I’d have said no but for the fact I’d been stupid and tried to carry not only my three bags of groceries but also the printer, and my arms were already shaking. “Yeah, that would be great. Can you grab—”

  He’d already lifted the heavy box from my hands. “I got it. You go on ahead.”

  I shifted the plastic bags in my two fists and led the way up the stairs to my own door, unlocked it and pushed it open. “Thanks. You can put the box over there on the dresser at the foot of the steps.”

  I pointed to one of the dozen dressers I’d collected from thrift shops and used furniture stores. Patrick called it a fetish. I called it a practical use of space and an appreciation for recycling. The one I meant was long and low, about thigh-height on me. I’d covered it with a collage of articles and photos cut from the stash of photography magazines I no longer subscribed to. It fit just right against the wall under the metal spiral stairs leading up to the loft, and because of this was covered with all the junk I meant to take up there and consistently forgot.

  Alex set the box next to a collection of hardback novels I’d picked up at a library sale and hadn’t had time yet to crack open. “Big Jackie Collins fan, huh?”

  I laughed. “Hey. Some books are bad because they’re bad. Some books are good because they’re bad.”

  He looked over his shoulder at me. “People, too.”

  Before I could answer that he’d stepped back to look up through the spiral stairs, his hands on his hips. “What’s up there?”

  “Just the loft.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “Sure.” I followed him up the winding stairs.

  At the top, Alex let out a low, impressed whistle. “Sweet.”

  Downstairs, the large open space and elevated ceilings dwarfed my few pieces of furniture. But I’d made this space up here comfy and cozy with a jumble of thrift store and salvage pieces—a curving sectional that had come from a hotel lobby, a low coffee table and dozens of cushions. The floor-to-ceiling windows that let in so much light below were bisected a few inches from the ceiling by the loft’s floor, and I’d hung sheer colored scarves and strings of beads in front of them. A cheap paper lantern from IKEA dangled in a corner.

  “I read up here.” It wasn’t really big enough to do much else.

  Alex ducked reflexively as he stepped to the loft’s center. He wasn’t in danger of bumping his head, but the ceiling was so low up here it felt possible. Grinning over his shoulder at me, he sank onto the sectional and bounced a little, then put his hands behind his head and his feet on the table.

  “Awesome.” He looked at the pile of books stacked on the floor next to the sofa. “More Jackie?”

  “Probably.” I tilted my head sideways to check out the titles. Lots of science fiction, some romance, a couple of mysteries. “I think there’s a little bit of everything there.”

  Alex lifted the book from the top of the pile. “Robert R. McCammon?”

  “Swan Song. Have you read it?”

  He shook his head. “No. Should I?”

  “It’s scary,” I told him. “You can borrow it, if you want.”

  Grinning, he tucked the book into his fist and stood. “Thanks.”

  Alex was tall but not big, not broad, more lean than anything. Yet he took up an awful lot of space. He stretched up one arm and placed his hand flat on the ceiling, and the lines of his body shifted. A hip went down, a knee bent. Once again I pictured him in a catalog. He had a face that could convince people they wanted stuff they couldn’t afford and didn’t need.

  “Well, I’d better get back,” he said after a spare few seconds.

  “Lots of unpacking?” I asked over my shoulder as he followed me down the stairs.

  “Umm…no.” He laughed. “I don’t have a lot of stuff.”

  “But you got a new ride. I saw it out back.”

  Alex laughed again. “Yeah. Fucking Bumblebee. What can I say? I got my first hard-on for the Transformers.”

  “Better that than Rainbow Brite, I guess. Or the Smurfs.”

  We laughed together and he looked around my apartment again. The layout of my place was a little different than his, with more open space and higher ceilings, plus the loft. It was brighter, too.

  “Nice place.”

  “Thanks. I can’t take much credit for it. I bought it already made into apartments. Hey, would you like some hot tea? I just got some chai.”

  “That would be great.”

  I left him to make himself at home while I heated the water and put away my groceries. I had no doubt he would, and though I was more one to guard my privacy, that was surprisingly okay with me. By the time I came out of the