Mike looked at her and cocked his head to one side. “Everything okay?”
“Sure.” She settled into a chair. “So, Mike, I was thinking—” Her phone rang again
“Aren’t you popular?” Mike leaned a hip against the counter. “Boyfriend?”
Was it her imagination, or did his eyes focus sharply on her when he asked that question?
Liv glanced at the caller ID. Her father. Well, that saved her the trouble. “No. Father. Excuse me.” She flipped the phone open and wandered away from Mike’s inquisitive gaze, pressing herself into a far corner and talking quietly. “Hello?”
“Darling, where are you? Sophie made the most amazing bouillabaisse and it’s cooling even as I speak.”
A glance at her watch confirmed she was already late. “Daddy, I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier. I can’t make it tonight.”
“Oh?” His tone was disapproving, and her shoulders slumped. With one word, he made her feel thirteen again. “Why?”
She searched for a valid reason and came up blank. She couldn’t tell him Geoff was a cheating louse, at least not until she was sure, and she certainly couldn’t tell him she was in the slums of Salem waiting on a pizza delivery. At best, he’d send the police out to save her. At worst, he’d have her committed somewhere for a few months of therapy, because clearly she’d lost her mind.
“Oh!” Her father’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Did Geoff finagle tickets to the charity fashion show? He mentioned he was trying to surprise you.”
She grabbed the excuse with both hands. “Yes. Of course. He got tickets to the show. So I’ll have to make it next week instead. I’m sure you understand.”
“Fine, darling. Tell Geoff I said hello.”
“Certainly.” She flipped the phone closed and sighed, honestly sorry she was missing dinner at her father’s. His cook and housekeeper, Sophie, was an absolute magician in the kitchen, and here Liv was, stuck with pizza. That was Geoff’s fault, too. His debt was growing by the minute.
Liv crossed back to the table where Mike sat and smiled at him. “Sorry.”
“No problem.Everything okay?”
“Fine.” She tipped her head to the right, gesturing toward the lavatory. “May I use your bathroom?”
Mike grimaced. “If you promise to ignore the mess.”
Liv nodded and moved toward the closed door, hesitantly pushing it open with one hand. The door resisted her touch and, when she finally got it open eight inches or so, she stuck her head through, flipping on the light switch.
There was, quite possibly, a month’s worth of laundry covering the floor, vividly answering the eternal question: briefs or boxers?
Mike was a briefs guy.
Liv pulled out a disinfectant wipe from her purse and swiped it over the sink handles and toilet seat, disposing of it in the full-to-overflowing wastebasket beside the toilet.
She pulled down the skin-tight jeans and collapsed with no little relief onto the seat. Resting her head in her hands, she took the moment to ponder what she thought she was doing.
Was Geoff worth this insanity? She was beginning to think the man wasn’t worth missing Sophie’s bouillabaisse, let alone spending time in Salem. Just what did she think she was going to be able to do and why was she doing it?
A man’s earsplitting scream shook the walls of the bathroom, and Liv jumped to her feet, yanked up her pants and grabbed her purse. After a moment of indecision, she tore out into the living room. She immediately tripped over free weights lying on the floor and went sprawling. When she clambered to her feet, she angrily kicked the stupid weight bench. With a grimace at the pain in her foot, she hugged her purse to her chest and hopped into the kitchen.
“What’s wrong?” She looked around. Mike sat calmly at the dinette table, chewing on a pen and staring at a folded bit of newspaper. “Mike? Was that you?”
He snorted and shook his head. “Nah. That was Frank, next door. Guy screams like a woman.”
“Shouldn’t you go check on him?” Liv frantically snapped her jeans and tugged her shirt down over her belly.
“Why?”
Liv gaped at him, chin bumping her chest in shock. “He screamed.”
“He does that every day, several times.”
“What?” She crossed to his side to see what he was doing that could possibly be more interesting than a blood-curdling scream. Huh. Crossword. “Why?”
“He’s determined to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for something. That was him practicing to break the record for loudest scream. Last week it was the highest-pitched note sung by a man. Now that, that was torture.”
“You have strange neighbors.”
Mike shrugged and returned to the puzzle, filling in nine down with the word “prodigal”.
“Can I help you with that?”
“No.”
“Why not? I’m pretty good at those things.”
“So am I, and I bought the paper.”
“Well, that’s rude.” Liv huffed a bit under her breath.
“Never said I wasn’t.” He lifted his gaze to hers and chuckled. “Fine.” He folded the paper even smaller and slipped it into his back pocket. “You want to talk?”
“Actually, yes.”
“Good. I’ll start.” He leaned his chair back on two legs and folded his thick arms across his chest. “So, Olivia, why were you squatting down by my car this afternoon?”
Chapter Three
His words caught Liv off guard, and her mouth opened and shut a few times. She tried to buy some time to think of a decent, if less than truthful, answer. “Please, call me Liv. All my friends do.”
“Okay, Liv.” He raised an eyebrow. “What were you doing by my car today?”
Her mind frantically cast about for a reasonable excuse. “I, uh, I dropped something and was trying to find it.” Liv punctuated her words with a sharp nod at the end, pleased with her answer.
“Oh? What?”
“What?”
“Yeah. What did you drop? Was it important? Should we go look for it now?” Mike dropped the chair back on all fours and started to stand up. Liv stopped him with a gentle touch to his arm, the heat from his skin searing her fingertips. His muscle jerked beneath her hand and she pulled away, trying to ignore the tingle in her palm.
“Don’t worry about it. It was nothing much. A dollar.” She realized how desperate that must make her sound, to turn her back on a busy street to hunt for a dollar.
He looked surprised. “Are you that broke?”
A laugh bubbled up in Liv’s throat, and she coughed gently into a fisted hand before answering. The answer to her dilemma fell into her lap. She spread her palms apart, facing upwards in a gesture of surrender. “You found me out.”
“Are you okay?” The look on his face was one of concern. “Do you have somewhere to go when you leave here? A place to stay? Your father’s maybe?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, you sure don’t seem in any hurry to leave.”
“Maybe I don’t have any reason to be.” As the words left her mouth, Liv realized they were absolute truth.
The doorbell rang, interrupting their conversation. Mike stood and crossed to the door, and Liv saw a bit of brown streak across the floor to sit at his feet. She’d forgotten about the little rat he owned. Ugh.
Mike reached into the back pocket of his snug jeans—not that she was eyeballing his butt—and pulled out his wallet before answering the door. He asked for the amount, handed the kid with the pizza a twenty and told him to keep the change. He’d given a five-dollar tip and Liv knew then she had pegged him right as a champion of the underdog and sucker for sob stories.
Something nudged her foot and she looked down to see the ferret standing on the tip of her shoe. With a squeak, she leaped up in the air before scrambling into a squatting position on the kitchen chair. Why wouldn’t that creature leave her alone? It settled in front of her on the floor, resting on its haunches and sni
ffing in her direction. She made a shooing movement with her hands, but it only crept closer.
Mike appeared beside her, reaching across the table to pull a tiny ball made out of aluminum foil from a kitchen drawer. He pitched it at Rett, who leaped up in the air and pounced. The ferret rolled around on the floor a minute, then picked the ball up in his mouth and trotted happily away.
“Thanks.” Liv settled in the chair again, her heart pounding. “I can’t imagine why you choose to live with that thing.”
“Whoever lived here before left him behind. He must have hidden from the folks who cleaned, but once I settled in, he made an appearance. At first, I just found things missing: car keys, a bit of toast. This is more his house than mine.” Mike set the pizza on the table between them, and Liv’s stomach embarrassed her by letting out a growl of hunger at the smell. How long had it been since she’d eaten?
He tossed a paper plate in front of her and opened the box. She peeked inside and saw a pizza neatly split down the middle—pepperoni and olives on one side, vegetarian on the other. She was surprised. Mike didn’t seem like a vegetarian kind of guy.
At her enquiring look, he laughed. “I figured this covered all the bases. You seem too polite to make any demands, and I wanted you to eat. You’re too skinny.”
“Too skinny?” Liv ran a hand along her hip. “No one’s ever called me skinny before.” In fact, she could think of several times Geoff and her father had criticized her abundant appetite with the admonition she wouldn’t want to put on any weight.
“Then you’re dating the wrong men. A little meat on your bones gives a guy something to hang on to.” He scooped up a slice of each kind of pizza and bit off half of one before setting them on his plate. “You want something to drink?” He mumbled around the food in his mouth.
Well, at least the man wasn’t attracted to her too-skinny body. She told herself that was a good thing and tried not to feel too put out. Keeping their relationship purely platonic on both sides would make things easier. Besides, he had lousy manners. Her father would have a fit if she brought him by for Wednesday dinner.
“I’d love a drink. What do you have?”
“Help yourself.” He pointed his thumb at the fridge and took another huge bite of pizza. At this rate she’d better start eating or there wouldn’t be anything left. She took out two slices for herself, splurging on one piece of the pepperoni, even though there were grease puddles around each little red slice. She dug out a paper napkin and dabbed up the slimy pools before wiping the tips of her fingers.
Figuring he’d respect the boundary of her plate, and she’d have at least two slices to eat, she stood and went to the refrigerator. “Can I get something for you?”
“Yeah, a beer. Can’t have pizza without beer.”
“Really?” She reached inside the nearly empty appliance and pulled out two brown bottles. “I’ve never heard that.”
“What planet are you from, Liv?” He snagged both bottles out of her hand and popped off the twist caps with ease, handing one back to her. “Pizza and beer is like peanut butter and jelly. Macaroni and cheese.”
“Gauguin and color.” She laughed when he paused in the middle of a bite and just stared at her until she added, “Rock and roll?” He gave a nod and started to chew. She pulled open a drawer, hoping to find utensils. It was full of little plastic flatware sets, each inside its own baggie. Alongside them sat a few packets of taco sauce, ketchup and salt. She decided plasticware was better than nothing and chose a set from the abundant supply.
She sat in her dinette chair and opened the plastic bag, jabbing the pizza with the fork and carefully sawing off the tip with the plastic knife before popping it in her mouth. The first bite was heaven and she barely kept herself from moaning at the ecstasy. Her father had been right when he said pizza wasn’t food. It was ambrosia.
She restrained herself from gulping down the rest of the piece, instead cutting off another small bite and setting her fork down while she chewed. She picked up the brown bottle in front of her, wondering if she should get a glass and trying to remember if she’d ever had a beer to drink. She didn’t think she had. Daddy was strictly a wine drinker with dinner, and she’d picked up the same habit. She seldom drank outside of social situations.
She looked up and found Mike staring wordlessly at her.
“What?”
He poked at her fork with his index finger. “You don’t eat pizza with that.”
“Perhaps you don’t, but I do,” she said primly, sitting up ramrod straight. “May I have a glass for my beer?”
Mike rolled his eyes so hard they were almost completely white, and then sighed. “No.”
“Pardon me?”
“No, you may not have a glass for your beer. You drink beer like this.” He grabbed her bottle and tipped it against his lips. After he swallowed, he set the beer back on the table. “Think you can manage that?”
Liv didn’t want to make him angry, so she nodded and wiped the rim of the bottle with her napkin. After one last look at him, she lifted it to her lips and poured a dribble into her mouth. It wasn’t bad, so she took another. Then another.
“So, Liv, you seem a little down on your luck, despite the fancy cell phone and the weird way you act.” Mike leaned forward on his elbows, a bit of sauce at the corner of his mouth. Liv couldn’t stop herself from leaning across and dabbing at it with her napkin. In response, his tongue flicked out to catch anything she might have missed, brushing across one fingertip and sending curls of desire straight to her gut.
“You could say that.” She sat back, way back, putting a decent amount of space between them.
“If you’re not doing anything—I mean, if you don’t have a job already—I could use some help around here with this place.”
“Really?” She looked around and then tipped her head to the side. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Her words made him give a bark of laughter, and she couldn’t help but respond, giggling uncontrollably. When she slapped a hand over her mouth to hold it in, he laughed harder and pointed at her. She couldn’t breathe and gasped for air, tears running down her face. After a few moments she managed to get back in control.
“Oh man, that felt good.” He wiped his eyes with the hem of his wrinkled T-shirt.
“It wasn’t that funny.”
“No, but you were. You looked so shocked when you started to laugh. I get the feeling that doesn’t happen too often.”
Belly laughs weren’t considered good manners in polite company, but she couldn’t tell him that. She only shrugged, but a smile still curved her lips. She took another bite of pizza and waited for him to start up the conversation again.
“So, do you think you’d like to help me clean up around here a few times a week? Maybe cook a meal now and then?”
“Why?” She forced herself to act casually, even though he’d walked straight into her trap and she wanted to dance a jig.
“Despite how it appears, I don’t enjoy living in a pigsty, and you look like someone who used to be on top of the world, until it all came crashing down around you. This way, we both get help.”
“How’s that helping me?”
“I can’t afford much, but I’ll pay for all the food, and give you a couch to crash on if you need it.” Mike tossed a crust of pizza toward the sink.
“Mike, I’m not homeless.”
“Oh.” He looked embarrassed. “Well, then, never mind.”
Liv wanted to kick herself. Had she ruined everything by her comment? “That doesn’t mean I don’t need a job. Do you want character references or something? I mean, you’re okay just letting me in?”
“You have an honest face.”
“And you’re too trusting.” Liv didn’t know why she was egging him on this way, giving him a reason to rescind his offer, but it bothered her that he was so open to letting someone take advantage of him. The guy seemed nice, and she didn’t like lying to him. Still, what she was planning wouldn’t hurt him
. Right? “But I could use the work, and you can sure use the help.”
He finished off his beer and tilted the chair back to reach into the fridge for another one. “I can’t pay much.”
She grinned and said, “I left my ‘will work for food’ sign down at the corner. And, maybe I will crash here now and then. If you don’t mind.”
“Why would I mind?”
“Won’t it cramp your social life a bit?” She told herself it didn’t matter if the man had a girlfriend. She just wanted to be prepared in case someone stopped by unexpectedly.
“I just broke up with my girl a couple of weeks ago.”
“Why?” The word popped out of her mouth before she could stop it.
“She wanted to get serious. I don’t do serious.”
“Oh.” That should keep all the crazy sensations zinging through her body in their place. Liv was nothing if not serious. “Well then, I guess we have a deal.”
“I guess we do.”
They sat quietly, out of things to say, until Liv couldn’t stand it any longer. She stood and started to clear the table.
“You don’t need to do that.”
“Sure I do.” Liv smiled. “It’s my job.”
Mike grabbed her hand when she reached for his empty beer bottle. His thumb moved across the perfectly polished fingernails, sending shivers up her spine. “You don’t look like you’re much used to manual labor.” He tugged her closer. “There’s something about you…” His face was so close his breath fluffed the bangs on her wig and, for the first time, she felt uneasy.
“Mike, hasn’t anyone ever told you: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” She held his gaze for a long moment before tugging her hand free.
“You’re weird, Livvy, but I like you anyway.”
“Glad to hear it.” She smiled and turned away.
They arranged it so Liv would go to Mike’s shop the following day to pick up a grocery store gift card and a key to the apartment. She couldn’t help but think Mike was awfully trusting—she could be some serial killer or, at the very least, a burglar. Though, as she thought about it on her way home, he really had nothing to burgle.
One Love for Liv Page 3
