by Graves, Jane
After several days, he was at his wit's end. Yeah, he’d screwed up, but she wasn't even giving him a chance to apologize. So when he came into the lobby one evening and saw Kelsey in the first-floor hallway knocking on Edwin's apartment door, he sat on a nearby bench to wait for her. When she headed for the elevator, he'd get on after her and they could have a nice chat on the way up, assuming she didn't haul out a weapon and do him in once and for all.
She knocked on Edwin’s door again, and Brett heard the squeak of hinges. Edwin stood in his apartment doorway wearing a pair of plaid shorts and a threadbare polo shirt, holding a half-eaten McDonald's cheeseburger. Brett could just make out their conversation.
"You need to check out the kitchen sink in Mrs. Grakowski's apartment," Kelsey told him. "It's draining really slowly."
"So what did she put down the garbage disposal?"
"Nothing she shouldn't have."
"Potato peelings?"
"No."
"Shrimp shells?"
"No."
"Bacon grease?"
"Edwin—"
"I bet she shoved coffee grounds down there, didn't she? If you do that, there's no telling what—"
"Hey! Mrs. Grakowski is eighty-four years old. I don't care if she shoved an elephant down there, she shouldn't be digging around in her own garbage disposal. Now, will you just go check it out?"
Edwin drew back. "Well, all right. You don't have to bite the head off my shoulders. I'll get to it first thing tomorrow."
"Tonight."
"After the game.”
"At halftime."
"Sheesh."
He closed his door with a creak and a thud, and Kelsey strode back down the hall, her mouth set in a line of grim determination. It wasn’t the first time Brett had heard her going to bat for one of the other residents, and it reminded him why he’d been attracted to her in the first place. He had to find a way to make this right. If only she would listen to him.
She entered the elevator lobby, and when she saw Brett, her determination turned to irritation. She turned around and headed for the stairs.
Enough was enough.
Brett stood, punched the button for the elevator, and called out to her. "Chicken!"
She turned back around. "What did you say?"
"You're a chicken! A big, fat chicken who's afraid to be alone with me!"
The elevator dinged. She waved her hand dismissively and turned toward the stairs again.
"Chicken!" Brett said again, throwing in a few squawking noises for good measure.
She turned back around, her fists rising to her hips. "That is so juvenile."
"Doesn’t make it any less true." The elevator doors parted, and he held them open. "After you?"
"No, thanks."
"Kelsey—"
"I'm taking the stairs."
"Will you just get on the damned elevator?"
With a huff of irritation, Kelsey followed Brett in. As the doors closed and they chugged upward, Kelsey stared straight ahead. "I'm not afraid of anything."
"Yeah, you are. You're afraid of a lot of things, and right now I'm at the top of the list."
"No, Brett. I'm not afraid of you. I'm pissed at you. Big difference."
"So are you going to carry that grudge to the grave?"
"I’m considering it.”
"Have fun with that."
"I will."
Bicker, bicker, bicker. This was going to be even harder than he’d thought.
They reached the fifth floor and got off the elevator. As they headed toward their apartments, Brett said, “We need to talk.”
“No,” Kelsey said. “I don’t believe we do.”
She reached her door and went into her apartment. Before she could close it, Brett scooted his way inside. She looked at him with irritation. “Go away.”
“Nope.”
“You’re trespassing.”
“So call the law.”
“I am the law.”
“So arrest me.”
“Brett—“
“Two minutes. Then I’ll go.”
She glared at him a moment longer, then threw down her keys. “Fine. You’ve got two minutes.”
As Brett shut the door, Kelsey walked a few paces to her kitchen, where she began unloading her dishwasher. She clearly thought talking to him was a waste of time, so she wanted to combine it with something productive. It was exactly that kind of thought process that should be telling him they were as incompatible as fire and ice. Instead, all he seemed to be able to do was focus on her really nice ass as she bent over her dishwasher. He prayed she couldn’t read his mind, or she’d be shoving him out the window.
“Time’s ticking, buster,” she said, pulling out a couple of plates. “You’d better start talking.”
He opened his mouth to speak, only to glance around her apartment for the first time. He’d never been inside it before, and it was an eye-opening experience. It was tiny, as all of the apartments in this building were, so it wasn’t the size that stopped him in his tracks. It was the sheer perfection of every square inch.
Virtually every surface was clear, and tables were polished to a blinding shine. The sofa pillows were placed just so. Her kitchen counters were clear of everything except a canister set and an autosquirt soap dispenser. A bulletin board hung on the wall next to the refrigerator with color-coded notes stuck to it so uniformly it was as if she’d used a ruler to place them. He felt sorry for the poor dust bunnies under her bed. He had no doubt she’d shoot them on sight.
“This is amazing,” he said.
Kelsey shoved the plates into a cabinet. “What?”
“Your apartment. It’s pristine.”
“Unfortunately, you don’t mean that as a compliment.”
“No. I do. I really do.” He shook his head with astonishment. “The Center for Disease Control’s got nothing on you.” He looked around. “I know you don't have a dog. Got a cat?”
“No.”
“So no pets?”
“I have a pet.”
“Yeah? Where?”
“Over there.”
“A goldfish?”
“Yes. Fish count. In fact, there are more fish enthusiasts in the U.S. than dog owners.”
“What’s its name?”
“Francine.”
“Ah. A lady fish.” Brett tapped gently on the bowl, and Francine came to attention. “Well, hello there, Francine. Has anyone ever told you you have a beautiful dorsal fin?”
“God,” Kelsey muttered. “Is there any female on earth you don’t come on to?”
"Why isn't there a Mr. Francine?"
"Because I'm not interested in having a bunch of little Francines."
"Then get her a girlfriend."
"One is plenty."
Brett peered into her bowl. "She looks lonely."
"She's a fish."
"I know. But spending your whole life alone can't be a lot of fun."
“You’re blowing your two minutes." Kelsey grabbed a pair of bowls from the dishwasher and shoved them into a cabinet, acting as if she couldn’t care less what he had to say.
“Okay. Here goes.” He took a deep breath and let it out. “I'm sorry for throwing your clothes out the window."
Kelsey looked at him smugly. "Well. It's about time you apologized."
Brett drew back. "About time? I've been trying to talk to you for days, but you wouldn’t let me!”
"Do you realize how insane that was?"
Brett frowned. “Yes, Kelsey. I do.”
“So why did you do it?”
“Because at the time I didn’t think it was insane!”
“So what you’re telling me,” she said, grabbing a pair of glasses from the dishwasher, “is that you have no sense of what’s appropriate and what isn't until after the fact?”
Brett was silent. Because really, what could he say to that?
“So you could walk right out in front of a speeding bus,” Kelsey went on, shoving
the glasses into a cabinet, “and when you’re lying in the hospital in a million pieces, you might say, ‘Hey, maybe I should have looked both ways before crossing the street?’”
“Kelsey,” he snapped. “You’ve made your point.”
“Is there a logical bone in your body? Even one?”
“Logic is overrated.”
“No, it’s not. It keeps you from doing dumb things like throwing my clothes out your fifth‑story window. That was nuts.”
Brett wanted to shout, It wasn’t nuts! You’re just too uptight to see that! But it was time he stopped justifying his actions and faced the truth.
"I know I shouldn’t have done that,” he said glumly. "And I was going to retrieve your clothes, but a homeless woman beat me to them, so I'll just have to pay you for them.”
“Damned right you will."
"Just give me the bill."
"I’ll shove one under your door later.” She put two more plates into the cabinet, only this time with a little more clatter than was necessary.
"You're still pissed,” he said.
"No, I'm not."
"Your nose is growing, Pinocchio."
"Okay, then. I'm still pissed.” She faced him. “I just never know what you're going to do next. That makes me crazy."
"Like suggest we have great sex?”
“You’ve done a little more than just suggest.”
“Great sex. Yeah, that’s awful, all right. I can see how you’d never want to do that again.”
“Is that all you think about?” she asked.
“No, but I gotta admit it’s been on my mind quite a bit lately. How about you? Has it been on yours?”
She didn’t respond. Instead, she grabbed a handful of silverware and began clinking it into a drawer.
“If you keep pushing men away,” Brett said, “how will you ever have a relationship?”
“Didn’t I tell you I’m not interested in a relationship?” Clink.
“Yeah. About a dozen times. But you still haven’t made me believe it. So what’s your hang up?”
Clinkity clink. “I don’t have one.”
“Sweetheart, you have so many hang ups I’m surprised you can get out of bed in the morning.”
Clink, clink, CLINK! "Your two minutes are up."
"Come on, Kelsey! You're making this hard. It doesn't have to be."
She turned to him again. “All I know is that every time I'm with you, I do things I never intended to, and I end up feeling like a fool."
He frowned. “It’s called having fun. Have you ever considered doing that?"
"Apparently we have different ideas about what constitutes fun."
"Okay, so what do you do for fun? Maybe we should consider that."
"Fine. Let's go to the shooting range. I like that."
"Hey, I got you a water gun, didn't I?"
She shook her head with disbelief. "Good God, the things you must have gotten away with in your life."
"What do you mean?"
"You think no matter what you do, a woman will forgive you for it because you're a hot guy who's got a line of bull a mile long. Well, I'm not one of those women."
"And I’m not one of those men who likes it when a woman bolts from his bed. You want to give a guy a complex? That’ll do it.”
“So why are we even trying? We’re clearly not cut out for each other. Go find a woman who bats her eyelashes and tells you how wonderful you are while you’re squirting her in the face with a water gun.”
“No problem. And you go find a guy who wants nothing but sex. Shouldn’t be hard. There are a million of them out there.”
“So you’re not one of those guys?”
"I know you think that’s all this is about. I'd like it to be about more, but you won't let it."
Kelsey felt a shiver of awareness, a sense that maybe he was telling her the truth. But she still couldn’t get it out of her head—the idea that it was all just a big game to him. Nothing real. Nothing lasting.
“You don’t trust me, do you?” he asked.
Trust him? How was she supposed to trust a kiss‑stealing, water-spraying, clothes‑tossing man who invaded her space and unnerved her at every turn?
“I know you have the kind of profession that makes you think the worst of people,” Brett went on, “and that carries over to everything else you do until you don’t trust anybody anymore. Now, whether the attitude came first and then ‘cop’ seemed to fit, or whether being a cop gave you your pessimistic attitude, I’m not sure. Either way, it's really holding you back."
Kelsey flinched at his words, mostly because they were true. She was a pessimist. She'd always liked the word realist a lot better, but where she was concerned, they ended up being pretty much the same thing. The older she got, the more she felt a chasm grow between the kind of person she was and the kind she'd always wished she could be—free and easy, without a care in the world. Every time she tried for the latter, sooner or later she'd remember where she came from, her cynicism would kick in again, and she'd see ulterior motive around every corner.
"You won't even friend me on Facebook,” Brett said. “What's up with that, anyway?"
"I told you I don't friend people very often."
"For God's sake, Kelsey. It's Facebook. Not a lifetime commitment."
"I like my privacy."
"Well, you'd better love your privacy, because if you keep this up, sooner or later, that's all you're going to have."
Kelsey hated the way that sounded. More than once in the dark of night, she'd imagined growing old alone, shuffling to her mailbox in the afternoon in her flowered housecoat, hoping for a Harriet Carter catalog or a Readers' Digest so she'd have something to pass the time with. No matter how bleak a proposition that was, it always seemed as if she was on track to being a lonely old lady whether she liked it or not. Sometimes she wished she could be like other women, who flung themselves headlong into relationships without a single worry about the consequences.
But that wasn't her. It just wasn't.
"Okay," Brett said. “My two minutes are up, and I’ve said what I came to say. So here's the deal. The ball's in your court. If you don't hit it back, we won't play. It's up to you. See you around, Kelsey.”
Wait. What? He was leaving?
As he headed for her door, she wanted tell him goodbye and good riddance, but she just couldn’t make the words come out. Instead, the strangest sense of panic seized her. She didn’t want him to go. How odd was that? She’d been avoiding Brett all week because he was an irrational time bomb waiting to explode in ways she could never anticipate. But at the same time, she couldn’t stop thinking about his sexy smile, the way he touched her, the way he felt beneath her hands, the way he—
Oh, God. Maybe she was the irrational one. Just the thought of that gave her hives.
Even as his hand was on the doorknob, she expected him to turn around, to start in again, to try to convince her that the two of them together was a good thing.
But then he was gone.
Kelsey stood there dumbly, listening to the silence, overcome by the strangest sense of emptiness. She’d expected him to do a lot of things, but just walking out of her apartment hadn’t been one of them. Why couldn’t he do anything like a normal man?
No. Maybe it was a good thing this had happened, because it was final, unequivocal proof of what a bad influence he was on her. And it meant they were finally at equilibrium. He wasn't chasing her anymore, and because he'd apologized, she couldn’t be mad at him. It would be an excellent time to back away from the crazy, sexually preoccupied man once and for all. All she had to do was let that ball sail by and the game was over. Her life could finally go back to normal.
Normal.
There had been a time when she dreamed of living a normal life. No crises, no drama, no chaos, no anger. And now that was exactly what she had. So why did she have the feeling something was missing?
She just wished relationships weren't so damned hard.
For years now, she'd been telling herself she just hadn't run across the right man. Or sometimes the narrative shifted to the tried‑and‑true, "All men are jerks." When that didn't hold water, it usually morphed into something even more self-delusional like, "I'm happy by myself." Anything but the truth: when it came to relationships, she was hopelessly lost.
She walked to Francine's bowl, where she watched the goldfish swim back and forth, then swish through an aimless figure eight. No drama there, for sure, but there wasn't much of anything else, either. Kelsey tilted her head and thought, Brett's right. She does look lonely. Then she caught her own reflection in the mirror near her front door and thought, So do you.
9
After Brett left Kelsey's apartment, he grabbed Boomer and headed out of the building. For a while he felt resolute, telling himself he'd done the right thing by leaving, but by the time they reached the dog park, he regretted walking out. If only he'd stuck around, he might have coaxed her into a kiss or something more.
But truthfully, where had that ever gotten him? His considerable powers of persuasion weren't all that effective on Kelsey. If he'd stayed and tried to push the issue, she might have eventually thrown him out. Was that what he really wanted? No. He wanted her to hit that ball back. Unfortunately, he had the feeling the game was over.
He released Boomer from his leash and sat on a bench. The dog lumbered over to sniff the butt of a tiny little terrier, then fell over and rolled around in an embarrassingly submissive pose. In spite of the fact that Boomer was the size of a Hummer, if there was such a thing as a beta dog, he was the poster boy. He could have swallowed that terrier in a single bite, yet he groveled as if the tiny yap dog was the Hound from Hell.
Still filled with frustration, Brett pulled out his phone and dialed his brother's number. Jacob picked up after one ring.
"Brett," Jacob snapped. "Go away. I'm watching the game."
The Yankees were playing? Normally Brett would have been distressed that he'd missed part of the game, but with everything he had on his mind, he couldn't seem to muster up a give-a-damn.
