I need to find a way to either not spend as much time with her (like that’ll happen) or become immune to her when she’s around. Which will probably take spending even more time in her vicinity. Fucking fantastic.
I woke up when the phone rang right next to my head. Lucky for me that I hadn’t rolled over and knocked it to the floor. That thing was all glass screen and I would have cracked it for sure. Not that rolling over was even a possibility, anyway… Lita was still taking up most of the mattress.
“Hello?” At least, that’s what I tried to say, but it came out more like Mrmpho?
“Hi, Tack! Sounds like I woke you up.” Dear God, could I not escape from this woman for even one day? She sounded far too chipper for someone who, ten hours ago, was too blotto to climb up her own staircase. Her voice speared right into my head and I felt a few chunks of my brain break off. “Hey, I need a favor, once you’re up and around.”
“Mphut?” My lips were glued together and I’d only been asleep a few hours, but Jensen was apparently fluent in Incoherent.
“I need a ride to my car.”
I pried my lips apart with my tongue, hoping it had enough moisture to make headway. “What, like now?”
“No big hurry, but before dinner would be nice.”
“That, I can manage.” I covered the phone with my hand and yawned. “Lemme get a few more hours of sleep and I’ll call you.”
“It’s almost noon. How can you still be in bed?” She laughed and I swear, more of my brain went into the Slap-Chop. “Did you go back to the club after you stuffed me into bed, Tack?”
“I went home, believe it or not. Just had a hard time falling asleep.”
There was a moment of silence. Her voice was much quieter when she said, “Too keyed up after punching that guy for me?”
“Jensen, I never hit him. I peeled him off and threw him into a wall.” I let that sink in. Actually, I was buying time while I thought up a good reason for staying awake. She sure as hell didn’t need to hear the real one. “There was a good movie on when I got home.”
“Which one?”
Well, fuck me sideways. She just had to ask. “I don’t know the name. Fast cars and stuff blowing up, though.”
“It was a good movie but you don’t remember which one it was? Seriously?” Jen’s scoffy huff came through the phone loud and clear.
“I don’t need the title to recognize a good explosion.”
“Guys are weird.”
We hung up after I promised to call once I re-woke up, but it was all a stall. No way was I going to get so much as ten winks now. And I could forget squeezing in a run later; I was too zapped.
Last night’s (this morning’s?) thoughts were back in my cranium, spinning like a blender on frappe. I built the coffee pot and stripped in the kitchen for my shower, leaving the clothes in a pile on the floor.
***
“So picking up your car requires a dress and heels now?”
“Shut it, Tack.” Jensen slid into the passenger seat and grabbed the hem of her skirt to give it a sharp tug toward her knees. I didn’t notice any difference, but she seemed satisfied and stopped pulling on it. Or maybe she just gave up on trying to lengthen it. Who knows with women. “I have a date for dinner right around the corner from my car, and it seemed stupid to go home for half an hour and drive back again.”
“Wait—you’re meeting someone there, and I’m the one who has to drive you? I don’t remember signing on to be your chauffer. Why didn’t you just have this guy pick you up and drop you at your car after?” I may have been grumbling, but I still put it in drive and pulled out of her condo parking lot.
Jen pffed and I swear, her nose tilted a little higher in the air than usual. “You owe me the ride, since you’re the one who brought me home. It’s in the rules.”
“What the hell rulebook is that?”
“Besides, we’re not at the he gets to know where I live stage yet,” she said, ignoring my question. “I just met him yesterday.”
I stared a hole into her profile. “You’re not going out with the guy I turned into wallpaper, are you? ‘Cause I refuse to–”
“Do I look crazy to you? I met him at the gym. Give me credit for having a brain, will you?” Jen pushed my chin back toward the windshield with her index finger. “And watch where you’re going. I don’t want to die in this stupid dress.”
I took a quick glance at all the leg she was showing. “Quit fishing. You look fantastic.” And she did. The turquoise blue color accentuated her eyes, the deep vee neckline showed off her cleavage, and the whole works ended at mid-thigh. What was not to like here?
“Ignore me. First date jitters.” She flashed a tiny smile that I would have missed if I hadn’t been looking at just the right minute. “And thanks.”
I pulled up behind her car and wished her an enjoyable evening. She got out and I did the brotherly, co-hosterly thing and—Scout’s honor—didn’t stare at her retreating backside with all that leg flashing as she strolled to her car in (once again) impossibly high heels.
I did peek a few times. But that’s not staring.
And where did you get the idea I’d ever been in the Boy Scouts?
***
Sunday was bliss. No rescuing fair maidens, no taxi service. Not so much as a text from Jensen, which should have made me happy.
Should have. But I kept checking my phone like I was expecting a call from Publisher’s Clearinghouse. I guess it takes a few days to shake off the Knight In Shining Armor complex. Not that I’d have any clue—this was my first trip on the Good Ship Gallantry.
My knee felt normal now, so I filled my afternoon by taking a run in the park with Lita and playing some overdue basketball with my buds. They gave me hell for taking a pass the last few weekends. I endured the inevitable bullshit about how there must be a woman involved, and, of course, denied it categorically. Because while there sort-of is, there really isn’t.
Every last one of them are in some kind of relationship, and for some reason, they think I should be, too. Normally, my friends inclination to express this to me does one of two things (and sometimes both): I’m either pissed off, or I’m thinking they’re the ones who have it all wrong and are actually trying to convince themselves because, frankly, they’re jealous of my life. This time, however, their talk of girlfriends, good times, and group vacation plans left me being the jealous one.
But just slightly.
Then I spotted a leggy brunette laying on a blanket a few yards away, catching some sun. I started over to introduce myself, then thought I felt my phone vibrate in my front pocket. I stopped walking and fished it out, but the screen was serene and blank.
When I looked back at the brunette, she was folding up her blanket and tucking it into a giant canvas bag.
Oh, well.
***
Ring. Ring. What the hell? She’d better get up. I had no intention of pulling our shift all by my lonesome.
Please leave your message after the tone.
I hung up before the beep finished, hit her speed-dial again, and gnawed on a hangnail on my thumb.
What? I had a hangnail.
End of story.
I counted three rings and moved on to the actual thumbnail—still nothing to see here—to get rid of the ragged edge, waiting to hear the Leave a message message again.
Whatever. I’d just keep hitting that redial until I woke her up and–
“Hello?” Her voice was slow and thick with sleep. It was sexy as hell, which of course woke up my dick. A natural response, but I still considered smacking it into calming back down. Then I remembered that it was attached and smacking would hurt.
“This is the front desk with your wakeup call.”
“Shut up, Tack.” Then I heard her softly chuckle. Definitely not helpful with the awake-below-the-belt situation.
“Not a chance, ma’am. Not ‘til I’m sure you won’t go back to sleep on me.” I’d wandered out to the kitchen by then, and flipped t
he switch on the coffeepot.
“Not to worry. I won’t fall asleep on you, or do anything else on you, for that matter. I’m up.”
I held the phone with my shoulder and shoved off my underwear. The ragged nail caught on the waistband and I stood there with a pair of boxer-briefs dangling from my thumb by a long string. I must have sworn under my breath, because the next thing I heard was, “You’re awfully grumpy for being the first one awake.”
“I just tore my underwear when I was taking them off.”
A beat passed. “Are you talking to me naked?”
“Yup.”
The line went dead-silent, then I heard my phone beep to tell me that the call had ended.
I didn’t stop laughing until I sucked in some water at the end of my shower and nearly choked to death.
Jen was already at the station when I arrived. Good. That meant she had coffee duty, and judging by the smell of the hallway outside the booth, she was already on it.
“Nice hair. You go back to sleep after you hung up on me?”
She shook her head and the teeny ponytail waved around like an antenna. “Just a little off my routine today.”
She was acting definitely weird, and it dawned on me why. “I’m sorry about the naked thing this morning. I shouldn’t have told you.” There. Sexual harassment crisis averted for the day.
“That’s not it. Although that’s one visual I could have done without, especially today.” She’d turned to face me but her gaze was studying something over my left shoulder.
I grabbed my coffee mug and moved in closer. She didn’t budge, which was strange, too. Normally, she scoots right out before I can touch her personal space. “What’s special about today?”
“This.” Jen pushed an envelope across the coffee-counter toward me. “It was taped to my door this morning; I found it when I took Angus out to pee.”
I picked it up with an inkling of worry. Had Creepy Guy figured out where she lived or something?
“Go ahead and open it,” Jen said.
I pulled out a single sheet of paper and scanned it. “And I thought we got up early. These people got us beat. I guess you weren’t joking about bombing your condo for venereal germs.”
“Ha ha, Tack. The pest control company is tenting my whole building tomorrow morning while we’re on the air. Instead of showering, I packed my pantry.” She exhaled hard, deflating her shoulders. “Now I have to find a place to store it all. And to store myself.”
“Sweetheart, if there’s one thing Vegas isn’t short of, it’s hotel rooms.”
“There aren’t many that will take Angus, and every one of them is really expensive. I looked into a few when I was done packing up all the food.” She upended the sugar over her mug and let it flow.
“Shouldn’t your landlord pay for it?”
“Apparently not when you have a lease-to-buy arrangement. And the worst part is that, because Angus is so small, he and I can’t be back in for a week. The pesticide would still be too strong.”
The sugar was still dumping and she still wasn’t looking. If Jensen and I ever play poker, I’m giving that woman free access to a coffeepot; a gigaton of sugar is obviously her tell and I’d win a fortune.
“Why don’t you stay with me? I have spare bedrooms.” What the hell was my mouth doing? I wanted to rip the traitor right off my face. Or stuff one of my high-tops into it. Can’t unsay it now, asswad.
Jensen looked up at me and the sugar tilted up, too. I swear, she looked hopeful. And it made her breathtaking. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” No. But it was too late now.
Chapter 10
*Come As You Are*
There’s a wiener in my lap.
Stop that snickering.
I’ll rephrase: Welcome to my Hell.
Jensen was laid flat-out on my couch with her toes brushing my thigh, Angus was curled up on my lap, and, jealous that she hasn’t been small enough to fit in my lap for years, Lita had sprawled on the floor with most of her weight on my feet.
They were all asleep.
Angus snores.
The DVD we’d been watching was rolling the credits and my torture would soon include staring at the menu and forced-listening to thirty seconds of theme-song on repeat, because the remote was sitting on the end table by Jensen’s head.
I said to stop laughing at me.
Although, I suppose the music could’ve been worse. We were watching Demolition Man, and it has a pretty decent soundtrack.
I hadn’t watched this movie in ages—it was Jensen’s. She’d brought a Target bag full of her favorite DVDs, and there was only one that was sort of a chick-flick. But since Sandra Bullock is hilarious in Miss Congeniality, and she acts like a guy through most of it, I’ll forgive Jensen for contaminating my house with that one.
I can’t guarantee that we’ll ever watch it, though.
Not when she brought a bag full of movies where stuff blows up and/or gets shot at, and she was only going to be here for seven nights.
If the covers didn’t look slightly worse for wear, I’d be suspicious that she’d gone out and bought a slew of my favorite flicks to make the awkward evenings less so.
And it truly was awkward.
How she felt relaxed enough to conk out on my sofa with her feet practically in my lap was beyond my comprehension. The whole thing made me uncomfortable as fuck.
I’m used to being alone. I’ve had the occasional friend who was plastered after a party or a football Sunday blowout snooze on the sofa or in the guest bedroom, but other than them, no one has stayed overnight.
Every last one of them were guys.
And all of them kept their clothes on.
Jensen was in a pair of plaid flannel pants and a loose tee shirt. With no bra.
What? It’s not like it’s hard to tell.
I nudged her legs, but she didn’t bat an eyelid.
I nudged harder and got a mumble. Then she was quiet again.
Well, if she wanted to sleep on the couch with the tiny pillow, who was I to wake her? I dropped Angus on the cushion next to her and struggled my feet out from under Lita so I could get up.
I turned off the lights and the electronics and headed to bed myself—after snagging the comforter from the guest room and tossing it over Jensen and Angus.
Lita must have wanted to make sure Angus didn’t wander around her house too much, ‘cause she stayed on the floor by the sofa all night long.
As for me, I had a helluva time falling asleep. It had been weird enough all day just thinking about Jensen coming to stay on Tuesday. Her sacked out in my living room a day sooner was downright Twilight Zone.
Jen was the very first female who had crossed that threshold with the intent of being here the next morning.
Let’s rewind:
I’d been surprised when the doorbell rang and Jensen was standing there with a pizza box balancing on one hand and Angus’s leash in the other. She was only supposed to be dropping off the contents of her kitchen and a suitcase or two, then going back home to her condo for the night. Pizza and her dachshund hadn’t ever been part of Monday night’s equation.
“Hi.” Angus flew past my ankles, tugging Jen in after him. She handed off the pizza as she passed, trying in vain to keep the little weinerdog under control. “I had everything packed, so going back home seemed stupid. You don’t mind, do you?”
With what looked like a well-practiced backup-and-duck maneuver, Angus liberated himself from his collar and ran toward the couch—and Lita.
She barked only once—but it was one of the sonic-weapon kind that made my eyes vibrate and my brain feel cut loose from its moorings.
Angus yapped back, and it was game on.
I’ve never seen Lita jump from the couch so fast—but Angus, with his practically nonexistent legs, was somehow faster. She pounced and he skirted to the left. They scrambled down the hall, play-growling and bouncing off the walls.
I took the pizza to the kitche
n while Jen went back out for another armload. By the time we were done bringing it all in, the dogs were out of sight, and worse, out of earshot. I didn’t normally worry about Lita running through an open door when I wasn’t looking, but if she’d been chasing Angus…
I went out front and Jen stayed in to nose around check the house. Which left me uneasy, but it’s not like I had a choice. I didn’t know whether Lita would come if Jen called her, and Angus would be stuck like glue to his new bitch, no doubt with his head stuck halfway up her—
“I found them!”
I’d only gotten to the spot where my walkway met the sidewalk, so I was back inside in a heartbeat.
Jensen was standing in the living room with a hand clamped over her mouth, trying to hold in a laugh. It was leaking out, anyway.
“Where are they? And what’s so funny?” I was still riding the adrenaline of missing-dog panic—not for Lita, ‘cause I knew she’d come home. Angus, however, would be nearly invisible in traffic.
She snorted around her hand and pointed down the hall. So that’s where I went, glancing in the doorways. My bedroom was empty, as was the bedroom that served as an office. When I got to the guestroom where Jen was staying, I stopped and had to stifle a laugh myself. I didn’t want to disturb them.
Lita was laying on the bed, curled around Angus, her head shadowing his and one paw thrown over his back like she was trying to tuck him up into her belly.
Well, that was one hurdle down. I’d been dreading trying to keep the dogs away from each other if they didn’t get along.
***
What in God’s name was that beeping? I was having this strange dream of being in the middle of a field full of garbage trucks that were all backing up—then the sound penetrated enough to wake me. I grabbed my cell and hit a random button to bring up the time. Four-oh-eight in the ever-loving morning. My alarm wasn’t due to go off for another seven minutes. So where was the beep coming from?
Then I remembered Jensen and got out of bed. I grabbed my sweatpants from the chair in the corner and tugged them on to hide the morning wood. It’s not that I’m shy; I just didn’t need my co-host getting the idea that she was the cause of this thing, and she might see it waving around.
Waking Up in Vegas Page 9
