Five Things I Love About You

by Sarah Ballance

  Well, that did the trick. Guilt-ridden and grateful for a familiar face, she took the seat across from him and spilled her guts. “I’m sorry, Crosby. It’s just… I hate this place,” she confessed. “There isn’t a living soul to talk to. I got stuck in the elevator on my way down this morning, and there’s something scary on the fire escape. And I still have twelve days left.”

  “Didn’t see that coming.” His shook his head, an easy smile toying with his lips. “And I’m sorry you’re having such a rough go of it.”

  “I never expected I’d love trading green space for a concrete jungle, but the reality of being here for two weeks staring at the walls is depressing.”

  “Staring at the walls? You’ve gone shopping, had an elevator adventure, and I don’t know what’s going on with the fire escape, but it sounds intriguing.” He took a sip of his coffee and grinned. “I told you—you have the city all wrong. There’s plenty to do. More than you could ever do in twelve days. And that elevator is notorious. Take the stairs from here on.”

  “Wait. What do you mean it’s notorious? How would you know?”

  “We’re neighbors. Third floor.”

  “Oh.” She wasn’t sure what to make of him not mentioning that the day before.

  “And lest you worry, let me assure you I’m no more interested than you are,” he said, handily throwing back those shards of rejection. “I was just trying to be nice in the wake of the disaster I caused.”

  “Well, then,” she said. So much for a friendly face. “Thanks again for breakfast. I should go.”

  She pushed back her chair, only to freeze when his hand landed on her arm. His brow furrowed. “Why are you in escape mode? Didn’t I just diffuse this situation?”

  “I just thought…”

  “That you needed to get back to your empty apartment and stare at the walls?”

  Her cheeks heated. “Right.”

  “And do you think you’ll ever not hate the city if you spend the next twelve days doing that?”

  “What else am I going to do?”

  “You’re going to learn to love New York.”

  She actually laughed out loud. “Don’t bet on it.”

  “Actually, I think we should.”

  “Not a chance you’d win that one. I thought you New Yorkers were supposed to be more savvy than that.”

  “Nice attempt at deflection, but it didn’t work. I bet by the time you get on that plane, I can make you love no fewer than five things about this place.”

  “It’s not possible.”

  “It might be a challenge,” he admitted. “Especially with my work schedule, but I’m willing to make the sacrifice. In the name of this great city, of course.”

  “And this isn’t a date?” Skeptical wasn’t the word for it. She wasn’t buying.

  “You’re a beautiful woman, but I’m married to my job. Additionally, I suck at relationships and you’re not staying. We’re clearly in agreement that anything more than a friendship is a bad idea.”

  He looked sincere enough, and she would probably go crazy if she didn’t get out of that apartment. How bad could it be?

  “Okay,” she said. “You’re on. Five things, or your city will forever live in miserable infamy, at least with me. And good luck. You’re going to need it.” She held out her hand, and he shook it.

  …

  Crosby was asking for trouble. He couldn’t believe how beautiful Estelle was with her casual ponytail and fresh face. She looked like anything but New York, and until he’d laid eyes on a woman his age who didn’t insist on painting every inch of her face, he’d had no idea how much he’d appreciate it.

  It was a good thing she was leaving. He may still have work on his mind, but he didn’t harbor any illusions. No way he’d forget about her just because he was on the clock.

  “So why do you work so much when you live in such a fantastic place?” she asked. “Your words, not mine.”

  “Family business,” he said. “If I screw up, it affects us all. I don’t want to be that guy.”

  “I know the feeling. I’m self-employed, and there’s no such thing as taking a break. Not unless you do it with the pressure of a thousand things to do wrecking your good time.”

  “Exactly.” Figured the first woman who’d ever come close to understanding him had to live…somewhere else. “Where are you from, exactly?”

  “Weaverville. Middle of nowhere, northern California.” She laughed at his surprise. “What? Not everyone from California lives in L.A.”

  “And not everyone in New York is a jerk.”

  Her eyes narrowed playfully. “Fine. So far you are not a jerk. But under the circumstances, how are you going to get away from work long enough to redeem the entire city?”

  On cue, his phone beeped. He glanced at the display. Running late , his brother wrote. Can you cover me @10? He welcomed the distraction. Almost wished it had come sooner, because what the hell was he doing with Estelle? “My brother owes me one,” he said. Or a hundred…but one would suffice. “I need to get to work.” Crosby was supposed to go over the books that morning, but he suspected the chore wouldn’t deliver good news.

  “You think you can steer me back in the general direction of the building before you abandon me?”

  “Careful there, Miss California. Sounds like you might be warming to me.”

  “You did promise to save me from the confines of that apartment.”

  “I think you’re reaching, but I’ll take it.” He picked up his coffee and swiped the table with a napkin before tossing his trash and opening the door, then settled in step with Estelle for the short walk back to the building. He didn’t need to go up to his apartment, but he offered to walk her to hers. “Want me to ride up with you?”

  “In that elevator? You must be kidding.”

  He laughed. “Can I walk you upstairs?”

  “No,” she said. “You still don’t need to know which apartment is mine, but you’re getting closer.”

  He shook his head and laughed. “Fair enough. I’ll see you later.”

  “Twelve days.”

  “Got it.” He watched appreciatively as she let herself inside, not moving from the spot until he couldn’t see her anymore. Then he walked to his truck, sitting in its rented parking spot in a private lot a block away. She might have twelve days, but he didn’t. His parents and brothers depended on him to keep the business running, which meant he had zero days. What had he gotten himself into?

  And why did he have to like it so much?

  Chapter Four

  When Estelle returned to the apartment, iced coffee in hand, it wasn’t yet ten and the air was already scalding hot. She stripped down, trading her tee for a tank top, and stopped short of her plans to open the window. That Hell Cat, or whatever it was, terrified her. If she had to decide between opening the window to that ugly thing and sweating to death, she just might choose the sauna. Other people paid for saunas, so how bad could it be?

  She pushed back sweaty bangs and, five minutes later, decided she preferred air. Cat-free air.

  Warily, she peeked between the blinds and jerked backward at the first shadow, even though it wasn’t remotely feline-shaped. A second peek confirmed no cat in sight, so she cracked open the window, disengaging four locks to do it. Maybe the cat would come back, but she needed air, so she took her chances. The other window, she noted, was bolted in place around the air conditioner. The damned thing had proven utterly useless, but she hit the power button anyway, surprised by the whirring sound that immediately emanated from the machine. She’d had to kick it the day before to get it to make noise, so things were definitely looking up.

  Until it started spewing smoke.

  “Oh, crap.” She yanked the cord out of the wall and stood back, expecting…what? An explosion? Flames? Aside from a few dying tendrils of smoke, nothing happened. Keeping one wary eye on the unit, she slid the other window open all the way and crossed to the kitchenette to grab her phone. Grady had
left the building super’s name and number on the fridge in the event she had any trouble, and this definitely qualified.

  She dialed.

  The phone rang about ten times before anyone answered, and anyone sounded pissed. “What?”

  “Um, I’m in 4B and the air conditioner…isn’t working,” she said in her best I’m-a-friendly-and-low-maintenance-Californian voice.

  “We don’t have air conditioners.”

  She stared at the unit. “I’m pretty sure I see one. I mean, there’s a little snowflake on it and everything.”

  “No, lady. What I mean is we don’t provide them. If your air conditioner has a problem, it’s yours, not mine.”

  “Um, okay.” But the words were pretty much useless, because a click interrupted them. Line dead.

  Air conditioner dead.

  And if she didn’t find someone willing to come over and fix it at a moment’s notice, she was going to sweat into a puddle, die, and get her face eaten off by Hell Cat.

  Great.

  She consulted the list of numbers on the fridge, hoping against hope there’d be a HVAC tech on it somewhere. And for once she lucked out. Fusion Air. She might owe her anal-retentive-about-everything-but-housekeeping brother an apology. It could soften the blow when he found out how much he owed her for getting the A/C fired up. Repairs weren’t cheap. She kept a close eye on the unit as the phone rang. Fortunately, the smoke seemed to have dissipated.

  A completely pleasant woman took her call and her info, promising someone would be out by one o’clock. Estelle thanked her profusely, double-pleased when the woman graciously said it was a pleasure to serve her. Okay, score one for Crosby and his miserable city, but he didn’t have to know that.

  After she hung up, she poked around for a fire extinguisher. She found one under the sink and made a mental note of it just in case the air conditioner spewed a new batch of smoke. Lord, she could use some fresh air—the kind without humidity, smog, or smoke. Or that smell. Garbage trucks back home smelled better than the average New York street.

  When she turned from the kitchen, she saw something more terrifying than any of the aforementioned stenches.

  Freaking Hell Cat.

  In the apartment.

  She bit back a scream.

  The creature stared placidly, its one remaining ear kicked back in a show of minor irritation. Yellow eyes were nearly lost to a tangle of long gray hair, but the crooked fangs stood out. And scared her shitless.

  She glanced around the small kitchen area, her gaze landing on a newspaper. For heaven’s sake…who got paper newspapers anymore, Grady? She grabbed it and edged toward the cat, holding the rolled-up pages out like a weapon.

  Hell Cat regarded her without interest. Or so she thought. Slowly, she became aware that the low rumble she heard wasn’t from the street below but, rather, from her feline house guest. And apparently she’d crossed a line, because the undertone turned into a shrill warning that had her backpedaling against the wall. So much for shooing him out.

  When she was a good ten feet away from him, he stopped yowling.

  “You’re a jerk, you know that?”

  The cat blinked.

  Estelle tossed the paper on the counter and picked up the remains of her iced coffee. “I’m not feeding you.”

  The cup in her hand reminded her of Crosby, but it wasn’t as if she’d thought of much else. He had to have some issue that would send a sane woman running for the hills—preferably the hills back home in Weaverville. Yeah, he’d confessed to being a work junkie, but that couldn’t be the only thing wrong with him? In fact, her problem with every man she’d met back home was a total lack of work ethic, which made Crosby’s self-professed flaw yet another point in his favor. The man was unreal.

  Still, he stayed stuck in her head while she waited for the repair guy. Despite expecting it, she jumped a mile when a knock sounded at the door. She shook off lingering images of Crosby’s incredible body and peered through the peephole, hoping against hope her brother’s air conditioner was about to be rescued.

  An entire bottle of wine wouldn’t be enough to stave off the shock that greeted her.

  Crosby? He wore a freaking Fusion Air hat, which sat slightly, adorably askew, as if he’d wiped his brow and bumped the hat off center. He’d changed his shirt since that morning, though she barely noticed the Fusion logo over all of that sculpted muscle straining the fabric. He looked more like a repair guy porn fantasy than someone who could exist in real life, but his existence was undeniable. Either he worked for the HVAC place—which explained his offer to look at the unit for her the day before—or he’d murdered some poor actual Fusion guy and tossed his lifeless body in a Dumpster somewhere.

  She took a deep breath and opened the door.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Really? Just like that?”

  He grinned. “Actually, when the work order came in, I recognized the address and remembered you had issues. I didn’t want you forced to have some strange guy in your apartment, so I was all over it.”

  “So your work emergency this morning…?”

  “It was legit, albeit not life or death. One of my brothers got held up on a job and needed someone to cover his next appointment. We take our on-time guarantee seriously.”

  “So you didn’t beat up the real HVAC guy just to get to me?”

  A perfectly mischievous, deviously kissable smile traced his lips. “Nah. But if it makes you feel any better, I would.”

  “That absolutely does not make me feel better.” It makes me feel like tearing your clothes off with my teeth. It would be a kindness, of course, because it was damned hot in there. And suddenly forecast to get a hell of a lot hotter. She could only resist so much, and now fate had put the man in her apartment. She was crumbling, and fast.

  “I mean it in the good way. What’s the air conditioner doing?”

  “Smoking.”

  “Smoking?”

  “Yeah, like actual smoke. I unplugged it. And I have a fire extinguisher.”

  “It’s been an hour since your call. If the unit isn’t smoking now, you probably don’t have anything to worry about. Now may I come in, or would you prefer to bring the air conditioner to the hallway?”

  “I can do that?” As if. The thing was so bolted in, she feared the wall would come down with it, like the aftermath of a failed Jenga move.

  “If it makes you more comfortable.”

  “No way. Come on in. I have the cat.”

  His gaze followed hers, then widened when it settled on the feline. The creature had not moved since he’d planted his butt on the table. He might have been asleep, but she didn’t want to get close enough to look for those yellow eyes in that mess of hair.

  “What is that thing?” Crosby asked.

  “You mean besides scary? He came in through the fire escape. I assume he belongs to someone, but probably not my brother. Grady’s allergic.”

  “He wouldn’t have told you ahead of time if he had a cat?”

  “You’d think, but he also told me the fridge was stocked, and it held nothing but ketchup and a single carton of leftover Chinese, which, frankly, I’m afraid to touch.”

  He shook his head. “Well, I can’t say you did much better when you went to the store. Sounds like there weren’t any hot dogs waiting for those buns you bought.”

  “Hey, I was cold from pickle juice. I couldn’t think.” She didn’t bother telling him she didn’t even like hot dogs. “You try walking through a refrigerator aisle in a soaked shirt.”

  His attention dropped to her chest, then eased back up in a way that left her feverish. When his gaze met hers, his eyes were dancing. Dirty dancing. “You keep reminding me of you in a wet T-shirt,” he said, “and this air conditioner isn’t the only thing I’ll be sweating over.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “The very best kind.”

  Oh, hell yes. Pretty please with jalapeños and whipped cream on top. “Well, in that case
, do you want to come in? You’re letting all the heat out.”

  He stepped inside and closed the door, then took the time to engage all three locks. Which kind of thrilled her. “You said the unit was smoking?”

  “What?” She’d been watching the play of muscle under his shirt while his arms worked the locks. “Oh, yeah. I unplugged it, but there was definitely smoke.”

  He went to the broken air conditioner and flipped down the front panel to extract a dusty screen. “This didn’t help. Filter needs to be clean for it to work, and this is bordering on a dryer lint quilt. I’m going out onto the fire escape to check out the back of your unit.”

  She nodded and enjoyed the view as he stepped through the open window.

  A moment later he came back in. “Well, the bad news is that it’s toast.”

  “There’s good news?”

  “I have one you can borrow.”

  “Oh God. Is this the part where I kiss you?”

  He whipped off his hat and tossed it, then closed the distance between them and dipped his head dangerously close to hers. “Only if you want to,” he murmured. “Because you do hate the city and are counting the twelve days until your departure.”

  Oh, God. Backpedaling time. Not just because he had a point she’d do well to remember, but because he was really close, and she liked it. Too much. Way too much for a woman determined to spend the next two weeks in the friend zone.

  Obviously sensing her hesitation, he backed off, but not far enough for her to breathe. No place in the apartment was probably far enough for that. “I’d invite you to wait in my apartment downstairs, but at the moment the working air conditioning is its only redeeming quality. I’ve torn the place apart to renovate, and it’s currently covered in drop cloths and plaster dust. You’re welcome to it, though.”

  She shook her head. “No, thank you. I’ll take my chances up here in the heat.”

  He laid another one of those devastating grins on her, which left her staring at his lips. “I’ll be back in a little while with the air conditioner,” he said. “I have a feeling after carrying it up four flights of stairs, I’m going to need to cool off.”