Having a Ball! Page 4

  My hair was still a bird’s nest, and I hadn’t even taken the time to brush my teeth. I had a burning need for the coffee and some industrial-strength aspirin.

  Fortunately, the kitchen wasn’t that far away. I flipped off the television on my way through.

  Unfortunately, when I got there, I nearly had the scare of my life. My landlord, local hottie and ass (the ball said so, after all), stood leaning against my kitchen counter, looking freshly showered. I bet he’d even brushed his teeth, which made me flinch in horror.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” It was rude. It was said in a snarly voice. But after last night… Oh, my God. My eyes darted around the small kitchen. Then I whipped around to take in the living room-dining room combo. Had I really seen a talking dwar-…gnome last night? Or was that just the extra beer and vodka making up details? I sprinted back to the bathroom and my bedroom, completely ignoring the way Toby yelled after me. If he could ignore me for cleavage (and yes, I distinctly remembered that because it was before my second beer), then he could just hold his panties for a second while I made sure there wasn’t a wild, rude gnome running rampant through my house.

  I found nothing and breathed a sigh of relief. It had seemed so real, but then some nightmares had left me sweating and shaking in the middle of the night. This must have been no different. Seriously Befuddled Danner was on the radar. And I gave a brief thought to not thinking of myself in the third person, but it left my clogged brain in an instant.

  I sauntered back into the kitchen, after a quick stop in the bathroom to at least rinse my mouth out, and eyed Toby. He gave me a hesitant smile in return. Even that did wonders for my insides, despite his perfidy last night. Hey, I might not want him in a real relationship with me, but that didn’t mean he had the right to go slobber all over someone else.

  But back to the hesitant smile.

  “Rough night?” he asked, handing me a cup of rich, dark coffee, just the way I liked it.

  “You could say that.” I took a sip and waited while it scorched my tongue and slid down my belly to warm me from the toes up. I could feel each individual brain cell coming alive. “You?”

  “Not really. I got in about five this morning and need some serious sleep, but the flight was okay.”

  Ah, right, my creaking brain recalled that he had been away at his sister’s in Kansas for her wedding. That’s all the farther I got before I halted. But then how was he here last night? Maybe the whole thing was a dream, a very bad dream. I’d need to call Caro and find out if there really had been crack in my beer. “I thought I saw you last night at The Dive. You came in and were all over some floozy’s cleavage. You totally ignored me, when I thought we were friends.” I could feel my mad rising inside me and heating me like no coffee ever could.

  He crossed his arms over the chest I let take me to newer heights in my dreams, and effectively burst my anger balloon. “Nope, couldn’t have been me. I was sitting in the airport waiting for my red-eye flight to be called.”

  I almost asked if he could verify that with solid evidence, but what would be the point? If he was lying about getting back this morning, and about the woman he’d been all over last night, it really wasn’t any of my business.

  So I went with a smooth topic change. “Want to make me some breakfast?”

  Twenty minutes and a nice hot shower later, I was back in the kitchen with one of Toby’s special omelets in front of me. The plate was mine and so was the fork, but I knew none of the yummy ingredients had come from my refrigerator. I didn’t just kill vegetables in the garden, I killed them in the crisper, too, after someone else had taken the time to grow them. I could make a wicked can of soup and actually wasn’t too bad at quite a few meals, but it was always better to have someone else cook for me. Another throwback to a childhood with more frozen dinners warmed up in the microwave all by my lonesome when I would have liked one of my parents to actually enter the kitchen for something other than a plate of brie and crackers for their publicist.

  Toby washed a cast iron skillet (his) in my sink while I ate. He took that skillet everywhere and rarely cooked in anything else. We won’t go into the possibility of germs. Any food cooked in that thing was delicious.

  Do you see why I wouldn’t want to mess up this great friendship with complicated boy/girl stuff? How would I get fed or live in my great apartment if we got together and it was horrible? Fantasy was always so much better than reality anyway and allowed me to make him say or do whatever I wanted in my thoughts instead of the unpredictability of a real, live, other person.

  “Thanks for the food,” I said after one particularly juicy, cheesy bite. “Don’t tell me you actually had all of this in your refrigerator. You were supposed to be gone for another week. Knowing you, I bet you gave all your stuff to Mrs. Fink so it wouldn’t rot.”

  He laughed, his deep, masculine chuckle that ran right up the backs of my thighs. Hoo-boy.

  “Actually, I borrowed it back from Mrs. Fink. I knew you wouldn’t have anything.”

  Sometimes it’s nice to be predictable. “So why are you home early?” I wiped my mouth with a napkin and sat back in my chair; it was so much better to enjoy the rest of my coffee that way. “I thought you loved your family.”

  “I do, but I’d already visited with everyone, and there wasn’t much to do after Liz and her husband left on their honeymoon, so I decided to come home.” He wiped down my counter with a dishrag. I had the distinct impression he was avoiding eye contact.

  “Mom working you over again about giving her grandchildren?” Oh, did I know that one. And what my mom thought she would do with grandchildren, when even the marvelous me hadn’t entranced her, was beyond me.

  He looked up this time, and his smile was a flash of white teeth in a stellar face. All that light brown hair stood up from his head to wave to and fro, and the power of his crystal clear blue eyes shot straight to my nether regions. Yum. I think I already said that.

  “Yeah.” He leaned back against the counter again and crossed his arms and ankles this time. He threw one of my dishtowels over his shoulder and looked so casually domestic I wanted to eat him up. “She’s on the warpath now. I’m the only one out of the four of us left single. Being the oldest, I guess that’s some kind of abomination, according to her.”

  “So what, she wants you to jump on the matrimonial train and do the Locomotion?” Little Kylie Manogue there for you.

  I loved when I could get him to laugh out loud. He didn’t disappoint now. “I guess so. It’s not enough that she has five grandchildren and will most likely have another within a year. I’m twenty-eight, and I should have sown my oats.”

  I did not inject that I was well weeded and turned for better planting.

  He continued. “Now it is important to find the perfect girl because I want to still be young enough to enjoy all the children I’m going to have.”

  “Uh, yeah, but you won’t be having children at all, if I remember my biology correctly.” I finished the last of my coffee and took my dishes over to the sink. I felt bad just leaving them there, so I snagged the sponge and cleaned while I talked. “And twenty-eight is not exactly old, especially for a guy.” If anyone needed to worry, it was me, since I was twenty-seven now. I got the lecture, too, but my mom was much more to the point: Get a guy before everything starts going south.

  But I wasn’t interested in actually getting a guy. I mean, please, the complications. I wasn’t an accountant for nothing. I liked all my columns to add up nicely, no mess, no fuss. And who has a relationship like that? No one, so no, thanks. My fantasies were quite enough to keep me happy. Any emotional stuff I had inside went into my art.

  Well, it would as soon as I found my medium.

  Toby busied himself measuring some of my cabinets. Before you think that was horribly strange, let me explain. He’s a carpenter and all-around handyman. He was also trying to repair and replace some of the fixtures that had been in this house since it was built. Maybe that wa
s where my little dream about a door opening in the wall came from. I had no clue about dream interpretation, but maybe the thrift store had something I could pick up.

  Speaking of the thrift store, and by extension, the ball, maybe I could ask it some questions about what to do art-wise. I dried my hands on a dish towel and thought how exactly I would phrase the question. I guess I could go through each individual kind of art one at a time. The one question I wouldn’t ask is whether I should give it up entirely.

  My still slightly foggy brain was nagging me about something having to do with the ball, but I had to dismiss it since Toby was talking to me.

  “I’m thinking I might put some glass-fronted cabinets in here and paint everything white.” He sauntered around the tiny galley kitchen with his finger on his chin. I wanted to be that finger.

  “But what about color? Bold red or sea green would look pretty.” I sat back down at the breakfast bar he’d put in last month. I had nice, comfortable chairs at my bar, and they hadn’t cost a lot. Maybe I should give the name of the store to Charlie at The Dive.

  “I know you’re all into the artsy thing, but white would make the room look bigger. Red would close it down, make it small.”

  “Ah.” Guess I’d better go and get myself a book about color palette. Apparently, I didn’t even have a handle on that.

  I avoided Toby’s gaze this time. I didn’t want to see the pity in his eyes. He knew I tried all kinds of art. I’d even let him view one of my masterpieces once, and he nearly choked trying not to laugh.

  “So, anyway, white!” Love those exclamation points to change the tone of the conversation. “Sounds lovely. Do you need me to prep anything in here for you? Tape things off and make the job easier?”

  “No, don’t worry about it. I’ll probably want to start next week, though, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure, sure. No problem at all. I’ll just be working on third-quarter stuff, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “All right. Well, I better get going, so I can drop into bed.”

  He should never say the word bed in my presence. “Um, sure, okay. Have a nice time resting.” Could I be any more pathetic?

  He chucked me under the chin and began gathering his things. “Hey, did you watch the game last night?” He rolled up the tape measure, and I was mesmerized by those long, capable fingers.

  Ugh. Football. He’d tried last year to teach me about the ins and outs of the sport. I still didn’t understand what seven and ten meant, but he seemed so happy to have someone to clank beers with on Monday nights. All I had to do was follow his lead and yell when he yelled, boo when he booed. Not a bad gig.

  “No,” I said now, hesitant. “I, uh, went out with Caro last night, and we didn’t watch the game.” No, I got drunk and hallucinated away half the night.

  “That’s a shame. It was a good one.” He shook his head and not a strand of hair moved. He winged an eyebrow up, and I wanted to lick it. “Well, are you going to come over Friday and watch? I’ve got beer.”

  He said it like it was the major enticement for coming over and watching three hours of men running full-bore at each other in tight pants. As if the lure wasn’t sitting with him and breathing in his special blend of scents and taking them back to my half of the house and dreaming.

  “Yeah, beer.” I gulped. “I may have to watch the intake for a little while. I think I went a little overboard last night.”

  “We will have to watch that.” He gave me a mock glare. “Can’t have a lush living upstairs, you know.”

  “Ha, ha, ha. I’m not a lush. And don’t you have something to do right now?” The niggling thought about the ball had taken hold in my head, and I remembered the damn thing talking to me, spelling out my name. I had to find the ball and figure out if I was just going crazy or if it was time to completely switch to plain soda.

  “Yeah, all right, nap time. See you later?” He tucked the tape measure into his back pocket. I wanted to be that tape measure. Ahem.

  “Yep, I’m sure you’ll see me later.” I walked him to the door. “I’ll try not to make too much noise up here, so you can get some sleep.”

  “Eh, you don’t have to worry about it. After the chaos of the last few days, I won’t have any trouble getting to sleep.”

  So then there was nothing left to say but goodbye. I shut the door behind him and leaned back against it to hold myself up. He was so damn yummy. But he’d never be interested in someone like me, and that made him safe. Not to mention freaking adorable. Unlike that nasty little gnome from my dream, who could have been cute with the flower in the buttonhole of his little jacket and the red cone hat. But that smile had been lethal. Well, at least it was all a dream.

  Or maybe not.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. I stared and stared, not sure if my brain was making the right connection between synapses. It couldn’t be. Hell, it shouldn’t be. Except it was.

  There, standing at attention like a little soldier made of stone, was the rude Arrol, buttonholed flower, kooky smile, and all. He was a soft, faded gray of years gone by, and as still as a statue as he stood on the edge of my fireplace.

  “How…what…gah!” I took a step back from his still smiling face and nearly tripped over a few cans of white paint.

  I expected the little grayed-out guy to start chattering away to me in his prim and proper—not to mention irritatingly formal and annoying—voice, but nothing happened. Nothing at all.

  He just stood there, frozen. I gathered my courage up around me like a wooly blanket and took a hesitant step forward. I’d poke him and see if he was as stiff as he looked. If he grabbed my finger, I just knew I’d faint. But I could deal with that later.

  Just one more inch of scooching my feet, and I could touch him without getting my whole body into his personal space. I scooched. I hesitated again. All right, I was going to do this. I poked him in the belly and met hard resistance. I poked again and got the same results. I hadn’t touched Arrol last night, so I couldn’t say he wasn’t always this hard, but I had a difficult time believing he wouldn’t have bitten my finger off by now if he could feel me messing with him.

  Huh.

  Maybe just the part about him talking to me was a weird dream. And speaking of that, I went looking for my ball, keeping one eye on Arrol at all times. That might not even actually be his name, if it had all been a dream. I was having a little bit of an issue with reality.

  I found the ball in the cushions of my old couch and tried to work up just a little more courage before talking to it again.

  In the end, I couldn’t do it. I had used all my courage with the finger poking. The ball would have to wait until I’d replenished my supply.

  Chapter Five

  The phone rang before I had to think any more about the ball. Escapism at its best. I snatched the thing off the end table faster than you could blink. “Hello?”

  I recognized the answering sigh and settled in for a long conversation punctuated by Caro telling me how beautiful this new guy was.

  “So who is he this time?”

  “His name is Ethan. Isn’t that a strong, rugged, manly name?” Another sigh. “Beautiful.”

  “And he doesn’t mind being part of your all-male harem?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  Apparently I had moved her from her quiet lassitude and into hyper-defensive mode.

  “Kidding, kidding,” I said, not wanting to start a fight. I had too much weirdness in my life right now to deal with being on the outs with my best friend. “Just pulling your chain.”

  “Well, don’t. I’m in the first stages of complete euphoria, and I’d like to relish it for a little while longer.”

  “Fine. So this Ethan, what does he look like?”

  “Tall, dark hair, rugged features to go with his rugged, beautiful name. And hands that would make your skin cry in ecstasy.”

  “And you know this how?” Inquisition Danner at her best. I was kind of freaking myself
out with all these labels and third person references to myself.

  I got quite a bit of silence over the receiver. Now, I knew Caro didn’t go to bed with every guy she’d ever met. She wasn’t a prude in any way, shape, or form, but she also wasn’t promiscuous. She did, however, jump into things before knowing what she was doing, another completely opposite trait between us. I planned so hard I thwarted myself before I even got started, sometimes. But enough about me. I wanted to know about those hands.

  Another sigh. “He held my hand the whole way walking home.” If dreamy was a sound, it sounded just like her voice.

  “But I thought you went home with Branson.” I couldn’t have dreamed that too. Could I?

  “Oh, I let Branson take me to the twenty-four-hour diner over in Silver Springs and then turned him loose while Ethan and I argued over what Lynnard Skynnard song was the best available on the table jukeboxes.”

  “ ‘Freebird,’ of course.” I rolled my eyes, though she couldn’t see me.

  “Don’t roll your eyes at me. I know that and now so does Ethan. He was very gracious, in a rugged man sort of way, when I informed him of the correct answer.”

  “How do you get away with that kind of behavior? Not just the song stuff, but cutting Branson loose. And you still haven’t adequately explained how Ethan had his hands on you already. Your sighs sound like more than just holding hands on the way home.”

  Another sigh. “Branson had to get home because he had a presentation to give this morning. It’s not bad behavior to allow the man to go home and get some sleep when he’s falling over into his pie.” She paused, and I’d bet dollars to donuts she was raising one perfect eyebrow at me through the phone.

  “And the hands?”

  “He walked me home even though his car was parked right around the corner. He held my hand the whole way. He said it was too beautiful a sunrise to waste sitting in a car.”

  “Sunrise? The guy walked you home? At sunrise? Aren’t you exhausted? Didn’t you have morning breath and devastated makeup?” If not, then I needed some of this mojo.