“Wine?” I offer.
She’s taking slack-jawed inventory of my penthouse. I’ve yet to witness Catarina amazed by anything. Not gonna lie, I’m proud to illicit that response from my prickly co-worker.
“Like it?” I decide against wine and pull a beer from the fridge for myself.
She unshoulders her purse strap, plunking it on one of my breakfast bar’s stools. “I like it. Who decorated? Ex-girlfriend? Designer? Your mom?”
I grunt at her assumption. “If my mom had decorated this place it’d closely resemble the inside of a Cracker Barrel.”
“I like Cracker Barrel,” she says kindly. Who knows if that’s true. I can’t picture elegant Catarina Everhart in the country-style restaurant famous for its sawmill gravy.
“Wine, Kitty Cat?”
“I said no more drinks.” She wags a finger at me, looking damn sober on top of damn cute.
“Is that what you’ll write in your article? ‘He took me up for a nightcap that I refused.’”
“Yes. And after that, I’ll advise ‘Never have a nightcap if you don’t intend on kissing him goodnight.’” One eyebrow hitches. “I’ll have a bottle of water though.”
I grab her a Smartwater. She drinks from the bottle, her delicate throat moving as she swallows each cold sip.
“Would kissing me be that bad?” I’d totally make out with her. She has a mouth that looks both plush and soft, and I’ll bet that sharp tongue would soften once I stroked it with mine.
“I’m not kissing you!” she says around a laugh. “Again, is this what you say to your dates? If so, it’s not hard to figure out why you’ve been single ‘on and off’ for so long.”
She rounds the white leather sofa and sits primly on the edge. I take the middle, sitting so close that my jean-clad thigh touches hers.
“Seriously, Fox.” She gives me a mild glare before scooting a few inches away from me. “Okay. The column. You’ve been hiding your summary from me, and I want to see it.”
“I decided to turn it into Mia directly.”
“What? Why?” She sounds sincerely disappointed.
“I don’t want to flavor your views with mine. We see the world differently, Kitty Cat.”
“You’d better not lie and say we made out tonight.”
“I’m not going to lie.” A stubborn strand of hair has wrestled its way loose from her ponytail again. I reach up and slide it behind her ear. “When I write that we made out, it’ll be true.”
She watches me carefully.
“But not tonight,” I tell her, backing off abruptly. “You’ve had too much to drink.”
A choking sound exits her throat. “Have not.”
I smother a smile at the lip of my beer bottle.
“I’m in control of my faculties, Fox. If I wanted to kiss you after a few glasses of wine, I would. And you couldn’t stop me.”
“Hey, hey.” I hold up my palms. “Don’t make me report you to Mia for sexual harassment.”
“Me! You were the one offering to have sex with me in Marge’s old office.”
“An offer that still stands.”
She takes an exaggerated gulp from her water bottle and regards the label. “Oh my goodness, it works. I’m not going to have sex with or kiss Barrett Fox. Thank you, Smartwater, for making me smart!”
“Hilarious,” I grumble.
“Eh. I can do better.”
“You really can, Kitty Cat. You have sharp wit. That was bland.”
She shrugs off my compliment-insult combo.
“I mean it. I read your articles. You’re funny. Concise. Sharp.”
“Sharp and concise and funny.” She says this to the living room window overlooking the river and the cityscape beyond.
“Those were compliments. Do you prefer I compliment your body instead?” I don’t wait for her to answer. “You have a great ass, hair I want to run my fingers through, and I bet your lips are heaven on earth.”
She swallows, appearing more than a little stunned. I lift her hand. “You have pretty fingers, too. Elegant. Ever play the piano?”
“When I was twelve.”
It’s a rich girl hobby. I’m not surprised.
“Did you?”
“No.” There weren’t a lot of pianos available at the trailer park, unless the keyboard had a Casio logo on it and took five double-A batteries.
Her lips hitch into a small smile before she tugs her hand from mine. She stands and walks to the mantel over a fireplace I never use. I moved here when the weather was warm. I haven’t had the chance to kick back in front of a fire and sip whiskey yet, but it’s a goal.
She picks up a framed photo of me running a touchdown for the Bucks. My buddy Dax had it framed for me the day I was drafted for the Dolphins. Catarina examines the photo then sets it down next to a grouping of shells I took from the beach in Miami before I flew back to Columbus for good.
“Why ‘bad boy of the NFL’?” she asks of my stupid nickname.
“You say that like it was intentional. Like I picked it.”
“You do things that land you squarely in that category, Fox. Are you telling me it’s accidental?”
“Not accidental.” I shrug. “Just not intentional. Guess I never shook my roots.”
“Were you a rule-breaker as a kid?”
“I was a shit,” I tell her honestly. “Until I became interested in sports. I played a lot of touch football with my friends. When I was finally old enough to work, I saved up to join the high school team.”
“Did scouts find you and offer a scholarship like in a movie?”
“Something like that.”
Her head tilts like she’s considering. I shift on the couch, uncomfortable with the attention. I don’t mind attention for being an asshole, but attention for doing well has always made me uncomfortable. Probably we could blame my upbringing, but let’s not go full-on therapy session here.
I roll my shoulder and wince. I’m paying the price for too many swings and honestly, I pushed past my comfort level to win that last game.
“You hurt yourself.” She sounds concerned.
“Eh, it’s just sore.”
She rounds the couch and stands behind me, brushing her fingers along my shoulder. I flinch, air hissing through my teeth in preparation for the pain. Instead of digging her fingers into my muscles, she tenderly touches here and there until she finds a spot to the right of my spine. With her thumbs, or what feels like her thumbs, she manipulates the tissue there, working it this way and that with gentle but firm presses to my flesh.
“There,” she announces a few minutes later.
“There?”
“Yeah. That should help. There’s a muscle right here”—she touches the spot that she’d been working on which is surprisingly sore now—“that will help your shoulder release. Make sure you ice it later. Twenty minutes on, forty minutes off.”
When she rounds the couch, my eyebrows are at the top of my forehead. “You a voodoo doctor or something?”
“I dabble in acupressure. Mostly for my dad’s benefit. He’s always had back trouble. I work out a few kinks for him when I can.”