Lola: Thanks for the heads up? WTF. You knew he was interested this whole time? I’m so embarrassed...
Sarah: I wasn’t sure how you felt about him until now…
Lola: I’ve literally been dating other people! And you met my last two boyfriends!
Sarah: True.
Lola:????
Sarah: You're not exactly an open book! I wanted to give you time in case you had an epiphany.
Lola:☹
Sarah: I still love you?
Lola:…
Sarah: Have you seen the hunky policeman again? Not that I’m a stalker but I Googled him after you called me…And then I ooooogled him.
Sarah: His picture is on the LAPD website…
Sarah: Drool.
Sarah: Sigh.
Sarah: When do I get to meet him?
Lola: Right?!! And yes, but I can only give details over a BIG glass of wine…Oh, and also…
Lola: He kissed me…and then I kissed him.
Sarah: What!!!!!!!! When can we meet? I want all the details!
Lola: Tomorrow at 6? Grand Cru?
Sarah: Yas! Can’t wait!
Lola: Laters...
Knowing that she’d arrange the double date with Sarah over wine the next day, she tucked her phone into her bag and pulled out of her parking space. How could her best friend not have said anything to her? Sarah had met Matt years ago, which meant that she had probably known the whole time.
What a mess.
She hoped that he wasn’t too smitten. He and Sarah would be great together if they gave it a go. Sarah was fun and funky, and he was…not fun and funky. She smiled at the thought. Matt was as straight as they came. Aside from his California-surfer looks, he was all accountant. Smart. Serious. Practical.
Yeah, they could work.
Or completely hate each other.
TBD.
As she drove to the store, she let her thoughts of Matt and Sarah drift away for another time and, instead, focused on the fact that she was going to have a very good looking, unattached, untouchable male sleeping in her eight-hundred-square-foot studio apartment.
Even the memory of having him alone in her space for a short period made her stomach flop around uselessly and her hands slick with sweat on the steering wheel. God, she realized with a start, I’m nervous. She, Lola Michaels, artist extraordinaire who’d never thought much about social interaction—mostly because she didn’t socialize—was nervous about a man staying over. A man who had told her that they couldn’t so much as touch each other while she was involved with his work.
But hell, she was nervous in every way when it came to Jacob Simmone. She’d even spent the night after he’d left her apartment wondering if he had been as turned on by their kiss as she had been. Wondering if she’d imagined the whole damn thing. She’d even wondered if he’d thought that she was a good kisser. Agh!
Anxious, she strummed her hands on the steering wheel as she indicated into the surface parking lot of the grocery store. She knew that she would calm down once she had her grocery list done and was back home among her art supplies, but still, thoughts of Jacob distracted her.
She wondered how the whole process worked. She’d looked it up and it was either too rare to warrant online comment, or it was something that the LAPD barely ever did. She thought it might be case-specific; the LAPD couldn’t have that many serial killers galivanting around all the time. Could they?
She parked her car, reached over to grab her reusable bags from the floor on the passenger side. When she turned to get out, she gave a small yelp of surprise. A man was standing outside her car window, smiling in at her, his broad face split in a wide grin. She felt her heart race in her chest and forced herself to calm down.
When he waved at her, she smiled and rolled down the window. He was huge, with a thick, wide face and a slightly crooked nose. A nose that, judging by his beefy arms, had probably been broken by someone, not by accidentally walking into his kitchen cupboard.
“Sorry, Ma’am,” he said, turning to point at a sign that was posted in front of her car. “This is loading on weekday nights from five to nine.” He rubbed the back of his neck and sent her a sheepish grin. “I’d usually let it fly but we’re expecting a delivery in the next half hour.”
“Oh, no. I’m sorry,” Lola chuckled, noticing his branded shirt for the first time, the store’s logo neatly printed on the left breast pocket. “I didn’t even see it.” She started her car again. “I’ll move. Thanks for the heads up.”
He smiled and turned away, and Lola felt her heart speeding in her chest. You have to calm down. God, she’d barely been outside since Friday, except to walk to and from her car. It was pathetic.
Because her thoughts were not helping her attempt to continue her life as usual, she quickly re-parked her car in a spot that had opened up closer to the door of the store and hopped out before she could change her mind. When she saw the man who’d been standing outside her window smile at her as he walked past, she returned the smile and moved towards the store, deliberately pushing aside any anxiety and wariness.
Jacob knocked on Lola’s door a few minutes before seven-thirty. His duffel bag, which was strung over his shoulder, held a pair of shorts and a shirt to sleep in and then a pair of sneakers to go to the gym in the morning. Other than that, the only other items he brought were toiletries and his dress clothes for work the next day, which were hanging over his arm in the zip-up laundry bag.
The door swung open and Lola smiled at him, sending his pulse into an erratic tick in his throat. She wore a short, black tunic that fell to just below her knees and black, fluffy slippers with bunny ears on them. Her hair was haphazardly twisted into a knot on top of her head and little ringlets escaped in every direction. He felt his mouth go dry. His entire body tightened and, for some reason unbeknownst to him, his eyes gravitated towards her lips.
Mistake. He had a brief moment where he remembered what it was like to kiss her, remembered how soft and generous her mouth had been under his. He took a single second to groan internally and then quickly recovered, hiding his juvenile fascination with a well-practiced smile. “Sorry, I’m running a little late.”
She stepped back, letting him into the apartment. “That’s okay. I figured we may as well keep this as casual as possible given the circumstances.” She swept a hand down her pajama-clad body. “Hence my attire.”
“Not bad.” He grinned, this time deliberately looking away from her lips, which he realized, too late, was also a mistake considering that his eyes landed on her smooth, slender leg instead.
Fuck. This is never going to work. He walked past her, smelling only lilacs this time.
The first thing that he noticed was that the gaudy, purple sofa had been pushed to the foot of her bed and a queen-sized blow-up mattress was occupying the entire lounge area. “You didn’t have to go to the effort,” he said, indicating the knee-high mattress with an awkward wave.
“I didn’t.” She shrugged. “The mattress self-regulates, so all I had to do was plug it in. I bought it for when my best friend and I go drinking together.”
He chuckled. “She usually stays over?”
“Yeah. Although sometimes we’re too drunk to even plug this beast in, so we just pile into my bed.”
“Sounds like a good friend.” He hesitated, then put his duffle on the floor by the bed. “Question?” When she nodded, he asked, “Why didn’t you call her on the night of the break-in?”