CHAPTER ONE
I didn’t understand apartment building parties.
In fact, until I moved into my new apartment eight months ago, my only experience of them was that episode of Friends where Ross pissed off all his neighbors.
Now, I was getting ready for my third party.
I was starting to think I’d moved into the wrong building.
I wasn’t really a party person.
Not that I didn’t go to parties. I did. Like, once a year, and usually only for half an hour before I made an excuse and left. I didn’t know if it was because I was an introvert by nature or because, when I was a child, my staunchly Catholic grandmother drilled into me that only hookers, pimps, and drug addicts went to parties.
Probably a mix of both.
She was a delightful woman, really.
“Just don’t go,” my best friend, Victoria, said.
I picked up my phone and looked at the screen. “I wish I could get out of it, Tori, but Vincent has knocked on my door four times in the last week to make sure I’m going.”
She waved her hand. “Vincent is eighty-three. He’ll forget you never showed.”
“It’s his party,” I reminded her, grabbing my hairbrush. “His birthday party. And his forgetting is why he came over four times.” I adjusted my phone so it was standing on my dresser so I could finish getting ready and still talk with her.
“Oh, so it’s nothing to do with Kai, then?”
My cheeks flushed at the mention of my hot neighbor. “Absolutely not. Kai is my neighbor, and I’m not even sure he’s interested in me like that.”
“Seriously, Ivy? When we saw him last week, he practically undressed you with his eyes and fucked you on the stairs.”
“Tori!”
“It’s true!” She laughed, reaching up to twist her long, black hair into a messy bun. “He totally wants you.”
“Okay, we’re not having this conversation. I’m pretty sure he has a girlfriend.”
“No, he doesn’t have a girlfriend.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw him in the grocery store and asked him.”
I sighed. “Of course you did.”
She grinned. “You’re welcome, by the way. You know you won’t stay long at the party, so why don’t you just leave with him instead?”
“Okay, goodbye.” I leaned forward and hung up before she could go any further.
I wasn’t going to talk about Kai to her.
Yes, I had a crush on my unfairly sexy neighbor. Yes, I kind of wanted to climb him like a tree and ride him like a bull. Yes, I’d had more than one dirty dream about him since I’d moved in.
But that didn’t mean anything would happen, because despite what Tori said, I wasn’t sure Kai was interested at all.
Also, sleeping with your neighbor was never going to end well. For anyone.
My phone buzzed and I tapped the text message that came through.
TORI: BOW CHICKA WOW WOW
ME: Shut the fuck up.
I tossed the phone onto my bed with a shake of my head. She didn’t know when to stop. I was not going to sleep with Kai, no matter how many times she brought it up.
Even if he was interested, it wasn’t going to happen.
Maybe.
Probably.
I put some mascara on my invisible eyelashes and gave my blonde hair one last comb-through with my fingers. If this party wasn’t Vincent’s eighty-third birthday, I would have found a way to get out of it, for sure.
Have you ever told an old man you couldn’t go to his party? Have you seen those sad eyes that could give a rescue full of puppies a run for their money?
Yeah.
I tugged my jeans up and slipped my feet into some ankle boots, then picked up my phone and left my bedroom. I still had time and I hadn’t eaten yet, so I was going to run out and grab some takeout before I showed my face for half an hour at the party.
I opened the door and almost walked right into Kai in the hallway.
“Whoa. Where are you running off to in a hurry? You know Vincent will be pissed if you skip out on his party.”
I pursed my lips at the tall, sexy, smiling man opposite me. “I’m not skipping out on his party. I’m hungry. I was going to get dinner.”
“You know there’ll be food there, right?”
“Yes, but I also know Vincent has a penchant for tequila, and I’m not playing his drinking games on an empty stomach.” I dragged my gaze away from his bright-blue one and locked my front door. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back on time.”
“Thank God. You’re the only person in this building who isn’t the other side of thirty-five.”
“Thirty-five is hardly ancient.”
“I know, but when you’re a divorced mother-of-two and you don’t get the message that I’m not interested, it’s inconvenient.” He unlocked his door with another grin, but I saw the trepidation flash in his eyes.
Ah.
“I see how it goes,” I replied, shoving my keys in my ass pocket. “You want me at the party so you can use me to keep Amanda away from you.”
Amanda was a thirty-six-year-old divorced single mom who was even newer to the building than I was. She lived on the ground floor with her ten-year-old twin boys—a fact we were all grateful for, for obvious reasons—and she’d taken a big shine to Kai. He’d told her a thousand times he wasn’t interested because he was eight years younger than her and had no idea what to do with two children, but she was persistent.
I also knew that her ex-husband had the boys this weekend, and she liked to let loose when it was his weekend. I’d seen her stumbling into the building after my shift at the bar more than once—hell, I’d put her in a cab more than once, too.
But hey, more power to her.
I’d probably get completely hammered if I were her and I knew I didn’t have to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn to two noisy boys the next day.
Kai groaned and clasped his hands in front of him. His biceps tightened, and the phoenix tattoo on his left arm flexed with the movement. “Ivy, please. Help a guy out.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “And give Mrs. Valentino ideas about us again? I think not.”
“Oh, come on. There are worse things than an elderly Italian lady thinking you’re my girlfriend just because we were doing laundry at the same time.”
“Yes, like Amanda thinking I am.” I dropped my arms. “She doesn’t like me anyway, and the last thing I want is a childless Amanda going heavy on the Patron on the roof.”
He paused. “Yeah, that’s problematic.”
“You think?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Anyway, I’m going to pick up Chinese food before all hell breaks loose here.”
“Chinese?”
“Ye-ee-ess,” I said slowly.
“I could go for Chinese.”
“I don’t remember inviting you.”
“I’ll pay.”
It took me all of one second to change my answer. “Done. But you have exactly two minutes to get changed, because you’re not trampling all that dust in my car.”
Kai looked down at himself. “Yeah, all right. Hold that thought.”