Chapter 8
RIGGS
My text to Smith went unanswered until Saturday morning.
I was on the couch with a steaming mug of tea when my phone vibrated against the coffee table, screen blinking to life.
Something in my body must have reflexively known it was him because my heart immediately slammed itself against my rib cage in an attempt to escape.
Taking a swallow of my drink and ignoring the way my hand shook as I raised the mug to my mouth, I leaned forward and grabbed my phone.
Smith
I’m fine, thank you for checking.
I’m actually here, with your hoodie. If you’re awake.
I didn’t mean to steal it. I was just out of sorts.
I practically dropped my phone and my tea at the same time, scrambling off the couch and through the apartment. Yanking open the front door, I took the stairs down into the shop and flipped on the lights, finding Smith on the other side of the glass, Ev’s hoodie hanging over his arm.
Unlocking the door, I cracked it open enough for Smith to come inside. The bells jingled so loud when the door closed, I winced.
“Did I wake you?” he asked, cheeks red as strawberries.
“No,” I said. “I was up. Why?”
Smith looked anywhere but at me, gesturing at me with nervous fingers.
I tucked my chin toward my chest and looked down at myself, realizing I’d been so excited about Smith’s arrival I’d neglected to put clothes on.
I’d slept in a ratty pair of plaid pajama bottoms that were a size too big for me.
The stretched-out elastic waistband barely clung to my hips, revealing so much of my happy trail the base of my shaft was almost exposed.
“Oh, shit.”
He shook the hoodie at me, and I grabbed it quickly, pulling it over my head and tugging it down to cover as much of my body as possible. Smith’s cheeks didn’t get any closer to their normal color, and I ran a hand through my hair to shove it back from my face.
“Sorry about that,” I muttered.
“It’s fine.” He nodded quickly, now staring at my bare toes. “I shouldn’t have come over unannounced.”
“It’s…it’s okay.” I licked my lips and pulled them between my teeth, suddenly unsure of what else to say. This wasn’t like me. I didn’t have problems with people. I didn’t…I wasn’t attracted to people. At least, not in any way that mattered to them.
“I should go,” he said, at the same time I asked, “Did you want some tea?”
Smith chewed the inside of his cheek, blinking up at me. “No coffee?”
“I mean, I’ve got some in the shop, but not upstairs.”
“And you were inviting me upstairs?” he asked.
Is that what I had meant to do?
Shit.
“Just…never mind.”
He grimaced, rubbing the back of his neck and finally looking at my face. Fuck, he was handsome. Probably far too young for me, but there was something about his awkwardness that drew me in like a tractor beam. And it wasn’t that I was comparing him to Ev, because they weren’t the same at all, but…
“Tea would be nice,” he said softly, the smallest smile on his face.
“Alright. Tea.”
I picked at the fraying cuff of my hoodie while Smith followed me upstairs to the apartment.
I hadn’t even bothered to close the door when I’d come down to meet him so it was already open when we reached the landing.
Smith stepped into my apartment so close behind me I could feel the heat of his breath against me, and I absolutely didn’t miss the soft intake of breath when the door closed behind him.
“It’s not much,” I said.
“It’s…so much more than much.” He made another appreciative sound. “Should I take my shoes off?”
Fuck, the thought of Smith being that comfortable, that exposed.
“If you want,” I rasped.
“It looks like a shoes off kind of place.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I left him in the entryway to decide what he wanted to do.
The soft thump of his sneakers hitting the floor was enough to take me out at the knees.
Thankfully, the kitchen counter was there to support me.
I flicked the kettle back on, grabbed an empty mug from the shelf over the sink and set it down on the polished concrete countertop.
“This place is…” Smith trailed off, stopping halfway between the kitchen and the living room.
“Old,” I said.
“Gorgeous,” he corrected. “May I?”
I nodded, clenching my molars together at the sight of Smith heading deeper into my space and making himself more at home. He trailed his fingers over the arm of the couch, picked my cell phone up off the floor and set it on the table.
“Pre-war?” he asked, rubbing his thumb up and down one of the panels on the wall.
“Yes.”
The kettle beeped, reminding me to breathe. I poured hot water into the mug and steeped a tea bag, taking it to Smith who had stopped in front of the fireplace and sank down into a squat.
“Is this original tile?” he asked.
“Some of it,” I said, handing him the mug. He rose back to his feet and took it with another small smile. “Most of it was damaged, but we kept what we could.”
“What?” His brow furrowed.
“When I bought the building,” I clarified, needing to not look at Smith because it was impossible to breathe all of a sudden.
Maybe the plants had finally sucked all of the oxygen out of the room or something.
I didn’t think that was how it worked. “It was not in good shape. We did a lot of renovation and retrofit.”
“You did a great job.”
I huffed out a laugh and went back to the couch.
As soon as my ass hit the velvet, I knew it was a bad idea because Smith followed behind and joined me.
The old piece of furniture groaned beneath both of our weights, but if Smith noticed he didn’t say anything.
Instead, he looked at my plants and sipped his tea.
“This is what I do for work. Did I tell you that?” He cleared his throat, chased it with another drink. “I don’t remember much about yesterday.”
“The adrenaline will do that to a person. But yeah. You did tell me what you did for work, but I honestly don’t know what your job entails.”
“It’s a branch of architecture, basically. Just for old buildings not new ones.”
“You look young to be an architect,” I blurted, immediately biting my tongue to stop myself from saying something else ill-timed.
“I am young to be an architect,” he thankfully agreed. “It’s what my oldest brother does, and I kind of idolize him so I’ve known for a while it’s what I wanted to do. Went right into it after high school.”
“And here you are.”
Smith exhaled. “Here I am.”
A silence just on the right side of uncomfortable settled between us, and I ignored it in favor of another drink of tea. Smith swirled the bag around his before doing the same.
“Do you like it?” I asked.
The way his face contorted at the question had me feeling like the answer was much more complicated than would be polite for the early hour. He shifted his focus from me to my plants, then shrugged his shoulders.
“Sometimes. Yes? I don’t know. I’ve been worried lately I only enjoy architecture because it’s what Marshall enjoys.”
“Maybe try something new?” I suggested.
“It’s not quite that easy.” He got more comfortable on my couch.
He. Got. More. Comfortable. On. My. Couch.
“I’d have to go to school all over again,” he said. “There’s time and money in it.”
Something about the comment was a splash of cold water, the shock I needed to break myself out of the trance that was Smith.
“Not all jobs need schooling,” I told him, standing up and heading back into my kitchen. I tossed the rest of my tea into the sink and rinsed the mug. Dried it.
“I didn’t mean they did.”
The regret was thick in his voice, and I subconsciously knew he hadn’t meant the comment in a bad way.
Smith and I had lived very different lives, and it didn’t matter how much I liked the look of him or how much I really liked that my hoodie smelled a little like him, it was bad form to get involved with clients.
Bad form to get involved with men ten years younger than I was.
Damon would throw me off the roof if he knew I was even entertaining the idea.
I turned and braced myself against the counter, giving Smith what I hoped read as an apologetic smile.
“I just remembered I have some interviews this morning,” I told him. “I should get my day going.”
He jumped off the couch like he’d been bit by a snake. “Right.”
His cheeks were still flushed, and I wondered if it was permanent. If he would be forever cursed to look embarrassed and aroused. “You’re so right. I’m sorry to intrude on your morning.”
He shoved the mug at me, and my fingers brushed against the warmth of his palm as I curled my grip around the ceramic.
“You didn’t intrude.”
I switched the mug from one hand to the other and grabbed him so he didn’t run away.
I wanted him to run away. I didn’t want him to run away.
I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew Smith reminded me a little bit of a kicked puppy, and I definitely didn’t want him to leave feeling like I had added to that in any way.
“It’s fine,” he said.
“You didn’t intrude,” I repeated, holding him until he looked at me.
His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed, and his jaw went a little slack. Smith’s pupils dilated, and I was done for.
“Okay,” he agreed quietly.
It hurt to breathe, but I managed, eyes tracking over every fine line and scar on Smith’s face.
His lips were dry, chapped, save for the place where they were wet with tea.
Everything narrowed down to Smith’s mouth, the way he licked his lips and bit the bottom one between his teeth.
It wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine him on his back making the same kinds of faces, eyes rolled into his head and chin quivering.
“Smith.”
“Yeah?” He blinked hard and fast.
“You should go.”
A knowing kind of hurt flashed across his face, like it wasn’t the first time he’d been dismissed when he wasn’t ready to go. He tried to pull away, but my hand tightened around his and stopped him.
“I can’t go if you don’t let go of me,” he murmured.
“Right,” I agreed, still not letting go.
“Riggs.” He turned his wrist until his hand was palm up, resting on top of mine. “Thank you for the tea.”
“You barely had any.”
“It was still good,” he said. “Thank you again for the hoodie and the tattoo.”
Smith waited, lifted his hand from mine and then went to the door. His socked feet padded quietly across the floor, followed by a gentle thud as he leaned into the wall to put his shoes back on. The rubber soles of his sneakers hit the floor and the door creaked when he opened it.
It was a fleeting thing, I realized, that moment between us in the kitchen.
Was I really so out of practice that I didn’t even know how to let another person know I was interested in them?
Was it the fear that would come when it was time to have a sex conversation with them?
Was it my subconscious trying to convince me being with anyone after Ev was the worst kind of betrayal?
“Smith?” I forced his name out and he stopped, leaning back so he could see me in the kitchen where my feet had apparently cemented themselves to the floor.
“Yeah?”
“Make sure you keep your tattoo clean,” I said, wincing as soon as the words left my mouth. “If you have any problems with it—”
He flashed me a sad smile. “I know where to find you.”
Another lingering pause, a silence between us that felt a lot like his hand resting in mine as if it were meant to be there. But before I found the courage to say anything about it, Smith slipped out onto the landing and closed the door behind him.