7. Nadia
7
NADIA
I lean against the wall, my feet pulled up onto the bedspread and my arms around my knees, as Dalton cleans up dinner.
It’s good to know he’s willing to help. I had imagined doing everything for a messy, overworked man playing the doctor card.
But he seems perfectly at home at the sink and knows how to load the rack in the dishwasher.
Our exchange about the romance novel was … interesting.
I have an entire suitcase of them below the bed. I know Dalton won’t go looking for them. I can already tell he’s not a snooper.
But I’m not going to set them out even though there’s a cute set of shelves over the end of the bar.
I’m not embarrassed by my book collection, although the word cock might appear slightly more than, say, inside War and Peace . But I barely know Dalton, and I’d prefer to dole out information about me in a controlled manner.
And yet, learning that I can’t stop reading First Base to Love even knowing full well Dalton was on his way to the apartment, might be an essential fact. I thought for sure I could make it to the end of the chapter before he walked in from the pool.
I hadn’t thought he’d be so interested. The Dalton I’ve known so far has mainly been … well, tired .
Which brings us to the next problem.
Who is going to get the bed?
My knees protest my position, so I straighten my legs right as Dalton sets down the dish towel on the bar and sits on the sofa.
We face each other across the large room.
He stares at my feet. “I was wondering what those said.”
“What said?”
“Your socks.”
“Oh.” I self-consciously pull in my feet to sit cross-legged.
“So, you love pickles ?” He says it the way he’d said “cock” earlier.
Oh, God, he thinks it means penis. Like the eggplant emoji does on social media.
“Pickles, like the deli. My family is really into pickle jokes.”
He leans back, elbows out, his hands clasped behind his head. In his scrubs, his biceps bulging above the sleeves, he could be filming an episode of Grey’s Anatomy .
Which I’ve watched. Three times through.
Is he a Dr. McDreamy? Or more of a Dr. McHottie?
I have to shake this line of thinking off. All the way off.
But it’s hard to shed that initial attraction we had in the courtyard. Especially when we’re this close, this informal, this cozy .
“So tell me one,” he says.
I’ve gone so far out in my train of thought that I have to go back and find the thread of conversation. “A pickle joke?”
“Sure, if your family has so many.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m not a good joke teller.”
His grin sends my heart skittering. “But I’m an excellent audience. I promise to laugh like you’re Taylor Tomlinson.”
“You like her?” She’s my favorite comedian.
“Love her. See, we have something in common.” He yawns and quickly covers his mouth.
“You have to be exhausted. You haven’t slept since yesterday.”
“Nope, I’m wide awake and ready for a pickle joke.”
He’s not going to drop it.
“Okay, but only one.”
“Excellent.” He kicks off his shoes and crosses one foot over his ankle.
“Okay, let me think.” I run through the repertoire Uncle Sherman loves to pull out at Christmas. Max is also one to repeat the favorites.
There’s the dill dough one. No, not going there.
The giggling dills. No. Not funny enough.
The door being a-jar. No. I hate that one.
His voice jolts me out of my concentration. “You’re overthinking.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” There’s that grin again. “Say the next one that comes to mind.”
“I can’t?—”
“Come on.”
“Oh, okay. What’s the difference between a pickle and a therapist?”
The minute I start it, I’m swamped with regret. Not that one! Why did I say the worst one of all?
I wrack my brains to come up with a punch line that isn’t the real one.
“I don’t know,” Dalton says.
“Try,” I tell him, hoping to stall. I have to think of something. Pickles don’t have sofas? Pickles don’t charge by the hour? Oh, God!
“I really don’t know,” he says. “You’ve got me. What is the difference between a pickle and a therapist?”
I have to go through with it. I make it as deadpan as possible so he won’t think I purposefully brought up male anatomy again.
“If you don’t know the difference, stop talking to your pickle.”
He hesitates a moment, then laughs so hard and so long, I wonder if he’s gotten punchy from being tired.
“You got me,” he says. “Good one.”
I scoot off the bed. “I think you need to sleep.” I drag my blue comforter off the top so that he can use his.
“I didn’t think we’d have a conflict so soon.”
“We should have known there would be days off that lined up.” I fold up the bulky fabric and set it on the end of the sofa opposite from where he sits.
“I’m not taking your bed.” His voice is firm.
“I’m not taking it from a doctor working twenty-four-hour shifts!” I give him what I hope is a stern expression.
But when I get a good look, I can see the exhaustion that he’s hiding. It’s in the creases around his eyes, the way he pushes his hair off his forehead.
I have to do something. “Besides,” I say airily. “I’m about to go out. It’s a Friday night, and I’m meeting girlfriends.”
“Oh?” This surprises him.
“Yes, we get all dressed up and hit the clubs.”
“At this hour?” It is almost nine.
“Nothing good happens before ten.” That used to be true when I was twenty-two. But during the rigors of grad school, I gave up my late nights.
His eyebrows knit together. “All right then.”
“I need to get an outfit and change. Then I’ll be out of your hair so you can sleep all you want.”
“Okay.”
I kneel by the bed and pull out the mid-sized bag. “Have we figured out the closet situation?” I ask. “I saw you took the bottom drawer of the dressers.”
“You can have the closet. I don’t need much space.”
“Okay.” I unzip the bag and pull out the first dress I see, a shimmery black number I wore to a charity ball with my brother Axel. He’s always going to those things.
Dalton’s eyes go wide. “That’s what you wear to clubs?”
“It’s LA.” I try to say it with conviction, as if I haven’t spent every weekend since I got here in my room at Max’s house with Catzilla. Speaking of which, where is she?
I lean down and peer under the bed again. After a moment, I make out the glint in her eyes. “Oh, sweet kitty,” I say. “You can come out.”
“I feel bad that she’s scared of me.”
“She’ll adjust, eventually. She started warming up to Max after a week or so.” I tap the floor, but Catzilla only watches me from her corner.
“Maybe I can bribe her to come out. What does she like? Tuna? Milk?”
“Catzilla isn’t motivated by food. Never has been.”
“Then she hasn’t had your lasagna.”
Huh, another compliment. I return to the suitcase, drag out a pair of black heels, then close it up and roll the whole thing into the closet. It barely fits.
“You can have the mirror cabinet in the bathroom, too,” Dalton says with another yawn. “I’ll keep things in my bag.”
“You sure?”
He nods, and his eyes blink longer and longer.
Maybe if he falls asleep, I won’t have to keep up the ruse that I’m going out.
But he pulls out his phone. “You have fun.”
I head into the bathroom. I’m not sure where I will go all gussied up. Definitely not to Max’s. He’ll ask too many questions, and I’ll crack.
I guess I could get coffee at a diner. And read. There are more books in my Jeep.
I change into the dress and turn to the mirror. My messy bun and lack of makeup do not match whatsoever. I guess I’ll do the whole thing.
I quickly add a smoky eye and hurried contour. I let my hair down, brushing it out. I don’t want to take time to curl it. Besides, it practically cries out in pain when I try to take it out of its iron-straight default mode.
I part it down the middle and let it fall in a long, loose cascade. With the dramatic eye, it works.
The shoes add four inches to my height. I smooth the fitted dress over my hips. Is this what it’s going to be like whenever Dalton and I have a bed conflict?
I’ll figure it out. That’s something I can do at the diner. Determine if we can fit a hideaway bed somewhere, just for nights like this. Maybe if we leave the closet empty, it can be stowed in there.
I open the door quietly, half expecting him to be asleep already.
But he’s tapping on his phone.
“I’m heading out,” I say.
When he looks up, his whole body goes still. I recognize the interest in his eyes. He’s seeing me the same way he did when we met.
He swallows hard. “Oh, hey, yeah. You clean up.”
“It can’t be all deli shirts and jeans.” I fidget with my dress, not sure I can handle him looking at me the way he is. It’s like he’s a wolf, and I’m a little white rabbit frozen in the grass.
“Will you be out all night?” he asks.
He thinks I’m going to hook up with someone. Should I let him think it?
I evade. “Get some rest.” I hurry across the room to snatch up my purse. It’s a brown sack of a thing, completely wrong for the outfit, but it doesn’t matter. I have to get out of here, away from his hungry gaze and borderline jealousy of my nonexistent hookup.
He stands. “Call me if you need backup. Or security. Or something.”
I throw open the door. “I’m a big girl!”
Then I’m outside. Only when I’m halfway to my car do I breathe again.
I shouldn’t be surprised that we’re already veering out of roommates territory. We did have that moment before we figured out we were rivals.
And now we’re not. We live together. Meals. Showers. Bed times.
Nights.
I sit in my Jeep a moment, willing my heart to calm down.
This apartment situation is going to be more than I bargained for.