Chapter 19 Knox
CHAPTER NINETEEN
KNOX
Iclick through this week’s images—the before and after of the demo, the crew working, some shots around town, Jenn helping pack up some more rare books to sell, and Lottie. Dozens and dozens of pictures of Lottie.
I can’t help it—she’s my… muse? I gag. I’ve always hated that word, associating it more to artists suffering from obsession and a self-centered someone loving the attention.
But what I feel for Lottie isn’t that. It’s based on real experience and knowledge of her as a person.
And if there’s someone who’s less of a Pick Me Girl, it’s Lottie.
She’d hate it if I ever called her my muse.
But as I scroll through, she’s in almost every frame of my memory card, making it a little difficult to pinpoint exactly who she is to me if not that.
Sure, she’s my business partner—friend, even.
But fuck me if looking at pictures of her doesn’t make my chest tighten in a way that tells me that’s not at all what she is to me.
I pore over each and every single frame: Lottie focused at her desk, brows scrunched in that way I find nothing short of adorable; Lottie alone in the office, gazing at her Post-It mural with admiration; Lottie laughing with her sister and Jenn at the store closing party, her face shining with a lightness that wasn’t there the night I met her all these weeks ago; and so many more I wish I could print and wallpaper this entire apartment with (in a super, non-creepy way, I promise.).
Lottie Veracruz might not be my muse per se, but she’s become the center of my universe, that’s for damn sure.
There’s no other reason why I should be thinking about her at one in the morning while I’m home alone in bed on a Friday night.
There’s no other reason why my mind should be filled with her laugh and her voice and her strength 24/7.
I need it to stop. I need it to stop, because we agreed that nothing would happen and what I feel for her has only gotten stronger and I can’t keep going like this.
I groan, running my fingers through my hair as I put my computer away, too wound up now to go to bed. “I need a cold shower,” I mutter to myself, throwing the covers off myself in frustration. But as soon as my feet hit the cold floor, there’s a knock on my door.
I freeze, thinking maybe I’ve lost my mind and am imagining Walter’s ghost has come back to haunt me. Or maybe it’s some local trying to murder me.
Or maybe you’ve been watching too many true crime documentaries on Netflix, you dumbass.
Another knock, a little harder this time, has me jogging quickly to the door, peeking through the peephole.
“Lottie?” I pull the door open, fully ready to ask her what she’s doing here so late when I see her full outfit.
And I want to die.
Because standing right in front of me, Lottie looks hotter than I’ve ever seen her before.
In a flared red dress with a low neckline where the skirt hits a couple of inches over the knee, she stands before me looking like every straight man’s dream.
And those heels… I can’t help but immediately wonder what they’d look like with her legs wrapped around my neck.
I groan and pinch the bridge of my nose, squeezing my eyes shut. “Jesus, Lottie. You can’t just show up to my apartment late at night looking like this. I’m already dying every day when I see you. But now I’m gonna have this image burned in my brain forever.”
I want to photograph her for hours from every angle. Then I want to strip her, fuck her, and photograph her naked body even more. I need even more photographic evidence that a woman of this caliber even exists. That she fucking exists.
I squeeze my eyes shut to concentrate, remove the temptation of wanting to wrap my arm around her waist and kiss her crazy.
“This is gonna sound horrible, but please tell me no other guy saw you dressed like that. It’ll fucking kill me.
” She chuckles half-heartedly. “Seriously, though. I know it sounds possessive and uncool, and it’s not like we’re together, but I do not give a shit. ”
She snorts. “If I look so good, then why won’t you look at me.”
“I can’t,” I swallow and shake my head. “I’m trying hard to respect your boundaries, and I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to keep myself from gawking at you right now. That, and I don’t know if I’d be able to concentrate enough to understand what you’re saying.”
An exasperated sigh, a shuffle of feet. “Knox. Please. It’s important.”
The serious tone of her voice puts me on high alert, pulling me out of my fog. Is she here because she’s in trouble? Is that why she’s here this late at night?
“Everything okay?”
“Yes. Can you please open your eyes and let me in before I lose my nerve, you weirdo?”
I steel myself and open one eye with caution, which makes her laugh. “C’mon, silly.” She shoves me lightly and pushes through into my apartment, leaving me awestruck at the door. Was that… flirty? Or did I imagine it?
I close the door behind me, pulse racing, as she takes the apartment in.
“It looks so different now,” she breathes, brown eyes scanning the apartment. “Total day-to-night transformation. In the best possible way.”
“Yeah?” I smile, eating up her compliment.
“Absolutely,” she nods, grinning back at me.
“Gone are the rebinding supplies and the stacks of books. Gone is the dust and the clutter. Walter’s apartment went from near-unlivable conditions to being neat and almost, dare I say, homey.
” She gasps, her eyes falling on the corner of the loft where my bed is.
“You even have an accent rug and blanket!” she points out, pleasantly surprised.
I bark out a laugh. “I found them hidden in the back of a closet, where I moved the rest of the books to. Then I threw some other random shit in boxes and stuffed them into the front closet. It’s all squished in there, ready to blow, but I made it work.”
“So you went through all his stuff?”
“Not yet. Haven’t had the time,” I lie. For some reason, I haven’t been able to bring myself to sift through Walter’s things.
Every time I sit down to try, I get this horrible pit in my stomach, filling me with the need to walk away.
Eventually, I decided to pack his things up and hide them in the front closet. Outta sight, outta mind.
“I can help you. If you want.” The corners of her lips quirk up.
“Yeah?” It would be nice to have someone there to help me go through it.
“Yeah. Definitely.” Lottie nods. “It must be hard. To deal with this part all on your own. I’d like to help, if I can.”
“You cold?” I ask when I watch her rub her arms gently.
“Shoot, I must’ve left my coat in the cab.”
I run over to the hook by the door before she has a chance to respond and gently place my leather jacket over her shoulders, ignoring the way seeing her wearing it makes me feel (i.e. like a caveman. Mine, I think).
She burrows deeper into my jacket. I think I catch her putting her nose to it, inhaling its scent, but it’s probably just wishful thinking.
“Thank you. For the jacket.” Her smile is soft, and I can tell there’s quite a bit of hesitation.
I almost beg her to keep it, wanting to see her wear it every day for the rest of my life. “No worries.”
An awkward silence falls over us as we just stare at each other. I try to ignore the fact that those high heels have brought her lips at least three inches closer to mine, but it’s a little difficult to do when she’s standing right there, looking so good, smelling of caramel. Mouthwatering.
“So, not that I mind—because I really, really don’t—but what exactly is so urgent that it brought you to my place at one A.M? I know my talent for décor wasn’t it.”
She laughs softly before worrying her lower lip with her teeth. I watch her cheeks blush as she looks down at her feet, wrapping my jacket tighter around herself. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“Yeah, I figured you weren’t here to play a couple of rounds of backgammon.”
“Backgammon.” She smiles.
I shrug. “First thing that popped into my head.”
She takes a deep breath before meeting my eyes again. “God, you’re going to hate me,” she whispers. My stomach rolls, every possible scenario—from the best to the worst—running through my mind.
“Not possible. Ever. Just… tell me.”
She sighs. “I know… I know we talked about this multiple times. About us being friends and being professionals…” She pauses, wanting to torture me, apparently.
“Yeah?” My heart beats so fast it could sign up to race in Formula 1. But I try like hell to play it cool because if there’s even the slightest chance that this is headed where I think it’s heading…
“Well, so I was thinking…” She exhales and takes a step closer.
The palm of her right hand comes over my chest to rest just above my heart.
I’m sure by now she can feel how hard it beats against my ribs, the way her mere presence affects me—especially when she’s looking like this.
It’s warm and comforting and makes me want to melt against her.
Her touch, inviting as it is, seems more like a surrender, an admission, rather than an intentionally seductive act.
She swallows once, her eyes on her hand, my chest. “I was thinking,” she continues, “while I was out… I was thinking that I really like you.” Her fingers curl, lightly fisting my shirt in her hands.
“And I guess I just thought you should know. Just thought I would be honest and stop trying to hide it. I want to—” She pauses.
“I was thinking maybe we could give this a shot. Us. Go slow. Keep it casual. But… But give it a shot.”
There’s a ringing in my ears as I process everything she says, half of me not trusting it.
Am I still dreaming? Is this all a sick dream my subconscious decided to throw at me?
A car alarm blaring outside and the cold gust of air coming from my open window, raising goosebumps on my skin alerts me to the fact that I’m not.
This isn’t a dream; I’m awake. And she’s here, looking better than I ever imagined she could. But this all seems too good to be true.
“Are you drunk?” I blurt out. I knew from our earlier conversation today that she had plans to go out tonight. And by the looks of her outfit, it definitely wasn’t anywhere in town.
Where did they go? Did they meet up with some guys? Was she with anyone earlier?
God, the thought alone makes me nauseous.
“What?” Her eyes widen as she physically recoils.
“I’m sorry, but I have to ask. You went out with your friends at a girls’ night to a nightclub—”
“Lounge. And I’d barely call it that,” she corrects me.
“Whatever. You were just out with your friends, drinking, and now you show up at my doorstep in the middle of the night looking like pure sin and telling me you want to stop denying that you like me? Are you gonna regret this tomorrow? Because I don’t wanna go through the same thing I did the first night we met.
Unlike you, I can very openly admit that I like you and want something to happen here.
” I point back and forth between us. “I don’t wanna end up feeling like I was a mistake all over again.
” I do my best to not let the pain her abandonment caused bleed into my voice, but I’m not sure I do such a great job.
Dammit.
“I made you feel like you were a mistake?” she whispers, frowning, eyes filled with regret.
She shakes her head, as if disappointed in herself.
“I have never felt that way about you. Did I feel like it was…” She winces, struggling to find the right words.
“Inconvenient given the situation? Yes. But you—you were never a mistake to me.”
“I don’t know that ‘inconvenient’ sounds any better, here,” I grumble.
She closes her eyes and blows a puff of air through her lips.
“I just mean that it sucked that we were thrown into this situation because I hated walking away from you that first night. And when you first walked into the store, I was both terrified and ecstatic to see you again. But then when we found out we were inheriting the business together, that we had to work side by side… I knew it was wrong to pursue anything. So the whole thing was, yeah, inconvenient.”
I nod, hands on my hips. “So, if all the same facts remain as before, what’s changed that I don’t know about? Why are you here at one A.M. in my apartment telling me you want to give it a shot?” I have to ask, because I can’t take her flip-flopping us one more time.
She shrugs. “I feel like I deserve to go after what I want. And I feel like, if we set boundaries—”
“More boundaries?”
She smiles. “Different boundaries. If we set different types of boundaries, maybe we can enjoy each other’s company in a different way.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “What kind of way?”
“C’mon, Knox.” She looks away, blushing. Still, she takes a step closer toward me, both hands on my chest, now. “You know what I mean.”
I fist my hands at my sides, fighting the urge to put them on her hips, her waist, every inch of her smooth and soft body. Because I am not touching her until I know exactly what she means.
“Lottie. You need to tell me what you want.” My breathing is ragged—embarrassing. I’m a horse gearing up for a race, the tension building as a gate holds me back from the finish line: her.
“I want you, Knox. I want you.”