Chapter 9
I try to leave before she does.
I don’t want to know what she’s wearing. I don’t want to know how she does her hair. I don’t even want to know where she’s going.
Until she tells me. My hand is on the doorknob, ready to hightail it out of the apartment, since I can’t be the pathetic ass who’s home when his fuck-hot roommate heads out on a date.
Josie calls out to me from the hallway. “Hey!”
“Yeah?”
She walks into the living room. “I’m going to Bar Boisterous in the Fifties.”
I narrow my eyes. “Okay. Why are you telling me?”
“So you’ll know where my last-known location is.”
Annoyance threads through me. “Please don’t tell me you’re going out with someone you think is going to dismember you.”
She shudders and wags spooky fingers. “Yes. I’ll have him send my head to you in a box.”
“Not funny.”
“What if he puts a bow on top? Like a gift?” She steps closer and adopts a Vincent Price narrator style. “He’s going to cut me up in tiny pieces and feed me to the wolverines.”
“Seriously. Not funny. Are you really worried about this guy?” I ask, not giving in to her attempt at humor. Though, in all other circumstances, Josie wins major points for being not just a humor consumer, but a humor producer. And that’s rare. Humor producers are diamonds.
Just not this second.
She parks her hands on her hips. She wears a white top with a scoop neck and a pair of slim jeans.
Her date doesn’t deserve her. I don’t know who he is, what he does, or a thing about him, but I don’t need to.
He doesn’t fucking deserve this amazing humor-producing, big-hearted, glorious-chested, kitchen-talented woman.
“You asked a ridiculous question, Chase.”
Sternly, I say, “You’re the one who wanted to tell me your last-known location.”
“I’m just being cautious. Not paranoid.”
I relent. “Sorry.”
“But, seriously. I have a favor to ask.” There’s no toying in her tone.
“Of course. Ask me anything.” And I’ll do it.
Her voice is innocent, hopeful even as she asks, “Can I call you if anything comes up?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” she says, fidgeting with a heart charm on her silver bracelet.
“Just anything, I guess. I saw Henry once over the summer, and we had a nice time, then he had to leave town for an assignment. I don’t know much about him, and usually my friend Lily, who runs the flower shop down the street from me, is my backup.
But she’s out with her boyfriend Rob tonight, so if anything happens, can you be my Bat-Signal? ”
When she puts it like that, how can I harbor a ball of frustration over her dating? I might think she’s a babe, but first and foremost she’s my friend. One of my best friends. I stride across the hardwood floor, drape an arm around her, and pull her in close to reassure her.
Except . . . tactical error.
I draw a deep inhale of her hair. That ball of frustration doesn’t unwind. It coils, because . . . he’ll smell her tonight. He’ll know her cherry scent.
My fists clench. My chest pinches. My jaw tightens.
But then, I’m just being territorial, I tell myself. I’m a lion protecting my pride.
My job is to be her wingman on alert. To keep her safe. “You know I will, Josie, baby,” I say in her ear.
Baby?
What the fuck? I don’t use terms of endearment. I don’t utter sweet little nothings.
“Thank you,” she says as we separate. “It’s just this whole online dating thing is . . .” She draws a deep breath. “It’s fraught with challenges. I went out with someone a few months ago, and, well, let’s just say it didn’t work out.”
“Relationships have a way of doing that.”
She nods and quirks up her lips. “But I’m glad to have you to lean on.”
I tilt like the Tower of Pisa. “Lean on me.”
She nudges her shoulder against mine, and my heart beats faster.
Like, way speedier than the normal resting heart rate.
That’s odd. But I tell myself the quickened pace comes from a simpler place—from the human desire to be needed.
The best gal I know needs me to be her reliable, steady guy.
That’s what I’ll be for her. I won’t be the dude who thinks about her chest, or her legs, or her intoxicating hair.
Hell, I already know that kicking a friendship up a notch can fuck up all sorts of shit.
It can ruin everything.
Including the heart.
When Josie steps away from me, the beating in my chest returns to normal. I point at her. “For you, I make house calls. The doctor is always in.”
She thanks me again, and I leave to meet my buddies at Joe’s Sticks, a pool hall in the east Fifties. Max, Spencer, Nick, and Wyatt are at a table, racking up. Max claps me on the back when I arrive. “How’s life on a sitcom working out for you?”
“Har, har, har.”
He thrusts a beer at me. “Three’s company yet?”
I take the bottle. “Except there’s only two of us.”
His dark eyes stare me down. “I can count. I can also speculate. And that little number—two—tells me it’ll be even harder for you,” he says, shaking his head as he hands me a pool cue. “You’re on my team. And I can’t wait to say I told you so.”
“That’s what I love about you. The endless well of support.”
“Always,” he says with a wink. He nods at the table. “You go first. I need my ringer.”
I say hello to the other guys and then line up my shot.
I’m good at pool. It’s the focus. The concentration.
The same skill set as sewing up a forehead.
Yes, I have excellent hand-eye coordination, and it helps me kill it at the pool table.
Max is a beast, too, so we’re like the one-two Summers brothers’ punch.
I line up and aim. I send the white ball straight into the purple ball, which races over the felt and rattles neatly into the corner pocket.
“Nice one,” Wyatt says from the corner of the table.
Earlier, he texted me that his wife, Natalie, would be busy tonight doing wedding prep with Spencer’s wife, Charlotte.
Yes, wedding prep. Wyatt and Natalie are already married, but they’re getting married again.
They tied the knot in Vegas a little while ago, but they’re having a ceremony here in a few weeks for friends and family.
As I walk around the table, looking for the next shot, Wyatt says, “How’s life with my little sister?”
“Great,” I say. Because it is.
“What’s she up to tonight?”
I pause for a second, unsure if I should say what she’s doing. “She’s out.”
Spencer parks his hands around his mouth like a megaphone. “Code word for date.”
Nick straightens his spine and arches a brow at Spencer. “Seriously? My sister does not date.”
Spencer smacks his back. “Yup. Just like my sister didn’t date,” he says, giving him a sharp I-caught-you stare since Nick’s engaged to Spencer’s sister Harper.
Nick holds up his hands. “Fine, fine.”
Spencer pokes Nick with the cue. “Get used to it, buddy. Get used to your sister dating. I had to get used to it with you, of all people.”
I sink my shot, then miss the next one. When Nick takes his turn, Wyatt calls out to me, “Who’s the lucky guy tonight, and when do we need to beat him up?”
I shrug. “Don’t know.”
He stares sharply at me. “You don’t know?”
“Dude, I’m not her keeper.”
“I know, shithead. But you need to look out for her.” Wyatt points his beer bottle at me.
“Yeah, because men are pigs,” Max says, weighing in.
We all hold up our beers at that statement.
Later, Wyatt pulls me aside. “Seriously, man. Look out for Josie. She dated some guy last spring who really hurt her.”
Like a chemical reaction, that searing jealousy from earlier transforms into an entirely new substance—the wish to hurt this guy. “Who’s this assfuck? The guy she’s out with tonight? Henry?”
Wyatt shakes his head and blows out a long stream of air. “Not Henry. I don’t have all the details. She told Natalie, but basically this guy she met online totally wooed her, and when they met in person it was clear all he wanted was . . .”
I clench my teeth. “Fuck, I hate douches.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“What happened?”
“He blew her off after he got what he wanted.”
“Classic dick move.”
“Classic,” Wyatt agrees. “I swear if she had told me who he was I’d probably have killed him, and it’s not even like he committed the worst dating sin ever. But he hurt my sister. Ergo . . .”
“You want to kill him,” I supply.
“I hate people who hurt my sister. I need you to watch out for her. Just like I’d do for Mia if you needed me to.
” My sister Mia’s on the West Coast, working her butt off to build up her company, and she’s doing great as far as I can tell from her regular texts and emails.
“You’re in Josie’s space now, man. You’re going to know better than anyone else what’s going on.
Be her fucking online dating profile decoder. ”
I hold up a fist for knocking. “Count on it.”
This role now? This is what matters. It’s a jungle out there, and if there’s anything I can do to help Josie Hammer navigate her way through it, I will. I can sniff out a douchebag. I can protect her from the fuckers of the world.
When she calls me a little later, I’ve got my first assignment.
“Doctor Decoder at your service,” I joke, stepping away from my buds.
“He’s choking,” Josie says. Loud music plays in the background, and she sounds rattled and on her way to panicked. I go into instant ER mode.
“What’s going on?”
“My date. Henry. He’s choking and can barely talk, and he’s got an EpiPen in his hand, but he’s struggling to use it. Do I just stab it in his thigh?”
Her voice is strained, understandably, jammed with the nerves I’ve heard countless times from others in her situation.
“Yes,” I say, all-business as I march out of the noisy pool hall. I’ll text Wyatt later and let him know where I went. “It’s easy. Jab it in his thigh, click it, and I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Stay on the phone with me,” she says, her voice shaky.
“Absolutely.” I hail a cab and zip over a few blocks to Bar Boisterous, keeping her calm the whole way as her date starts to breathe again.
Once inside, I quickly find Josie with a bearded hipster dude and take over for her. I help him out of the bar, and we take him to the nearest emergency room.
Even though it’s a busy Saturday night, they see him stat, and it’s not just because he has a personal escort with an MD. It’s because Josie’s date came this close to having one hell of a bad ending to his night.
The guy’s allergic to peanuts, and there were trace amounts in the pesto sauce in the sandwich he ordered at Bar Boisterous.
Two hours later, we leave Henry safe and sound with the doctors and nurses. They’ll take care of him now, and make sure he’s doing fine.
The hospital doors close behind us, and I turn my attention once more to Josie.