Diving In (9 page)

Her eyes went wide. She glanced back. “There was ogling?”

He shook his head and tried not to laugh. He didn’t understand her at all, which he liked. “There’s a pizza upstairs if you’re hungry. No pressure.”

“Pizza?”

“Hungry?”

“A little.” She sighed. “Very, actually. What time is it?”

“After eight. I was getting worried.”

She frowned, rubbing her hair with a towel. “About what?”

“Nothing. How about that pizza?” He took a step toward the condo tower.

“You were worried about
me
?”

“What can I say, I’m a worrier,” he replied. “But you seem to be okay.”

“I’m fantastic.” She followed him into the building and then jogged past the elevator to open the door to the stairwell.

He raised an eyebrow. “Ah, you’re one of those.”

“One of what?”

“Fitness type. You really think one elevator ride is going to ruin you?”

She rolled her eyes. “You have no idea.” She hiked up the stairs, leaving little puddles in her wake.
 

He admired her flexing thighs below the hem of the towel, following a few steps behind, and said nothing.

“Actually,” she said in a funny voice when they reached the third floor, “I’m afraid of elevators. That’s why I take the stairs.”

“No kidding?”

“I had a panic attack in the rental car, too.”

“There was an elevator in the rental car?” he asked. “I need to shop around more.”

“Ha-ha. No, I’m afraid of driving.”

“Sensible of you. Leading cause of accidental death. Anything else?”

She gave him a challenging look and turned to face him completely. “Lots,” she said. “It took me an hour to stop hyperventilating in the baby pool.”

An unusually wise instinct prevented him from laughing. Her words were funny, but her eyes were serious. “You were doing great. Good for you.”

She shot him a wry smile. “You’ve probably never been scared in your life.”

“I’m afraid of heights a little bit.”

“Yeah?”

“When I got to the top of Half Dome, I got this weird tingling feeling in my stomach.”

Her eyes narrowed. “But you climbed up there yourself?”

“I had friends with me.”

“Were you carried up in a straightjacket? Because that’s what I’d need. And a few bottles of prescription medication.”

“I think one of the guys was on something, but I don’t think he had a prescription for it.” He was relieved when she laughed.

“Actually, drugs don’t help me,” she said. “I’ve tried.”

“Maybe you’re not trying hard enough,” he said. At her worried face, he said, “Just kidding. I don’t use anything either.”

“Well, I was talking about medicine. Too many side effects. So I have to go through life constantly teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.” She leaned closer. “I’m a nutjob, Ansel. Batshit crazy. Keep that in mind.”

 
He looked her over, grinning. “I like crazy.”

She scowled. “You don’t mean that.”

“You don’t know me.”

After a pause, she said, “Rachel has told me about you.”

“She’d be the first to tell you—” He cut himself off and stared at her.

Rachel would be the first to tell you how much I like fixer-uppers.
She always teased him for having strange taste. His last girlfriend had just married her bankruptcy attorney. Ansel had introduced them to each other.

“Tell me what?” Nicki asked, eyeing him.

He’d been too distracted earlier to see the obvious. Although he hadn’t told Rachel he was coming to Hawaii, she could’ve heard about it through a mutual friend. Not their parents, of course, since he wasn’t going to tell them anything about his professional plans—until he was a success, anyway.

“Nothing,” he said, dropping the charm. Rachel had planned this, and he’d walked right into it. It didn’t help that stress made him horny. And she was his dream woman, right there in the wet, dripping flesh.

Must. Stop. Flirting. Immediately
. He’d dish out the pizza and make a run for it.

“I hope you like pineapple on your pizza,” he said, passing Nicki on the stairs. He kept a few steps ahead of her the entire way to the condo, saying nothing more.

When she came into the kitchen after hanging up her towel, he handed her a plate to let her serve herself. Then he had to bite his tongue to stop himself from offering her a drink, Parmesan cheese, red pepper, napkins, or his charming company.

 
“It’s hard to get a decent pizza around here, so don’t get too excited. And it’s been sitting out on the table for over thirty minutes,” he said instead. “If you’re afraid of food poisoning, you might not want to eat it.”

“No such luck. None of my phobias makes me afraid to eat something that’s bad for me.” She lifted a piece as big as her left thigh directly to her mouth. “What do I owe you?”

“For what?”

“For what? This. I’m not a total leech.” She got down a glass from the cupboard, filled it with water from the dispenser on the refrigerator door.

“Forget it.”

“That’s not going to work. You’ll be here two weeks, you think?”

“About that.”

“So we’ll keep all our receipts, add them up at the end, and pay each other back the difference. That way we don’t have to worry about buying two bottles of ketchup, two boxes of cereal, that sort of thing.” She caught him staring. “Haven’t you ever gone on vacation with friends?”

“Sure.” But he always paid for everything. Why wouldn’t he?

“So don’t you think this is easier than carving out separate shelves in the fridge, afraid to eat a banana in case you didn’t pay for it?”

“You’re afraid of eating bananas, too?”

She made a face. “Terrified.”

“You don’t have to pay me for the pizza. I don’t have the receipt. And I ate more than half of it anyway.”

“That’s not how it works. We just split it and relax. I’m sure I can eat my share, don’t worry about that.” She shoved a pizza crust in her mouth, her cheeks bulging as she reached for the resort notepad and pen by the phone. “About how much was it? We’ll jot down an estimate.”

“I have no idea.”

“Twenty?” She frowned. “No, I bet it’s more here. Just a loaf of bread in the store downstairs was more than five. Thirty?”

He’d given the delivery guy a fifty and refused the change. People got the happiest looks on their faces just to get a few extra bucks. He’d have a steady income soon enough. “That’s about right.”

She scribbled, tore off the note, stuck it to the fridge. “There. Don’t forget to save a receipt next time.” She eyed the other fresh pineapple he’d bought. “Did you use a credit card for the groceries? Because you could just look up the total online. I can make a spreadsheet, we both update it as we go, compare the accounts, settle later.”

He stared at her. “I’m not going to fill out a report just because I bought a few groceries.” Doing work for life was bad enough; turning life into work wasn’t going to happen.

“It’s not a report,” she said. “It’s just a list to keep track.”

“We don’t need to keep track. Help yourself to whatever you like.”

“Don’t be silly. Rachel’s letting me stay here for free. I can’t let you buy my food, too.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No—” She put her plate down. “Forget it. I’ll get my own groceries tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to buy your own groceries.”

“I’m not a charity case.”

“I don’t make guests pay for their food.” He marched over to the pizza box, offhandedly offering her another slice, which she refused, before he pushed it into the refrigerator. “Especially when they’re between jobs.”

“Is that what you’re worried about? Well, you can rest easy. I’m a teacher. This is my summer vacation.”

“Teacher,” he said. “Like, for kids?”

“Seventh grade.”

“Oh,” he said. Not unemployed, not a socialite; a teacher. Sexy
and
smart.

Watch out, Ansel. She pushes all of your buttons.

“Try to control your awe,” Nicki said. “Now will you let us share the expenses?”

“No. I know what teachers make. I’m surprised you can afford shoes.” He poured himself a glass of water and strode out of the kitchen toward his bedroom. He wouldn’t call Rachel to chew her out; he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Now that he knew she’d set him up, he’d be on guard. He wasn’t an eighteen-year-old kid anymore, jumping in bed with any girl remotely willing to join him.

“I’m going to pay you back anyway,” she called after him.

He turned and waved as he walked away. “I hope you enjoyed the pizza.” Losing the battle to ignore her completely, he added, “Tomorrow I’ll get us Hawaiian barbecue.”

Chapter 7

“Y
OU
TOLD
HIM
EVERYTHING
?” B
ETTY
asked her the next morning.

Nicki walked along the boardwalk, cooling down from a five-mile run as she talked into her earphone mic. Clouds blocked the sun, threatening rain, but the beach was still crowded. “No, just about my anxiety.”

“Oh, God. You panicked. You were trying to scare him away.”

“Of course I want to scare him away. It wasn’t panic at all,” Nicki said. “It was cold and calculated. I’m working on other things right now. I need to focus.”

“I thought you got over the swimming thing in the baby pool.” Betty’s tone turned grudging. “Your column this morning was pretty good, by the way. Phoebe got sixty-two percent of my entire website’s traffic the hour after it posted.”

“Not bad for an unpaid basket case.”

“I don’t get it,” Betty said. “I start a blog for punk lesbians, and a straight, sexually repressed schoolteacher gets all the love. What’s with that?”

“Maybe I make people feel good about themselves in comparison.”

“That must be it.” Betty took a bite of something crunchy; the sound of her chewing crackled in Nicki’s ears. “Maybe I should develop a phobia. Penises have always freaked me out. Does that count?”

“I think you have your next post right there.” Nicki smiled at the thought of the graphic Betty would come up with for that one. Animated, no doubt.

“The next thing I want to post is you getting laid. Just because you’re straight doesn’t mean my readers can’t appreciate a good romance.” Betty took another bite of her noisy snack. “You said he’s short, right? I bet he’s good in bed. He has to overcompensate.”

“I didn’t say he’s short.”

“Is he taller than you?”

“I’m six feet tall,” Nicki said.

“And he’s not?”

“The average guy isn’t.”

“And the average woman is a size fourteen,” Betty said. “Doesn’t mean she’s skinny.”

“
I
wear a fourteen,” Nicki said.

“You’re an Amazon, he’s a shrimp,” Betty said. “Recipe for hot sex, I’m telling you. It breaks the rules. Forbidden fruit is always a turn-on.”

“Which one of us is the fruit?” Nicki asked.

“Hopefully not him. You know he’s straight, right?”

Nicki had heard about his exploits over the years from Rachel. “Either that or he’s trying really, really hard.”

“Is the family religious?”

“No.”

“Then he’s probably safe. He’ll have sex with you if you express a little interest,” Betty said. “Trust me.”

“I don’t want him to have sex with me.”

“Yeah, you do. You just don’t want to get hurt.”

Wedging her water bottle into its pouch on her hip belt, Nicki watched a pair of snorkelers across the beach walk into the water. “I’m going to swim in the ocean. That’s my next thing. I’ll even write about it. That’s what you want, remember?”

“Sex is way better. Listen, the way to sleep around without getting hurt is to do it more often,” Betty said. “Take it from me. Practice makes perfect.”

“Bet, I love you, but you’re a slut. I’m never going to be like you.”
 

“You couldn’t even if you tried. You wasted too much time in your twenties,” Betty said. “Fine. At least find somebody who’s got a sex drive. That last guy you were with had less testosterone than I do.”

Her last boyfriend, another teacher, had been a nice guy but definitely bland in bed. “This trip is about me, myself, and I. It’s about learning I don’t need anyone to complete me, sexually or otherwise.” She bent over to smell a gardenia blossom growing in a hotel display garden. “I’ve got to go. I’m almost back to my resort.”

“What are you going to do if your oversharing didn’t scare the love shrimp away?” Betty asked.

“I’m sure I told him enough to do the trick. It always does,” Nicki said, thinking of Miles.

“But what if it didn’t? Do you have the intestinal fortitude to turn him down if he hits on you?”

“He won’t,” Nicki said. “Trust me.”

* * *

When she woke late the next morning, Nicki heard Ansel moving around the kitchen.

Instead of putting on a silk robe or showering, she rolled out of bed as is, her hair like Jennifer Aniston on one side and an overgrown juniper hedge on the other, her eyes puffy with sleep, and walked out into the living room. There was more than one way to scare him off.

The smell drifting over the breakfast counter from the kitchen made her stomach grumble. She stopped wondering how he’d react to her fright wig and scanned the kitchen for what smelled so good.

“Sorry I didn’t get the barbecue yesterday.” He held a mixing bowl in the crook of his elbow and had a spoon in his hand. “I got caught up in some business appointments. You wouldn’t believe how complicated it is to buy an ugly little office building.”

“You don’t have to apologize.” The last thing she wanted was for him to think she cared or noticed anything he did. Yawning, she climbed up on the barstool behind the breakfast counter across from him. “I was busy myself.”

He looked up from the bowl he was stirring, his expression guarded. “Talk to Rachel lately?”

She pulled a banana off the hook on the counter. “Just to leave a message thanking her for everything.”

“Did you mention me?” He glanced up from the mixing bowl, strands of black and gray hair falling into his eyes.