Hard to Hold (True Romance) (6 page)

Though even as she conjured the thought, she imagined a faded, chewed-on tennis ball not unlike the ones Sirus liked to gnaw bouncing impotently across a deserted concrete playground. Michael had had three separate opportunities to invite her on a date or at least ask for her phone number. Maybe the internal radar that alerted her to possible interest from a guy was faulty, but she’d never been so off base with anyone before. Her instincts told her he liked her, but his actions denied this with a vengeance.

“You got him into his apartment with a credit card,” Shane continued, flipping over a few skeins of yarn disinterestedly. “Very impressive. But I especially like how you lit out of there so quickly. It adds an air of mystery. That’s very attractive to men.”

Yeah, she might have thought so, too, if she hadn’t found the Post-it note.

“Trust me, this guy is not attracted,” Anne said. “If he was, he would’ve thanked me properly.”

Flowers. Chocolate. She didn’t need Godiva—a Hershey bar would have sufficed.

“What did you expect him to do?” Shane asked. “Sweep you up into a sexy kiss, maybe do you against the wall while his dog ran around, waiting to pee?”

“You’re so crude,” Anne shoved two skeins of amethyst and plum-colored yarns into Shane’s arms. “I didn’t expect anything from him, okay? He’s very nice, but stop trying to set us up. If the magic hasn’t happened by now, it’s not going to.”

“Is that what you’re waiting for? Magic?”

“Why not?”

Shane shrugged, raising her yarn-holding hands in surrender to Anne’s rather over-emotional challenge. “No, no. I am a total, one-hundred percent believer in magic. It just seems like there’s already been a lot of the stuff twinkling around you and Michael. I’m not exactly sure how much more you could possibly want.”

“Are we going back to the
my standards are too high
argument again?”

Shane dropped the yarn into a basket. “What do you think?”

Anne beelined to the aisle that held an assortment of knitting needles, not because the idea of stabbing Shane through the eye with one right about now didn’t have its appeal, but because she wanted to finish this trip quickly and get on to the drinking part of the evening.

Though her mother had taught her to knit back in junior high, she’d only recently rediscovered the hobby thanks to the cold Albany winter nights. When a couple of friends had shown interest in taking up the craft, too, they’d moved to a neighborhood bar where they sipped wine and created hats, scarves and squares for afghans. More often than not, the wine took center stage and they became a drinking club with a knitting problem rather than the other way around. Anne had been looking forward to bringing Shane along for the fun, but the evening was going to be a bust if her friend insisted on talking about Michael all night long.

“Look, can we stop talking about Michael, please? He’s not interested. I don’t know what magic you’re talking about, but I certainly haven’t seen any evidence.”

“Number one,” Shane said, hardly taking a breath before she launched into her counterattack. “You happen to go to a concert with me, and we run into a cute Jewish boy named Michael, who I haven’t seen in years, but just so happens to be at the very same concert.”

“Coincidence,” Anne snapped.

“Hm,” Shane hummed. “Magical coincidence. Number two—”

Anne speared her friend with a warning look, but Shane continued, wholly unfazed.

“—Of all the apartment buildings in the city, Michael not only moves into the one you live in, but he happens to be in the act of transferring his worldly possessions into the building at precisely the same moment that you are walking by. And number three—”

“Please don’t tell me that his forgetting his keys is magic, too?” Anne begged.

“Well,” Shane said, “Michael is practically famous for his organization and neatness. His friends used to give him a hard time about it. What are the chances that a guy with OCD tendencies would forget his apartment keys at the office?”

Anne thought back to the state of Mike’s apartment after he’d spent the day moving in. Now that Shane mentioned it, he did seem to have the boxes color coded and stacked in neat rows against the door. The carpets had been newly vacuumed, as if he’d taken the time to give the apartment a quick cleaning before he set up his stuff. While this was something Anne’s mother might do, it wasn’t exactly expected behavior for a guy moving in to his new bachelor pad.

“Maybe he’s changed.”

“No guy changes that drastically unless he’s had a head injury, and Michael looked perfectly healthy last time I saw him. Except for the cold. Anyway, magic may not be at play in the most obvious way, but it is here and you’d be a fool to ignore it.”

Anne saw a book on elementary knitting patterns and tossed it at Shane. “What if I’m not the one ignoring it?”

Shane smiled deviously. “Aha! Now, we’re getting to the real issues. You want him to come on to you instead of the other way around.”

“Is that too much to ask?”

Shaking her head, Shane threw Anne a pitying look that only someone of her vast romantic experience could successfully pull off. “Not all guys are players, sweetie. The ones worth having are usually the ones most wary of being rejected. If a guy doesn’t fear being blown off, he’s probably too confident for anyone’s own good, much less his own.”

“I wouldn’t reject him,” Anne said, then clarified, “if he bothered to ask.”

“Does he know that?” Shane pushed.

Anne frowned. She and Shane had dissected her interactions with Michael enough times for both of them to know the answer. Anne hadn’t really turned on the charm and broadcasted her interest. She hadn’t wanted to work that hard. But was that fair? A receiver could only pick up signals if someone sent them. Sure, she’d invited him for drinks after the concert, but that had merely been polite. She’d watched his dog the day he moved in, but had summarily turned down his invitation for pizza afterward.

And last night, she’d literally given him no more than three minutes of her time.

“Okay, okay,” she said after selecting the last of the supplies her friend would need. “I’ll have to do something to make sure he knows I’m available.”

Shane shouted in triumph. “Excellent. What are you going to do?”

Anne shook her head, her mind focused entirely on her anticipation of her first merlot.

“I have no idea.”

For the next week, Mike tried to come up with a good way to thank Anne for rescuing him with her felonious skills. He had left a Post-it note that night, the least intrusive mode of thanks he could think of, as it was more than obvious that she wanted to get back to whatever had kept her from answering his knock in the first place. Though she’d taken the time to jot “You’re welcome” on the yellow square and paste it back on his door the next afternoon, he hadn’t heard from her otherwise. For this, he was thankful. Before he proceeded, he needed a plan.

Mike couldn’t remember the last time a woman had injected herself into his consciousness so completely and in such a short period of time. Even with his ex, he’d had a slowly developing relationship. They’d shared an intense love of music and common friends. They’d hung out and over time, started doing so without a crowd. But without drama to set them at odds, they’d stayed together until the relationship fell apart.

Mike had wallowed in the loss for a while, but then he’d moved on. Or at least, he thought he had. But he couldn’t deny that since then, he’d avoided serious relationships.

Now that he’d met Anne, however, the strength of his recovery surged through him. Her magical smile—or even, as he’d learned Monday night—her annoyed smirk, awakened him to possibilities he could neither ignore nor take lightly. He wanted to ask her out, but he couldn’t imagine going the ordinary route to this important destination.

That simply wasn’t his style.

Boring, unimaginative, “same-old, same-old” invitations popped into his mind and were summarily dismissed. Dinner. A movie. Dinner and a movie. He knew she liked music, but though he’d scoured the local venue websites for information, no interesting concerts were taking place in the next week. He had absolutely no idea how she felt about sports. He was sitting at his desk, pondering other possibilities when his phone rang.

“Michael?”

Anne
.

He instantly recognized her voice. He’d been replaying their conversations in his mind for a while and yet again, she’d proved her resourcefulness. Anne had not only managed to scare up his work number, but she’d actually made the call.

Now.

Right this minute.

And he’d yet to say a single word.

“Michael, are you there?”

“Yeah, hey,” he said, drawing from the depths of his inner calm. “What’s up?”

“I’m sorry I was in such a rush last week,” she said.

“Come on, no apologies. You saved me, remember? I’m sorry for interrupting . . . whatever I was interrupting when I knocked on your door.”

“Yeah, about that—” she said, a hint of anxiety in her voice.

Unfortunately, a hint was all it took to send his mind soaring in a million naughty directions. What could possibly be so important, so diverting, so intense, that she couldn’t stop to answer the door?

She hadn’t been taking a shower. When she’d darted down to his apartment, she’d been dry and smelling slightly of popcorn and chocolate. Funny how he remembered that, even after a full week.

“Hey, you don’t have to explain,” he said.

“Good, because I’m not the kind of girl who reveals her obsessions to just anyone.”

Mike shifted in his chair. The pathways through his nervous system that had shivered at the initial sound of her voice now ignited with heat. “I’d like to think I’m not just anyone.”

“Well, that remains to be seen,” she countered.

And before he could challenge her doubtfulness, she continued.

“Which is why I’m calling. I thought maybe if I showed you what kept me so wrapped up last week that I didn’t even hear you at my door, maybe you’d understand.”

Don Corleone must have taken lessons from this intriguing Jewish girl. She’d just made him an offer he’d have to be dead to refuse.

“Sounds intriguing,” he said.

“Does it?”

Her voice rose with pleasure. In instant response, his entire body seized up tight. His anticipation and curiosity spiked to a point where he was hesitant to speak.

“Yeah,” he managed.

“Do you like Chinese food? I always order in on Mondays. You could join me.”

He cleared his throat. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Okay, then,” she said, a note of surprise in her voice. Was she surprised that she’d essentially asked him over for dinner or shocked that he’d accepted?

“See you at seven?”

“Right.”

Before he could form another halfway coherent thought, she said good-bye and disconnected the call.

How long he sat there, stunned, he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t until Nikki knocked on the top of his desk that he popped out of his reverie.

“Something wrong?” she asked, her dark, sculpted eyebrows high on her forehead.

“What? No,” Mike replied, but then reconsidered. On the surface, what had just occurred was extraordinarily fabulous. A pretty, funny, generous and interesting woman who liked his dog and lived in his building had just invited him to a somewhat spontaneous dinner at her place, to be followed, presumably, by the revelation of some guarded secret regarding an obsession of hers. With Nikki staring at him, he didn’t dare imagine what this might be, but that she’d admitted she had a closeted obsession was enough to send Mike’s heart rate into hyperdrive. “Well, yeah. I don’t know.”

“You know, Michael, that’s what I love about you. You’re always so decisive.”

Nikki’s sarcasm knocked just enough sense back into his brain for him to sit up straight, scoot in his chair, and refocus on the pile of work in front of him. He’d accepted Anne’s invitation without even consulting his calendar. Didn’t matter. If he had anything else scheduled tonight, he would cancel. There was no way in hell he was missing this dinner.

“Did you need something?” he asked.

When he’d first come to the Quality Education Initiative months ago, Nikki had been the first person in the organization to not only show him around, but also to become a friend. Idealistic, beautiful, and sassy as all get-out, she added color and unpredictability to his day.

She could also read him like a book.

“That was a woman on the phone,” she assessed.

“Yes, women sometimes call me. Amazing how that works now that they’re so fully integrated into the workplace.”

She tossed a file folder aside and leaned against the corner of his desk. “Not that kind of woman.”

He matched her penetrating stare with one of his own. He’d learned quickly that the only way to counter Nikki’s overwhelming curiosity was to hold his ground. He could only imagine how easily she ran roughshod over the men in her life. Poor saps.

Kind of how he imagined Anne might run roughshod all over him, if he was lucky enough to lie down at her feet and let her.

“What kind of women do you think call me?” he asked.

“Ordinarily, business-type women. Teachers. Activists. Busy-bodies. Any number of creatures of the female persuasion are on the other end of your phone line on an hourly basis, but none of them have ever made you look both confused and cocky at the same time. By the way you were puffing up your chest, I thought if I hadn’t knocked on your desk, you might have beat your chest and yelled like Tarzan. That might have been embarrassing.”

He hadn’t exactly been on the verge of yodeling like Johnny Weissmüller, but otherwise, she wasn’t all that far off the mark. All on account of Anne’s sexy voice and irresistible invitation.

“So, who is she?” Nikki asked.

“A neighbor,” he replied, dropping all pretense. Having a woman as a pal sometimes came in handy—they had insight that guys simply did not share.

Nikki smiled knowingly.

“You mean
the
neighbor.”

He narrowed his gaze, trying to remember precisely when he’d mentioned Anne to Nikki. Must have been the day after he’d moved into his apartment, when he was still reeling from Anne’s generosity in watching Sirus, not to mention how pretty she’d looked in her green hat.