The Apartment: The Complete Affair (52 page)

“This is nice,” he sighed.

“What, the
Dukes of Hazzard
marathon? I was going to ask if we could change it. I can only take so much unbuttoned beefcake.”

“No,” he laughed. “Being together like this.” He handed her the remote. “Here, put on whatever you like. I can’t believe you aren’t feeling the good ole’ boys.”

“Oh, I used to love this show when I was little. I had the hugest crush on Bo Duke. Now it’s kind of embarrassing when I think about it.”

“I always loved Rosco and Flash.”

“Oh, me too! I always wanted a basset hound that looked like Flash, but my mom would never let me have one.” She looked at him and then back at the TV. “Funny, I would have thought you’d have been into Daisy.”

“Oh, I never said I wasn’t,” he laughed. “Just look at those shorts!”

“Okay, that’s enough of that,” Lily huffed, turning the channel quickly. “There,
Top Chef
. Not a single pair of shorty shorts in sight.”

“True, but there’s always Padma Lakshmi’s post-pregnancy cleavage.”

“Ugh!” She reached for the remote again and he laughed loudly, grabbing it out of her hand.

“My God, you’re jealous! Of the TV!”

“No I’m not,” she protested.

“You totally are! That’s hilarious,” Ethan laughed even louder. “It’s damn adorable, actually.”

“No, I’m not a jealous person. I don’t
get
jealous. All of my old boyfriends back in college thought I was the coolest girlfriend ever, because I can talk about how sexy women are and play ‘spot the falsies’ while watching porn.”

“Spot the—? Wait, aren’t they pretty much all falsies?”

“Yeah, but some of them are really cheap. You can see these nasty ripples and ridges when they move. That’s beside the point, anyway. The point is that I don’t get jealous.”

“Hey, don’t be so defensive,” he chuckled, reaching around her and tickling her sides until she laughed. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I think it’s kind of precious. Nobody’s ever been jealous over me, even if it’s just the TV.”

“How is that possible?”

“What do you mean?”

“Ethan… you’re painfully beautiful. Any woman who sees you must want you. How could someone not have gotten jealous over you before?”

“You’re forgetting there was only Rachel. She liked the attention I got because having an attractive boyfriend reflected well on her. She cared less about me than what I brought her. So believe me when I say that it’s a refreshing change to have someone care.”

“Well, it’s not like I’m going to shank the first girl who looks at you or anything. I just felt funny watching you ogle someone else.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’d like to beat the shit out of Bo Duke right now. And Jemaine Clement is next.”

“But that’s silly! They’re just—okay, I see what you mean.”

“You can’t help how you feel. This is all new to me too. I’ve never been jealous in my life. I never needed to be.” He turned sideways to face her. “You make me feel so many things, Lily. It really is like I’m alive for the first time in my life. Even sitting here with you like this… I’ve never cuddled with anyone before you. It’s all just so… amazing.”

“You amaze me too, Ethan. Every day I’m with you is amazing.”

“Then why don’t you come back over here and we’ll do some more of that cuddling? I liked that. Let’s watch
Top Chef
and guess who gets voted off this round.”

“I suppose,” she smiled.

“And just for the record, you’re the only brunette in shorty shorts I’m interested in ogling,” he said, squeezing her bare thigh.

“Thank you,” she giggled, kissing him quickly. “And I’d take you over a threesome with Bo and Jemaine any day.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” he chuckled.

Ethan leaned back against the arm of the couch, pulling her down with him. After she got comfortable curled up against him with her head on his chest, he slowly began stroking her hair and humming softly to himself.

It felt so soothing that Lily’s eyelids were growing heavy. The only thing keeping her awake was her struggle to remember where she had heard the tune he was humming. Eventually she lost the fight, her body giving over to sleep.

In her very last moment of consciousness, listening to the lovely song as it reverberated through his chest against her ear, the memory came to her.

He was humming their waltz.

“Since when do you have a new boyfriend?” Becky blurted out the next morning after hearing Lily making plans for lunch on her cell phone.

“What makes you think that was my boyfriend?”

“Because you don’t blush like that when your dad calls you.”

“That still doesn’t make it a boyfriend,” Lily hedged.

“Are we really going to play this game?” Becky huffed.

“What game?”

“The Jason and Natalie game, where everything you do is glaringly obvious to everyone around you, but we all have to pretend like nothing’s going on.” It was no secret that Lily’s boss, Dr. Natalie Wilde, was sleeping with the newest, youngest doctor in the practice.

“I don’t know what you’re—” She stopped mid-sentence when Becky arched an eyebrow at her, letting her know in no uncertain terms that she was not going to believe any line of bullshit Lily might deliver. “Dammit, Becky. Not the eyebrow.”

Becky simply crossed her arms and stared at her. “Spill it, bitch.”

Lily sighed, turning her chair to face her more directly. “It’s just that things are so new. It feels weird talking about it.”

“New? I’ll say it’s new! Weren’t you single on Friday? I didn’t even know you were talking to anybody since Scott.”

“Well… we sort of… ran into each other again on Friday night.” Lily blushed again, thinking of how much things had changed since then.

“Wow that must have been
some
weekend.”

“It really was, and not in the way you’re implying either.”

Although Lily would have liked that very much.

“I don’t care how little happened—I just want some damn details! Who is the guy? How do you know him? Is he local?” Becky’s barrage of questions was interrupted by Kim on the intercom, alerting her that Jason had a red chart waiting to be seen. She stood up and pushed in her chair, turning back to look at Lily. “Don’t think you’re off the hook yet, my dear. I’ll get it all out of you somehow.” With that she walked away, shooting Lily a look over her shoulder that said she meant business.

* * *

Almost three hours later, Ethan walked into the tastefully decorated clinic, glancing around uncomfortably at all of the pregnant women in the waiting room. When he reached the front desk he noticed a vaguely familiar face in the pudgy blonde receptionist at the counter, but she was so engrossed in staring at her monitor that he couldn’t quite place her.

“Can I help you, sir?” she asked in an irritated tone, never once looking up from her game of solitaire.

“I’m waiting for someone. I was wondering if you might know how long she’ll be.”

“What’s her name and appointment time?” she huffed loudly.

“No, she works here. Her name is Lily Blake.”

That got her attention, causing the girl’s eyes to practically bug out of her head when she finally looked up at him. “Oh my God,
Ethan
?”

“Uh… yeah?” Apparently his face was less vague to her.

“It’s me, Kim!” she smiled excitedly. He was willing to bet this was the most animated she’d been about anything all day.

“Kim…?”

“Sanders, silly! We went to high school together. I sat near you in English senior year.”

“Oh… yeah, okay. How have you been?” He really couldn’t have cared less, but he didn’t want to be impolite to one of Lily’s coworkers. He
did
remember her once she said her name—and his memories of her made him cringe inside.

She used to strut around the school like she was hot shit, hanging on the arm of any guy she thought might be worth something to her. All she would have to do was shove her big tits in their faces and giggle like the airhead she was, and they gladly ate it up. She’d even tried batting her overly-mascaraed lashes at him a few times, but he had no interest in pretending to care about her vapid conversation.

“Oh, I’m good.
Real
good,” she purred. From the looks of her now, she had put on a good sixty pounds and hated her job. He could also tell from her bare ring finger and the way she was batting her lashes again that she was still sitting around on her widening ass, waiting for Prince Charming to appear and fix all of her problems.

It wasn’t that Ethan cared what a woman weighed; he appreciated curves in all the right places and always had. He’d painted countless women through the years with many different body types and had always found the beauty he was looking for. There was just something depressing about an aging prom queen living in denial.

“So… Lily?” he asked, trying to make her focus on the here and now. “Any idea how soon she’ll be ready for lunch?”

“Oh,” she pouted, her face falling visibly when she finally realized that he had no desire to reminisce about the good old days. “Let me look.” She clicked a few buttons on her keyboard, her eyes looking up at him every few seconds. “So, you and Lily, huh?” she probed nosily as she searched the screen. “When did that happen?”

“Recently,” was the only answer he gave.

“Alright,” Kim sighed when he refused to say any more. “Well, it looks like she already took back her last patient for the morning. I’ll leave her a message that you’re here. She should be done soon if you want to have a seat.”

“Thank you,” he nodded curtly, walking over to the only section of empty chairs and sitting down, rifling through the maternity magazines as he glanced at his watch. He could feel the stares of the other women in the room burning holes into his flesh, giving a new meaning to the phrase no man’s land. He felt like the enemy, and before even two minutes had passed he was ready to apologize to them for every man in the world who’d ever gotten a woman pregnant. After five minutes, he was ready to apologize for even having a penis. When Lily finally found him a few minutes later, the sigh of relief he gave as he stood up could be heard throughout the room.

“Thank God!” he gasped the moment they had stepped outside toward his car.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, barely containing a giggle.

“That was the most awkward I’ve felt in years. I swear they were just about to attack me when you came out.”

“Who?”

“Those women!”

She couldn’t hold it any longer after that, openly laughing at the expression of horror on his face. “What on Earth are you talking about?”

“It felt like every pair of eyes in that room was on me, like I wasn’t supposed to be there,” he tried to explain as he opened the passenger door for her.

“Ethan, there were a few other men there. They were all sitting with their wives, didn’t you see them?”

“No, all I saw were pregnant women everywhere.
Angry
pregnant women, looking for justice.” He closed the door on her laughter, still able to hear it through the windows as he walked around to get in the other side.

“That’s ridiculous!” she choked out through her giggling fit once he was seated next to her.

“Then why did I feel like everyone was staring at me?”

After she wiped a tear from her eye, she took a deep breath and looked at him. “Baby, they were probably just wondering why you were there alone.
And
where you’d been all their lives.”

“Oh, stop it,” he said, throwing the car in reverse and backing out of his parking space.

“I’m serious. Do you have any idea how horny some pregnant women get? Having you dangled in front of their eyes for that long is actually pretty cruel. I’m not surprised you felt their eyes all over you.”

“Oh man, that’s even worse! Now I can never visit you there again. I’ll always have to worry about mother-to-be gang rape!”

“Would you stop being so silly?” Placing her hand on his arm as he was getting ready to turn out of the lot, she waited until he was looking at her before she continued. “You’re just feeling awkward visiting me at work.” Lily could sympathize. The entire office was peeking through the door to the waiting area to get a glimpse of the new man in her life. “For what it’s worth, seeing you there waiting for me has been the best part of my day. Now, can I have a kiss?”

Shoving his hands through his hair quickly, Ethan exhaled loudly before finally laughing with her. “You’re right, I’m being an idiot.” He leaned over and kissed her gently, smiling against her lips when she tugged him closer, refusing to let him back away without deepening the kiss. “Mmm… hello there.”

“Now that’s the hello I was looking for,” she smiled. “Can we go eat now?”

“Oh, I suppose. How long do you have? Should we grab something quick or sit down?”

“I’ve got about an hour. Something quicker might be a better idea. I think the diner gets pretty packed this time of day, and something sit down takes too long.”

“How about a burger at Tastee-Freez?”

“Perfect! We can eat in the car if we want to.”

“Oh really?” he smirked, turning onto 3rd Street. “Have something in mind, do you?”

“Well, no,” she blushed. “I just thought it might be nice to eat and talk wherever we wanted since it’s such a pretty day, that’s all.

“Sounds good to me.”

He pulled into a spot at the old ice cream stand and they went up to the window, ordering two burgers and fries and two shakes, all to go. Lily rolled her eyes as the young girl behind the register giggled and flirted shamelessly with Ethan, reminding herself that it was simply something she was going to have to get used to if she wanted to continue dating someone so gorgeous. She knew the important thing was that he never flirted back—even if she did want to dump her chocolate shake over the dimwit girl’s head.

“My God,” Ethan moaned to himself behind her as they walked back to the car.

“What?” she very nearly snapped as she turned around, defensive about her newfound jealousy issues and fully expecting him to tease her about it again.

“I just… forgot how fucking sexy you look in your scrubs, that’s all.” He ducked his head as his cheeks tinted pink. When he looked back up and their eyes locked again, Lily almost forgot how to breathe. They both knew without saying that they were each remembering a heated sponge bath between a nurse and her very dirty patient.