I went back to ignoring him as the coffee cup was full. I expertly switched out the cup for the pot, intent on my first sip all the while wondering why Lee still hadn’t moved.
Then he did, a hand disappeared and a second later I felt my hair being swept off my left shoulder, around my neck and over my right.
I jumped at this intimate gesture and so did other parts of my anatomy. I didn’t even try to ignore it. Any effort would have been futile.
Lee’s chin went to where my hair used to be just as his hand slid across my abdomen and pulled me to him.
My entire body went still.
“We need to talk,” he said into my ear.
I stood there, frozen, coffee cup aloft, nowhere near awake enough to process his extraordinary actions and also in kind of total shock.
I said the only thing I could think to say.
“I need milk.”
Without moving his body or head, his hand left my middle, I heard the fridge open and the glug of milk against plastic and then the fridge closed again.
Lee set the milk in front of me and his hand went back to the counter, keeping me where I was.
Real slick.
My stomach fluttered.
“Thank you,” I said politely, blinking a lot and wondering if I was still asleep and dreaming.
I poured some milk in my joe concentrating on not letting my body tremble. I was trying to be cool but I was confused. This kind of behavior from Lee had never happened before.
As in, ever.
I took a sip of coffee and tried to get my mind in gear.
“Do you want to explain to me why you have me pressed up against the counter?” I asked, using what I hoped was a questioning-yet-diplomatic tone rather than a freaked-out, ohmigod, hell-has-just-frozen-over tone.
This was hard for me. I needed to be alert and aware in any situation involving Lee in order not to snap and declare my undying love for him but I’d only had one sip of coffee.
And somehow, this was definitely a situation involving Lee, in fact, it was more like a dangerous situation involving Lee.
I took another sip, going for the gusto and burned my tongue.
“Yeow!”
While I was recovering, Lee turned me around and moved further into me.
He did this well, considering there wasn’t a lot of space to move and even less space to move into. Not to mention, I had the coffee cup between us. He settled his hands on the counter on either side of me again.
“Why have you been avoiding me?”
Yikes.
Direct shot.
He didn’t even lead into it.
Although his eyes and features were still gentle, it wasn’t from just waking up. I could tell Lee was as alert and aware as you could get. The gentleness was from something else.
Shit, shit, shit.
What in holy hell was going on?
I decided to play stupid.
“What?” I asked.
“You heard me,” he answered.
Then there are those times when honesty was not the best policy.
“I haven’t been avoiding you,” I took another sip thinking I should have put another scoop or two of coffee in the filter.
“You’re lying. The last time we were both at dinner, you got up in the middle of Mom’s fajita presentation and said you forgot to feed your cat.”
Uh-oh.
“So?”
“You don’t have a cat.”
“I was cat-sitting,” I lied.
He smiled.
He smiled The Smile.
Fuck, f**k, f**k.
Man, Lee could smile.
Then he said, “All right, I’m all out of patience with this one. You have two choices. Either you talk to me about what’s been botherin’ you for the last decade or I tell you how you’re gonna pay me back for this Rosie debacle.”
“Is there a choice number three?” I asked.
He shook his head.
I slid my eyes to the right, chewed the inside of my bottom lip and thought about my choices. I did my best to forget about the glimpse of hard, muscled chest and six-pack I’d seen in the weak moment I allowed myself to look down.
And, he was wearing faded jeans with the top button not done up.
Yikes.
Okay.
Focus.
Choices.
Firstly, I was never, never, never in a million years going to tell Lee Nightingale that I’d been in love with him since I was five and he sat next to me during my Mom’s memorial service and held my hand. I was never going to tell him it was a Bon Jovi-style shot through the heart when he told me he wasn’t interested in me because I was his little sister’s best friend. And I was never, never, never, ever going to tell him that something had changed in him and he scared the pants off me.
Secondly, no matter what he said, he was Lee and he was right all those years ago, in a way, we were family. We did all our holidays together as family and went to Broncos games with our Dads when we were kids. We had barbeques at each other’s houses nearly every Saturday during the summer, even now. Hell, it was mid-June and I’d just had the barbeque at my house two weeks ago and Lee had been there. Even though he’d changed, he would always be Lee. He probably wanted cheap maid service or something. Someone to do his laundry. Take his car to have the oil changed.
I could do that.
All this business with sleeping together and swiping at my hair and talking in my ear was just him trying to intimidate me. He probably wouldn’t let Ally sleep with Rosie or on the floor either.
“I’ll choose door number two,” I decided.
The smile widened and something happened to his eyes that made my nether regions quiver.
Uh-oh.
Clearly, I made the wrong choice.
“I was hopin’ you’d say that.”
I scrambled.
“Maybe I’ll rethink my choice.”
“Too late.”
I scrunched my nose and narrowed my eyes at him.
“Why can’t you just be a nice guy?”
“I’ve never been a nice guy.”
This was true, mostly.
“Yes you have. You used to come pick Ally and me up from parties so we wouldn’t get in trouble.”
“I hate to burst your bubble but that was for entertainment value. You and Ally were hilarious drunks. Once, you sang ‘My Favorite Things’ all the way home and got all the words wrong.”
I made a frustrated noise.
“There was that time when I was grounded and I was climbing out of my window so I could go to Darren Pilcher’s party and I got stuck between the tree and the house and you came over to get me down.”
“I could see up your skirt.”
I gasped.
Then I sighed.
Only I would try to climb out of a window in a skirt.