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Emory: You should do it. What’s a little surgery for 100K?
Me: Hey! Why don’t you do it?
Emory: Because I already have money. And perfect legs. Surgery to insert springs would ruin them. You, however, could use a little pep in your step.
Me: Oh, right. Also, totally unrelated, but I hate you.
The show comes back from commercial, and I drop my phone and my conversation with Emory like it’s a hot potato.
And trust me, a potato has to be pretty fucking hot for me to drop it.
I won’t be interrupted from my favorite program—even if it’s by my best friend, talking about my favorite program.
I’m a complicated woman.
Ellen brings out the huge contraption she calls Mount St. Ellen, and three fun-loving people dressed up as little Bavarian boys and girls come running out from behind the stage.
This is one of my favorite games to watch because it takes so much fitness and savagery. Opponent below you on the mountain? Bowl over them like the boulders in Indiana Jones.
I’m really getting into it as two out of the three contestants come rolling back down the slime-covered mountain after grabbing fake pull ropes, and popcorn litters the floor from my unsuccessful attempts to get it into my cackling mouth.
My wheeze starts up after a snort, and by the time one of the women slides down and boots the guy contestant right in the balls, I’m damn near having a seizure, I’m laughing so hard.
All of a sudden, my laughter and the TV become background noise to a much greater adversary—the pounding on my door.
I jump up and hurry over, completely unsure who it could be or how I feel about their obvious aggression. When I get close and the pounding starts up again, I grab an umbrella out of my stand and wield it like a weapon.
I’m cocked and ready to swing as I reach out cautiously for the knob.
Slowly—painfully slowly, if I’m honest—I peel the door back to reveal the perpetrator.
When Trent Turner’s eyes meet mine, I accidentally swing the umbrella like a reflex.
He ducks—thankfully—but it’s safe to say I haven’t improved the boss/employee relations at all.
And I haven’t been what one might consider neighborly either.
I’m coming up with goose eggs everywhere, people.
“What the hell are you doing?” he yells, putting up a hand to fight off my offensive as—whoops—I’m still swinging the umbrella like a lunatic.
I put it down and drop it back into the holder, but that doesn’t make my voice any less shrill as I accuse, “I thought you were an intruder!”
He scoffs, and one dark eyebrow climbs toward his hairline. “An intruder who knocks?”
I don’t notice anything else about him at all. Nope. Not the way his casual wear—jeans and a T-shirt—seems to suit his body just as well as professional attire, and not the way his hard jaw complements his sparkling green eyes.
His forearms definitely aren’t veiny and pulsing either.
“Well, it was a really hard knock, and I don’t know that many people who come to see me where I live,” I defend somewhat weakly.
He smirks, and my instinct is to jump on it.
“And just what are you doing here anyway? We don’t usually hang out and gab late at night.”
He glances at his watch. “It’s eight thirty. Hardly what I’d describe as ‘late at night.’”
“What are you doing here?” I snap at the know-it-all.
“Checking on you,” he says before laughing. “God knows why. But it sounded like you were being attacked by a herd of feral pigs in here.”
I pause, looking back to the wall that I know has to be shared by his apartment, and panic. Obviously, I was aware we shared a wall and were in close proximity… I just…didn’t remember that would mean he could hear me.
I clear my throat to compose myself, and the result is astounding. Yep, a real demure debutante here.
“I was watching a TV show.”
“A show?” he asks skeptically, peeking inside the apartment without permission and looking around. “Watching a show causes you to make that much noise?”
“Yes. It’s Ellen’s Game of Games, and it’s hilarious.”
He frowns. “I’ve never seen it.”
The music changes in the background, and Ellen’s voice proclaims the beginning of Know or Go, and I drop the billionaire boss like I don’t know the meaning of either one of those words.
“Uh, what are you—” he starts, and I shush him and head back to my couch, front door still wide open.
“Shh, it’s back on.”
“Greer, we’re in the middle of a conversation—”
“Stay or go!” I yell like a psychopath. “But shut up and let me watch this.”
I’m perched on the couch like a gargoyle when I feel him take a seat next to me. I didn’t expect this at all—I figured he’d cut and run while he could—but I’m too involved in the show to bother thinking about it now.
