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I shrug. It’s practical to be able to see where you’re going with minimal effort.
“The pillows look great,” she continues then. “Really liven up the place.”
My shoulders rise and fall again. “I’ll take your word for it.”
She giggles at that, turning to look again at the room and any of the details she may have missed, when her gaze snags on the fireplace—or more specifically, the painting above it.
It features a laughing woman with curly hair and vibrant eyes, the strokes of the paintbrush soft and wispy in a way that completely belies the masculine overtones found throughout the rest of my place.
Now that I look at it closely, it’s remarkably similar in its resemblance to her in both physicality and personality.
“That painting…it…it seems out of character for you.”
I nod. “It is. But my great-great-aunt painted it many years ago and promised it to me when she passed. It’s been hanging there ever since. I’m pretty fond of it, honestly.”
Perhaps that’s why I became so enamored of Daisy so quickly. Normally, I don’t take a weighted interest in anyone’s life but my own.
Daisy nods, her eyes watching me closely for a long moment before moving on almost suddenly.
“What’s down this way?” she asks with a small jerk of her head toward the hallway.
I raise my eyebrows, and she laughs, adding, “Right. Only one way to find out with Mr. Mysterious.”
She walks to the end of the hallway, peeking in briefly to a linen closet and a half bathroom on the way, and then opens the door—after a nod of permission from me—to my bedroom.
The gray brick on the opposite wall stands out in the light from the windows, and the industrial shelving on one side of it boasts its emptiness.
“There’s nothing on those shelves,” Daisy points out immediately, making me laugh.
“I know.”
She shakes her head and then startles, her head jerking toward me. “Is that it?”
“What do you mean? To the apartment?”
“Yes. To the apartment. That’s it?”
I shrug. “Yeah.”
“There’s…there’s only one bedroom in this apartment?”
I raise my eyebrows, and she immediately shakes her head. A long-winded babble is coming, I can feel it.
“How is that possible? H-how? I googled your building, and this building doesn’t look like the kind of building that has apartments with only one bedroom in it.”
“I didn’t know that was discernible from the outside.”
“Well, it’s not! Obviously! Because here I am in a building that shouldn’t have any one-bedroom apartments, in a one-bedroom apartment. Your house in Vegas has multiple bedrooms, Flynn. Why doesn’t this have multiple bedrooms?”
“Because this isn’t Vegas. This is New York. And I’ve only ever been able to sleep in one bed at a time.”
“You’re not funny right now. This isn’t funny. Where am I supposed to sleep?”
I glance to the bed and back at her, and her eyes spin like flying UFOs. “In the bed with you? Every night?”
“Only the nights you want to be in a bed.”
“This isn’t funny, Flynn!”
“Listen, Dais, it is what it is. It’s not a big deal. It’s not like we haven’t slept in a bed together before.”
“We didn’t sleep in that bed at all, Flynn.”
No, we definitely didn’t sleep, and it was fucking glorious.
I grin, and she practically chokes on her own saliva.
“Come on,” I tell her, leaving the room. “Let’s go. You can worry about the bed later.”
“What? Go? Where are we going?”
I don’t answer. No. I don’t dare answer.
Daisy
Flynn pulls to a stop in front of a gorgeous Uptown brownstone that makes me believe in the movie version of New York. The trees are large and mature, and the street is calm. I can practically picture Tom Hanks asking Meg Ryan what would have happened with them if they hadn’t been enemies from the start.
I don’t know why we’re here, though, and the anticipation has me on edge. Does Flynn have another house here? Perhaps with more than one bedroom?
I nearly laugh aloud at myself, but Flynn opening my door and holding out a hand to help me climb out of his Range Rover seems to startle it right out of me.
“Where are we?”
He doesn’t answer, instead guiding me across the sidewalk and up the steps to ring the doorbell. You don’t ring the doorbell at your own house. “Uh…” I look around in confusion. “Are we at someone’s house?”
“Yeah,” he answers matter-of-factly. “My sister Winnie’s.”
“What?!” I question, but he’s already added knocking to his arrival alert system, apparently unsatisfied with the speed of response from the bell. “Flynn. This is your family’s house?”
He nods, completely at ease with the insane situation. “It’s family dinner night.”
“Are you kidding me?” I retort as quietly as I can, but it’s hard to have volume control when your heart is pounding in your damn ears. “You didn’t think I needed time to prepare? I barely know you. You barely know me! I mean, what are we even going to tell them? What if they ask—”
