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“I don't want to talk to you,” Lili shouted because a raised voice always got the job done.
“I need to explain.”
“It’s really not necessary. Please go away.” And leave her alone with her humiliation. The sound of a scuffle bounced through the intercom followed by more foreign babbling.
A full minute passed.
“All right, you're going to be sorry,” he said, inducing a flap of panic in her chest. Would he try to break in? Bang on her door until one of the neighbors called the cops? If only. It was worse. Much worse.
Jack Kilroy started to sing.
The caterwauling made by the most deluded of wannabe contestants on American Idol had nothing on this. Hearing such a sound blasting from her TV was one thing; listening to it through her intercom was quite another. His voice had not improved any since the last time she’d heard him mangling a tune, right before she clocked him with a frying pan.
“Lili, I just met a girl, she's called Lili...” This, to the tune of Maria from West Side Story.
Someone on the street cheered, and encouraged, Jack's voice leaped a couple of inadvisable octaves. Another voice punctuated the lyrics with shouts of ‘Lili’ a half-beat late. There was a pause as Jack told his accompanist in no uncertain terms to shut the fuck up.
The crazy galoot. All that charm in six-feet-two of hot, spicy male, and for a brief, brilliant moment, it was directed at her. This must be what being in love feels like—the swoopy sensation in her stomach, the lightness of her galloping heart, the notion that anything is possible because one guy chose to serenade one girl with an atonal rendition of a show tune.
It was silly to feel like this, a frivolous fakery, but she held onto it as she took the stairs, two at a time, and threw open the door to the street. Poking her head out, she found Jack arranged against a wall looking like some good ol’ boy at a barn dance waiting for Ladies’ Choice. All he was missing was a toothpick and a Stetson.
“What took you so long?” he said, gifting her with that so-help-her-God smile. Along with all the other sensations, her legs now turned to water.
Laurent was sitting on the ground with his head between his knees. A couple of guys, helping each other along with the affection of the drunk, turned and shouted “Lili!” Jack saluted them like they were old pals.
“You are an awful singer,” she said, biting back a budding laugh. It wouldn't do to make it too easy on him.
His eyes crinkled with good humor. “What I lack in skill, I make up for in enthusiasm.”
“Add that to the list of things no woman wants to hear.”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair and his expression took a turn for the serious. “I want to explain.”
Lili waved him off magnanimously. “Forget about it.”
“I behaved terribly,” he said.
“Right, just not terribly enough.”
He pushed off from the wall, closing the gap between them and his eyes did the full body sweep. If that wasn’t enough to haul her back to earth, the whispering night breeze reminded her she had changed into her jim-jams, consisting of grey sweat shorts and a thin-as-wax-paper tank top with ‘Save the TaTas’ emblazoned across her chest. And she wasn't wearing a bra. She crossed her arms to cover her nipples, which she suspected would start betraying her at any moment.
“You lost your leering privileges when you told me to take a hike.”
Jack's sensual lips curved into a knowing grin. He opened his mouth to say what she assumed was something flippant. She cut him off at the pass.
“Jack Kilroy, your energy might be better employed explaining why you flirted your buns off, kissed me with all the technique of a marine mammal, and then dropped me when things got interesting.” By interesting, she meant when her hand encountered that intriguing bulge between his legs. The tipping point, she would have thought, with any other guy.
“You're right, I did all that, although I think my kissing technique is slightly better than a marine mammal’s.” He managed to look both sexy and affronted.
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“Well, you have to admit you provoked me.”
“I provoked you?”
“Is Laurent still here?” he mimicked, sounding nothing like her in the slightest. “There’s only so much a man can take.”
Words failed her, and not for the first time in his presence. He handily filled in the silence.
