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“Did you use a stud finder?”
“For the date? No.” I shake my head. “Maybe that was the problem.”
I have to look at him when I hear his soft laugh.
“I meant for the nail.” He points at the wall. “I’m surprised you can use nails in a new apartment.”
“Landlord thinks that sticky stuff is the devil’s invention. Told me to hammer as much as I want.”
Gideon’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline as his face crinkles with laughter.
“Tell me you meant to say that.”
“Totally did,” I promise him.
“So? Is that your type?”
“I don’t know that I have a type.” I step back and eye the framed print. “I don’t like it.”
“The book?” He steps up beside me. “You should’ve put it up a bit higher.”
“Loved the book. The writer’s from Troy, Missouri.”
“And that means what?”
I look up at Gideon and notice the hollow in his cheek for the first time. His cheek bone is high and prominent, his lips look chiseled from stone. I know they’re not. As if to remind myself how humiliating I can be sometimes, I remember touching his face that first day.
“She’s not that far from here,” I answer. “Maybe one day I can get her to sign the print.”
“Hmm.” He wags his eyebrows and nods. “You’re into that? Signed memorabilia?”
“Are you?”
“No.” He yawns and lifts a hand to push his hair back from his face. I see his pulse behind his ear before he drops his hand, and his hair falls back into place. The thought of touching him, putting my fingers on that pulse point, makes my hands sweat. Reminding myself this is Chloe’s baby brother—although he’s all hard planes and sexy male to me—I take a step away from him and lean over to snag my shoes from the floor. When I look back at him, I catch him looking at me. My butt, specifically. Forgot I was wearing a skirt.
“I’ve met some pretty cool people,” he says with a shrug, as affected as if he’d been looking at the floor instead. “But I don’t do autographs or even pictures. Kind of rather just live in the moment, ya know?”
I get it, but I think I live in the moment. I don’t think it’s wrong to want to freeze a moment in time to save it.
“Did you eat?” I ask him.
He grins. “That your way of asking me to get out?”
“Done with the skirt,” I say simply. He gives me another once over, but he still looks less than excited by what he sees.
“Are you going out with Mel again?”
“Second Tuesday of next week,” I tell him.
