Groceries. Think about groceries.
Five minutes later he was in the corner gas station stocking up on chips in a can, soda, and Bit-O-Honey candies.
He didn’t even like the things. Well, he didn’t know he didn’t like the things, he’d just always thrown them out of his childhood trick-or-treat bags because they looked stupid. But honey reminded him of Jaylene, and he wanted to savor that, savor her, the way he’d told her he liked his literature.
Liking his women like his literature. Wow. That was ridiculous. Or maybe—it was brilliant.
He stalked back down the chip aisle and grabbed a couple of strips of beef jerky. Protein was important to a man’s diet. So was sex. So was intellectual stimulation.
He dumped his groceries on the counter with an exasperated sigh. Obviously it had been quite a while since he’d been with a woman. And this one was stuck in his head like a bad pop song. That would be fine, if he didn’t have his work to think about.
His job was not the kind of thing one did half-assed. Your head had to be in it, one hundred percent. And right now his traitorous head wouldn’t give him a break from the memory of her climbing those steps in that dress. Slowly. Climbing.
What he could do to her on that staircase.
The clerk had to repeat his total twice before he snapped out of it.
* * *
When Noah rolled out of bed, groggy and slightly nauseous from his sugar intake the night before, he was completely irritated with himself. Not for waking up at noon; that was normal. Irritated for looking at the clock and wondering what Jay was doing right then, if it was lunch in the staff room, or grading at her desk.
This had to stop. Right after he took care of the other matter at … hand, so to speak.
Ten minutes later, he was dressed and ready to go for a hard run. Sometimes turning the headphones up loud, matching the beat with your rhythm, and getting utterly lost was the only way to find your inner peace. And he had some good hip-hop cued up and ready to go.
Outside his new building he squinted in the bright Boston midday. Rolling his head and shaking out a little, he considered which way to go. First run from his new apartment, it was a momentous occasion in its own small way. Might as well give in—he turned toward Jay’s building and set off.
The first mile was always toughest. The worst part about habitually sleeping in was that he always seemed to be running under a blazing sun. On the bright side, he always had a tan despite being the biggest homebody he knew.
As the first few blocks fell away beneath his pounding feet, Noah considered.
Jaylene Kim was his neighbor. As such, he was bound to be seeing plenty of her. Or maybe not—they did seem to be operating on opposite schedules. But even the best- or worst-case scenario meant passing occasionally on the street, both in the freezer aisle of the corner store, seeing each other across the pumps at the gas station. Probably a couple of times a month.
The one thing, the one thing Noah could say for absolute certain was that there was no room for a woman in his life. His work didn’t allow for it, hell, his personality didn’t allow for it. He liked to be alone. He didn’t want to check in if his run took him across town and he decided to join a pickup soccer game. He didn’t want to go to bed early because someone else was. And he sure as shit didn’t want to be spending his run justifying this to himself.
So he gave in again, and let his mind wander. It wandered up over the curves of her dress, and around her movie-star red lips. It followed the path of that caramel along her soft pink tongue. It meandered along the words that tongue had spoken, the banter he knew they’d have if he let himself go.
He let his thoughts spin over and around her like a cotton candy cloud until he felt sugar-sick all over again and then he let it go. Enough of the beautiful intelligent neighbor. He would be inspired by her from a distance, from now on. He had his job to do, and didn’t need any distractions.
It was just not going to be allowable to become so taken with the girl next door.
So why on earth did he find himself outside her window that night, throwing pebbles?
CHAPTER 3
Jaylene was feasting. It was Friday night, she had the weekend stretching out before her, all her papers had been graded, and it was time to party. She was refusing to admit how preposterous it was that she now considered it a party to let Pookie drink milk at the table while she smeared stolen caramel on stolen crackers and washed it down with stolen wine.
So what if this was the fanciest Friday night she’d had in months? She’d rather be doing this than go out on the town with Blake Donovan. She almost spit her wine out at the very thought.
That stuffy old turd, in his expensive suit, getting beer spilled on his expensive shoes at the new raw bar that was in the sketchiest up-and-coming artsy neighborhood.