Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle(109)
No reason at all. “I’m scared of some things.”
She was scared of making the same mistake she’d made with Henry. Of hanging on too long, trusting too much, expecting enough that she could be knocked down a notch.
“Not many, though, right?”
She was scared of the tenuousness of their connection, their voices floating through the ether, linked only by a series of cell towers. He might decide not to take her calls, not to lie awake with her at night, not to laugh at her stories or admire the things about her she loved best.
It was a good kind of fear, something like how she imagined it might feel to hang-glide in the dark.
“Not many,” she agreed.
During their third conversation, they talked about the cities they loved. Nora had lived in more—a different one every two or three years since graduating from college, partly because most schools had a last-hired/first-fired policy that had made it hard for her to sustain jobs, but also because she loved the thrill of a new place and new people. Miles had lived in the Cleveland area for almost a decade, but his work for the nonprofit had taken him all over the country.
“What’s your favorite?” he wanted to know.
“I don’t have a favorite.”
“How can you not have a favorite?”
“I just don’t. Wherever I am, that’s my favorite.”
“I’m not sure you’re for real,” he said.
“I’m not,” she said. “They stuck electrodes in your brain at that New Year’s Eve party, and I’m computer programmed to implant sense data in your head to make you think I’m a real person.”
“It’s a very convincing computer program. And whoever programmed it knew how to keep me coming back for more.”
His words sparked along her nerves, but she kept it light. “The electrodes tell us your likes and dislikes, and the program reacts rapidly to create new scenarios that are pleasing to you. It’s working?”
“It’s working,” he confirmed.
She lay back on the couch so his voice, a purr, could twine itself around her and she could luxuriate in the sensation of it.
“Do you seriously not have a favorite city?” he asked.
“They all have people in them,” she said. “I like people.”
“A favorite restaurant, then.”
She had to think about it. There were so many good ones. It wasn’t a lot easier than picking her favorite city. “Wild Ginger in Seattle.”
“Is that Thai?”
“Pan-Asian, technically, I think. What about you? Do you have a favorite?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Sally’s Apizza in New Haven, Connecticut. It’s this little hole in the wall that hasn’t changed in fifty years, but it has the best clam pizza on earth. I’m not exaggerating. We’ll go there sometime.”
“Did you just ask me on a date?”
“Uh-huh. I did.” She could hear the smile in his voice.
“Are you serious?”
“I’m looking up flights right now.”
“You are not.”
“I am. I can meet you there in—okay, wait a second. Damn. The ticket is five hundred dollars.”
“That’s a little pricey.”
“Okay, yeah, not in the budget. But sometime. Sometime I’m taking you to Sally’s.”
She let it feel like a promise, lodged warm and snug in her chest.
During their fourth conversation, he asked her to send him some photos of herself. He sent her some of himself. He was grinning in most of them.
“You smile a lot.”
“I guess I used to,” he said.
“Are you more serious now for some reason?”
“I guess I am.”
She hesitated, on the edge of asking him why. She felt she knew him well, but not that well. Not quite.
“You smile a lot, too,” he said.
“I do.”
“Are you smiling now?”
“Yeah.”
She’d been smiling almost constantly since Owen had found her on Twitter.
“Nora?”
The way he said it made her hopeful. Wary. “What?”
“I wish you were here. Right now.” His voice was all rough edges.
Her face got hot. Her hands, too. Actually, she was hot all over. “I wish I were there, too.”
“Maybe you can act as my proxy. Since I’m not there.”
Breath huffed out of her. She wanted to do this. She wanted to lean back on the couch and slide her hand between her legs, feel the damp heat rising off her body. She wanted to squeeze her thighs together around her hand and ask him what he was wearing and tell him lies about what she was wearing; she wanted to hear his voice rumble against her ear and jaw, the vibrations running out along her nerve endings and jazzing her up.