"A few, actually."
She didn't bother looking sorry for the smartass comment and I didn't bother calling her on it. She knew who she was. "Okay then, wanna give me one?"
She shrugged, a casual gesture I tried to pretend I didn't find hot. That smile, though, even a monk would be affected by that smile. "Willow."
"Like the tree?"
"Like the movie."
For a split second-hell, for longer than a split second-with that teasing look coming from that bold, Technicolor woman, I thought maybe that smile and her flirting might just make me forget about the kind of women I'd dated. All of them.
Nash
No juju worked on me. That's what I told myself for the hour Willow tried clearing my aura, and I'd been right. Sleep continued to be evasive, the still-griping side piece insomnia was too damn clingy that night, but this time it was mainly because the smell of jasmine clouded my sinuses and stayed on my skin despite the overly long shower I'd taken when I finally made it back to my place.
I hadn't touched Willow in all that time. Not once. Not even casually. Still, my nose, my skin all smelled like the smoking hot hippie chick who'd convinced me she could help me get some sleep.
I didn't see her much after that. She stayed out my sight, an on-purpose thing that kept me calm. It went on for a week, with me making no plans to see her. But Willow wasn't the type of woman you could hang out with-for any reason-and then just forget about. She made my already crazy ass thoughts more chaotic and I'd only spent an hour with her. When I'd left her apartment that night, I told myself I didn't need the distraction. That she wasn't my type, no matter how good she smelled or how warm her non-touch felt. That I had just been imagining that freaky connection we seemed to have because I had been so damned tired. Yeah, I admit it, I used the sleep deprivation excuse every time I thought of her.
But we lived in the same building. There would be accidental meetings-passing each other in the lobby or at the mailboxes next to the manager's office. There were also times when we met at the elevator, the awkwardness a little thicker than in just some other random encounter. Still, Willow wasn't a woman that could be ignored completely, regardless of door banging and drum thumping and aura cleansing. I saw that clear enough when no less than three different fellas tried getting with her just in the time it took for her to get the mail out of her drop box.
She turned down each one, even Milo Wilson, the seventy-five-year-old janitor who cleaned the building in exchange for the five hundred square foot ground entry apartment next to the manager's office. Yeah, even he knew a good thing when he saw one.
"You know … " her voice came from the back of the elevator when I slipped inside, idly thumbing through my phone so I would seem busy, only pretending to notice Willow over my shoulder as Mrs. Walters got out on the second floor.
"What?"
She moved to my side, ever-present smile on her face as she looked up at me. "I wanted you to know that I can hear you clear as a bell from my apartment."
"Payback for those damn monks," I mumbled, still seeming absorbed elsewhere. She didn't like me ignoring her, that was made plain enough when she grabbed my phone, taking Instagram from my fingertips and forcing me to look at her. "Willow … "
"I'm just saying I can hear you. At night." She slipped my phone in my jacket pocket as if she knew me. Like we were friends and not just neighbors who'd only met once. I had no idea why I didn't tell her to mind her own business. Jasmine didn't smell that damn good. "When you have your … you knows."
"My what?"
I'm 6'2, pretty built. Weights at the gym and the occasional CrossFit session sometimes are the only things that keep me from losing my head when the work gets too hairy or my business partner Duncan rides me too hard. I swear that man is worse than the naggiest wife in the world. But for as big and square as I am, Willow didn't retreat from my glare or get the message that I wanted her to stay out of my business.
"The noises you make … because you don't sleep. I hear it all."
I pulled my phone back out of my pocket, holding it in my left hand to keep it out of Willow's reach. "You don't hear anything."
"I do so." She sounded like a kid then, and acted like one, making a grab for my phone which I held up, still out of her reach.
I didn't even look at her, or do anything but watch the floor numbers rise while she gawked at me. That killed her. I knew it did. Willow didn't seem like the kind of woman who was used to being ignored. Or liked it.