I swallow the wine-soaked potatoes and cut up some more chicken, drenching the meat in the brown sauce of amazingness. “If you mean to imply that we should talk about my little show of hysteria, then we are most definitely not. I’ve got all the Rookie Blue and Flashpoint episodes of the week PVR’d for you, and Jeopardy is going to be on in fifteen minutes.Hysteria takes a backseat to TV. You know this.”
“Please tell me. How can I help you if you won’t tell me what’s wrong?” I stare through the glass of my living room table, checking out my Green Lantern socks.
“There’s nothing really to talk about. It’s been a hard couple of weeks. Hey, I got a promotion! Take a swig of wine to that!” I toss back the last bit in my glass, and bang it on the table, so a glass-on-glass chime fills the room. We both stare at each other and shriek “ANOTHER!” and snort-chuckle-laugh while I try not to choke around the piece of chicken I’m still chewing.
“Oh, yeah? What’s your position now?”
I grimace. “I’m the supervisor’s assistant. Paygrade goes up ten percent and the benefits are outstanding. Pretty pleased.” Not really.
Katie taps her lips with her glass. “So, the tears before were tears of joy?”
“Exactly! See? Nothing to talk about. I was overwhelmed by my pride and it just so happened it brimmed over into tears.”
She gives me a glare with the intensity of a laser beam.“It’ll help if you talk it out, I swear.”
I smirk. “All it does is make me sound like I’m complaining all the time. I hate that. Being whiny. What am I? A snotty rich kid that hasn’t got the latest designer jeans? Bloody hell.”
“I really wish you’d stop speaking British. And you do it to annoy your parents. You’re Greek.” she says, gathering up her fork, knife and plate. I follow with my own.
“I only do it so I don’t swear as much. There’s just something about cussing that soothes me. Also, it makes me feel closer to Tom Hiddleston.”
Katie snorts. “Riiiiiiiiiiight.” She opens my dishwasher and starts putting her plate into it. My dishwasher is so awesome, I don’t have to rinse squat. “Speaking of the demons, what happened now?”
“I-I don’t want to talk about it. Not tonight. Tonight is me and my best bud doing our own thing. I got last night’s fight taped, too, if you wanna watch that first.”
“Fine. But we will talk about it. I don’t give a fuck what your next excuse is gonna be, but you’re going to answer me. Got it?” Katie says, getting up in my face. Her index finger taps the tip of my nose and I end up rubbing it, taking a step back.
“You know you’d sure give a lot of dudes shit-your-pants syndrome when you’d use your dominatrix voice. You don’t even need a whip.”
“I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Tell me how many guys you bagged this week, and how many you’ve tagged.” I grin at her. She blushes pink, and clears her throat, straightening her cream blouse, and smoothing her palms over her pencil skirt. The bitch got lucky in the body department. How could anyone look at me when I’m standing next to her? When she shines so bright and looks so beautiful? I’m not even a blip on the radar.
“How many asked you out, K?” I poke her ribs, yelp when she karate chops my wrist. “Three? Four? Five? You’ve got pheromones leaking out of every orifice. What are you doing here with me?”
“Chill out, sister. Yeah, five guys asked me out. All horndogs. No gentlemen. And no badasses, either. So I said no to every single one. There was no tagging. If there were tagging, I would call you afterwards. Pact of the sisterhood, swear to Venus.”
I snicker until a solid knock echoes through my apartment.
Katie’s perfect eyebrows high-five her hairline. One stays cocked, a question without really saying anything. “I thought you didn’t know anyone in the building! Who the fuck is that!? Should I get a knife? Check the peephole before moving the lock, dumbass!” She scream-whispers, clutching the back of my shirt as we make our way to the door. I check the peep-hole and feel my tongue get thick.
“It’s just the dude from next door. Gimme a second.” I dislodge her hands from my shirt. “You ruin this, you’re buying me another one. Swear to God. Katie, back off. Go sit on the couch. He doesn’t have a machete.” That I can see.
She snorts, but moves back to the couch and sits, all of six feet away from me.
I open my door, and freeze. Without my glasses, earlier this afternoon, I knew he was hot, but the blurriness added a protection factor and let me deal with him as a normal person would. Now with my enhanced vision, he’s just... shit. Hotter than fire. He’s...volcanic.