Page 17 of Faking the Heat

I take a sip of tea. It is scalding and barely drinkable, but it buys me three seconds of plausible deniability. “I don’t know. Maybe? It’s like when I saw him my brain left my body and filed for divorce.”

Kayla waits, patient as a crocodile. “And you’re here because…?”

“I don’t know!” This comes out louder than planned. I glance around, but the laptop people are already lost in their noise, cancelling cocoons. “I just had to leave the apartment. I think I was going to start talking to the appliances.”

“Or just the cat, again.” Kayla says.

“He hates me now. It’s mutual.”

Kayla props her chin on her palm and watches me with undisguised interest. “Do you have a crush on this man, or are you just horny from the trauma?”

I choke on my tea and cough so hard my eyes water. “I do not have a crush,” I say with the unwavering confidence of someone who absolutely has a crush.

Kayla tilts her head. “So horny from trauma, got it.” She grins and I can feel my face turning red again.

“No, not that either.” I snap but my tone is hushed.

“Then why are you in here, at ass, o’clock on a Saturday, instead of at home with him, eating cookie dough and rewatching SVU?”

“It’s just…” I drum my fingers on the table. “Maybe because being in his apartment is like being under a microscope, and every time I touch something, I feel like I’m trespassing.”

“Amanda,” Kayla deadpans, “You put your bare ass inside his underwear and you’re telling me you didn’t want to be in his space?”

I cross my arms tight. “It was all I had after my actual wardrobe went up in smoke.”

“Excuses, excuses.” Kayla is relentless. “Was it weird?”

I frown. “What? Seeing him naked? Or living with him?”

“Both.”

I open my mouth, but there is no answer. The closest thing is a sound, a little squeak of uncertainty, that I try to drown in more tea. “It’s not weird. It’s just, different. He’s always been the guy that people gravitate to. I never saw him, you know, alone, up close. Not like this.”

Kayla nods, and for a second, I think she’s going to drop it. But then, “You’re still hung up on Derek, aren’t you?”

I flinch. “No. I am not. That ship has sailed, crashed, and been picked clean by barnacles.”

She narrows her eyes. “Then why do you sound like you’re waiting for the next disaster?”

“Because disaster is the only thing that happens to people like me.”

The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.

They're ugly.

Worse, they're familiar.

“Bullshit,” Kayla says. “You get the good stuff, too. You just don’t trust it.”

I want to argue. I stare at the table instead, at the gouged wood and the glue stain shaped like Florida.

“Okay,” Kayla says. “What’s his worst quality.”

I open my mouth. Close it. “He can take meal prepping to an annoying extreme.”

She waits.

“That’s it,” I say. “That’s the whole list.”