Page 86 of The False Flat

Aye. That man knew how to wear a T-shirt. Just the right amount of fitted.

I held out my arms and wiggled my fingers. “Get over here.”

When he sat down, I snuggled against his side, sinking onto his caramel-colored vegan leather sofa, and pulled a creamy L.L.Bean blanket—one side soft fleece, the other a cabled pattern that resembled a fisherman’s sweater—over us. Grant’s condo was small and efficient, a two-bedroom defined by clean lines but somehow still managing to be comfortable and alive. Which was probably due to the many plants scattered in each room that felt like they were always watching.

He kissed my temple, squeezing me gently with the arm he’d wrapped around my middle. Then he pointed the remote at the small TV across from us. “Now, how do you work this thing?”

“Give me that.” I swiped the remote, pointed it at the screen, and moved my thumb over the buttons. “I can’t believe you don’t know how to work your own TV.”

“Why would I want to watch people doing things I could be doing if I wasn’t sitting on the couch?”

“Because it’s fun, and every other normal person on the planet does it.”

He started to speak, but my finger jerked to his mouth, stopping the “If everyone on the planet jumped . . .” speech I knew was poised on his lips, his full lips.

I let my finger linger on those lips and imagined them kissing down my body. Our kisses thus far had been passionate, our hands groping, our bodies pressed impossibly close, but we’d always stopped. His genteel supervision of my virtue was sweet, refreshing even, but it kept my lower half preparing for a party that wasn’t going to take place anytime soon.

And he was wrong when he’d called his clothes “old-man wear.” I’d never lusted after an “old man” in a T-shirt and fleece-lined cargo sweats. He looked incredibly hot, vegging out on a movie where the actor was doing all the things Grant wanted to do.

When he leaned over, his tattoo peeked out from under his shirt. I couldn’t resist, so I lifted the fabric, exposing the blueprint of a house I now knew I would find. How could it have been anything else? I ran my fingers along the thin lines and smiled. I’d thought about getting my first big, seven-figure return tattooed across my ankle, but a tattoo was a commitment.

“It was the first building I designed entirely on my own,” he’d told me the first time I’d seen it up close, when I’d been trying to coax him out of his clothes.

I tried to focus on the movie, tried not to think of how many ways that tattoo could be pressed against me or of all the things I wanted him to do to me when he wasn’t in pain.

William pointed a finger at Grant. “You’re a cheat! There’s no way Pen got The Transporter from that dinky performance. Planet of the Apes, maybe, but not—” William turned to confront me. “There’s no way! He had to have mouthed the answer to you.”

Game night was in full swing, and my reply came in gasps as I horse-laughed. “No . . . promise.”

Grant blew on his knuckles, brushed them against his shoulder, and sauntered back to his seat beside me.

I lost it, full-on this-can’t-be-cute guffawing.

A smile tugged at the corners of William’s mouth. “Pen, cheating isn’t this funny.”

“Didn’t . . . cheat,” I answered, normal fluid sentences eluding me.

“He looked at you!” William shouted.

I jabbed my finger in Grant’s direction.

“What Penelope’s trying to say is,” Grant started, “we’re simply superior human beings on all counts, with a particular competency for charades.”

Deanna threw a small, house-shaped pillow at Grant.

William stood. “We’re leaving!”

“Don’t leave!” I screamed, finally composing myself. “We watched The Transporter this afternoon by complete coincidence. I made a comment about Jason Statham’s sex appeal, and Grant insisted it was all in the look on his face, and if he mastered that same look, he’d be just as sexy.”

Grant twirled the corner of his mustache as he tried another look that only made him look like he needed a suppository.

I cut my eyes over to Grant, suppressed a smile, and then went on, “Well, he paused the movie, and for far longer than you’d think possible, he tried out every look he could think of on me. And finally settled on the one you just saw. That’s how I knew.”

“Pathetic,” Deanna said.

“No, it’s genius,” William said. “It has to be the look because Statham’s balding, for goodness’ sake!”

“See!” Grant looked at me as he pointed at William. “Finally, another reasonable human being.”