Page 79 of Scores Of The Heart

“You’re more than that,” she whispers. “And I’m sorry for rabbiting on this entire ride home. We should be celebrating your win.”

I shake my head. “You weren’t rabbiting on. And being here with you like this, it’s exactly the kind of celebrating I want to do.”

She smiles at me in the darkness and leans towards me. I dip my head as my lips find hers. It’s like they’re on autopilot, even though I’ve only kissed her twice.

Again, there’s another world waiting there with her mouth. She’s exquisite. Her lips are soft, full and doing very bad things to me.

I pull back to look at her, trying to collect myself. She leans back to peck me.

“We should go inside,” she says.

“Lead the way.”

Of course I have been here once before when I threw stones up at her window after the win in New York. But going inside her apartment is something else altogether.

“I think Henry likes you,” she says as we walk to the front. I can hear him barking already.

“The feeling is mutual.”

As soon as she unlocks the door, Henry is at her feet, wagging his tail and doing a happy dance. She laughs, bending down to give him a scruff.

“Mommy’s home,” she says, scooping him up under arm as he looks at me curiously and I lean in to give him a pat. He licks me on the knuckles and laps up our attention as we step into her hallway.

“Cute place,” I say, as we walk up to the kitchen. She obviously left some lights on for Henry earlier, which makes me smile.

“Thanks. It’s a great neighborhood and I’m lucky to have a backyard for Henry.”

She puts him down and he immediately runs over to me, so I kneel to give him a pat while she puts her purse down and slides her jacket off her shoulders, hanging it over one of the bar stools at the kitchen bench.

It’s quite an open space with dark floors and light beige colored walls. It’s neat and feels pretty new.

“When I bought it, they had remodeled the place,” she says. “They’d put in new appliances and repainted the whole house.”

“It’s a great space, Cind.”

The open plan kitchen leads to the living area next to it, which has a large dark gray sectional couch and a flat screen TV. Her furniture is mostly whites and grays.

“Thanks. I’ve tried to make it my own.”

“You even leave the TV on for Henry,” I chuckle, nodding over to the flat screen which has the sports channel playing on low.

“He likes some background noise,” she explains.

“You’re such a cool boy, aren’t you, Henry?” I ruffle him around the ears and stand up.

“I think I have some wine in the fridge if you’d like one?”

“Sounds good.”

“Make yourself at home,” she says. “You can flick channels if you want to.”

“And upset Henry’s viewing pleasure?” I chuckle. “I’m not sure I wanna be responsible for that.”

“He’ll live, don’t worry.”

I immediately like being in her space. It might be new and sophisticated, but she has little reflections of her around the place, which makes it homely. There’s fresh flowers in a vase on the counter and a few cute nicknacks around, but all in all she’s quite minimal. I smile at the picture on the side table in the lounge of her with her sister. They look so much alike. And one of her dad with Angelique. I don’t see any photos of her mother. It doesn’t reflect well on her mother with the whole ex-debacle and what she told me about senior year.

I instantly felt bad for her. Anyone can see Cindy is a good person and she didn’t deserve that. For her mom to discredit her feelings like that is unfathomable. They still seem to be fighting about it to this day.

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