Page 11 of Grave Games

“First he laughed at me, and then he called me a piece of work. I don’t know, maybe he read that same unnamed rulebook you did and thought it was cheeky of me to ask such a thing.”

“Nobody likes a smartass, Shiloh. Then what’d he say?”

“He said that he’d been worried about me getting home in that storm, just like you thought. Then he said he wasn’t going to apologize for it and that he was glad he was there to save my butt just when it needed to be saved. Frankly, I’m glad he was there, too. I don’t know what I would’ve done if he hadn’t shown up, because the monster who attacked me was definitely after more than just my wallet. If that had been all he wanted, he wouldn’t have frigging tackled me to the ground.”

“God.” Heather made a noise that made me think she’d just shivered, and I was right there with her. “What kind of crazed animal do you have to be to jump women in the middle of ablizzard?”

“I don’t know, but obviously Chicago has at least one of them.” And since my luck was nothing but bad, that one animal had somehow found me. In a blinding snowstorm. In the middle of the night. With visibility at absolute zero.

Yep.

My luck really was nothing but bad.

“Well,” my friend said after a moment, “that’s all yesterday’s news, so I’m not going to give it another thought. Tell me all about today’s news, because that’s where the juicy stuff is. When are you going to see your stalker again?”

Ugh. “I don’t have any idea if I’ll ever see him again, Heather.”

“Shiloh, sweetheart, that yummy hunk of a man saved your life, then promised in front of witnesses that he was going to buy you a new pair of gloves. That means you’re going to see him at least one more time, and I want to know what your game plan is.”

“Game plan?” Was I supposed to have one of those?

“You have to have a game plan for this sort of thing,” she responded as if reading my mind. “This Romeo dude is into you, hon. Like,extremelyinto you. And now he’s saved your life and wants to buy you gloves. If I were in your shoes, I’d be in the shower shaving every last inch of my body and making sure I wore my cutest panty and bra set before seeing him again. Preparation is key when it comes to this sort of thing.”

My face grew so hot it was a wonder it didn’t melt my phone. Little did my friend know, I’d already done the shower-and-shave thing. And the lotion thing. And the perfume and full-on date makeup thing. No reason, though. Just because. “My game plan is to order a bunch of gloves for myself online, so Romeo won’t have to bother. I can take care of myself.”

Heather made a sound of frustration. “Girl, of course you can take care of yourself. Every woman is a Wonder Woman, and we can all take care of ourselves. The point is, when a man as sex-on-a-stick yummy as Romeo comes onto the scene making noises about wanting to take care of you, you need to think long and hard about letting him do it. And in exchange, you do everything you can to take care of him and his needs. It’s only fair.”

The flash of lust that crashed through me at the thought of Romeo’s needs took my breath away. Heat bloomed between my legs, a sensation I’d thought was long since dead to me. “Like you said, it’s only gloves. Not an engagement ring.”

“You don’t need to have an engagement ring to get your fun on with your very own Romeo,” Heather said sagely, just as the buzzer from the front door sounded through the apartment. “Omigod, what was that? Was that the door? Is ithim? Go look, but don’t hang up, I wanna heareverything.”

“I’m hanging up, Heather, byeeee.” Feeling only a little like a bad friend—because honestly, there had to be boundaries—I hung up, tucked the phone into my back pocket and headed for the front door, but not before giving my appearance a quick once-over in the full-length mirror hanging on the inside of the closet door. I’d left my curly hair loose, something I wasn’t allowed to do at work, and it hung in spiraling coils past my shoulders. Those shoulders were bare, thanks to the off-the-shoulder clingy sweater the color of emeralds—my all-time favorite color—and painted-on dark skinny jeans paired with over-the-knee boots. Not exactly a stay-at-home, kitchen-cleaning outfit, and suddenly I realized this was a look of a woman who was trying too hard. Frantically I gave a thought to tossing on the raggedy old flannel shirt I slept in during the winter months, but the buzzer sounded again before I could whip off the sweater.

“Oh, well,” I muttered, resigned now to my fate. With my mouth flattening into what felt like the grimmest line ever, I headed out the front door and into the building’s entryway to look out the glass door. Yep. There Romeo stood in a spotlight of radiant sunshine, in all his masculine glory, biker boots laced up over tight-fitting jeans that cupped him in all the right places, with a heavy sheepskin-lined leather bomber jacket and a black plaid scarf around his neck.

How could a man look so damn sexy when he was bundled up with virtually no skin showing? It was one of nature’s mysteries.

Stifling a sigh and reminding myself that even wannabe bikers had to be handled with care, I hustled over to open the glass security door, pasting on a smile that felt as fake as a three-dollar bill. “Hi there. Sorry for the delay in answering the buzzer. This door and its intercom system have been on the fritz since Halloween. We all have to come into the entryway to see who’s wanting to be buzzed in, and then open the outer door ourselves.”

“Yeah?” Letting the glass door close behind him, Romeo stepped into the middle of the entryway, taking in the threadbare carpet that had probably been there since the place had been built in the ‘70s, the wall of mailboxes, and literally nothing else, not even a dusty plastic potted plant or a Welcome mat. “Have you talked to the landlord? Doesn’t sound like it’s up to code.”

“I’m sure it’s not, and we’ve all had a little chat with Mr. Florescu. He’s a great guy, a Korean War vet who still has shrapnel in his back from when he earned his Purple Heart. He’s in his eighties now, deaf as a post, and his hands and back are crippled with arthritis. Winter is the most painful time for him, so he self-medicates with alcohol. We all care about him, so we’re being patient, answering the door ourselves, and waiting for spring. That’s when he promises he’ll get around to fixing it.”

He glanced past my shoulder and gestured toward my apartment door, now standing ajar. “That’s your place?”

“Yep.”

“Just ten steps away from a door that’s not working right.” That seemed to bother him, if his scowl was any indication. “What about getting someone in to fix it? This could be a security problem, and you live right here on the ground floor.”

Damn it, why did he have to keep worrying about my wellbeing? In looks alone he was every woman’s fantasy, but when he poured on the solicitous concern it was all I could do to keep from climbing him like he was my personal jungle gym. “I don’t have the money for that, and neither do my neighbors. But even more than that, no one wants to offend Mr. Florescu. Like I said, he’s a good guy, and I’ve lived here long enough to know he takes tremendous pride in being able to take care of this place and its tenants. Calling in some stranger to do what he sees as his job might be taken as an insult, or even as an unspoken belief that it’s time for him to be put out to pasture.”

“Maybe it is.”

“And maybe we all just take a couple extra steps every time a door buzzer goes off until warmer weather moves in.”

He shook his head. “That makes no fucking sense, Shy.”

Shy. I could get used to that. “Every person needs to feel that they’re useful, Romeo, no matter how old they get.” I shrugged and backed away to my apartment door to open it completely. “Do you want to come in?”

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