Page 59 of Accidentally Amy

I suspected not many people did.

Or maybe I justhopedthat not many people did.

He narrowed his eyes and said, “You’re seriously opening the windows and running the heat at the same time?”

“I just love the sound of the city, but hate being cold,” I said, shrugging and looking over at the windows. There was something about the lights and the downtown sounds that made me never want to go home.

Well, that and the fact that his apartment was straight-up ridiculous.

For starters, he had an obscenely huge bathtub, as well as a shower that was the size of my entire bathroom. As if that weren’t enough, there were built-in Bluetooth stereo speakers wired throughout the place, so I could turn on my favorite playlist andhave it stream across every single square foot of that dreamboat apartment.

Monstrously large TV, world’s cutest cats, a massive kitchen; why would I ever want to leave? Instead of vacating when Blake returned, I might just barricade myself inside of sexy number 964. Surely I could get in an extra twelve to fourteen hours of luxuriating before the SWAT team finally kicked down that beautiful door and pulled my ass out.

“It’s genius, if you think about it,” I said, snuggling under the blanket as the autumn breeze blew through the apartment. “By the way, I forgot to tell you—your brother and his wife were here when I got home from work.”

I’d been fumbling for the keys in the hallway when the door swung open. I’d nearly jumped out of my skin, but Jason and Kylie were so warm and friendly that we’d ended up chatting in the hall for like thirty minutes.

Which was weird, because I usually didn’t know how to talk to strangers.

But they were just so real.

I was a little envious of how close they all seemed. I pretty much only talked to Alex a few times a year, and even then, it didn’t feel like we really knew each other as anything more than acquaintances.

Blake and his brothers, though, seemed to know every single thing about each other.

“They were?” He looked surprised. “I’m so sorry, Iz. Sometimes they swing by to use the building’s indoor pool, but usually they let me know first.”

“No, no,” I said, regretting saying anything because he looked so apologetic. “It was no big deal at all. Apparently you’ve been holding one of Jason’s trophies hostage, and he wanted to grab it while you were gone.”

“Fucking loser,” he said, shaking his head and smiling. “It’s nothis.It’s the traveling fantasy football trophy thatIwon last year, but he still can’t accept it.”

“According to him, there was a little controversy with the finish.”

“He’s a sore loser—that’s the only controversy.”

He started telling me about the trade dispute, but I could see he was tired. Whatever he was working on in Boston was confidential—he wasn’t able to share anything with me—and important, so I knew I should probably let him go so he could sleep.

“Listen, I’m going to go flood your bathroom by overfilling that decadent tub, so I have to go. Are you planning on text bombing me all day tomorrow, too, or was today just a onetime annoying event?”

Please say yes.We’d spent the entire day in a meaningless text thread of sarcasm and meme besting, and it had been amazing.

He sat up in the bed and leaned closer to the phone so his face filled the entire screen, and said, “If I stop now, you might get the wrong idea and think I’m being nice to you. And we can’t have that, can we?”

I tried to play it cool but failed miserably. I was beaming into the phone when I said, “God, no, that would be theworst.”

Chapter Eighteen

Blake

I’d never been so happy to see my building in my entire life. I held my key card up to the pad, rolled my suitcase through the lobby, and impatiently waited for the notoriously slow elevator.

The trip had gone well, and the merger was now official; everything had gone according to plan, work-wise.

What hadn’t gone according to plan, however, was Izzy.

I’d sent her that first text to tease her and to get my mind off the flight, but I hadn’t intended on opening a new corridor of our relationship. Though we’d had random textual conversations before my trip, the conversations had usually begun with a purpose. A legit reason for us to be texting.

Now, however, we were rando texting buddies.

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