Page 97 of Just Friends

She shakes her head as I press my lips there, goose bumps erupting on her skin. “No, I don’t,” she breathes. “I love you, Alex.”

I’mgoingonablind date today.

Warm hands come around either side of my face, and a blindfold covers my eyes. Alex’s breath dances across the back of my neck as he says into my ear, “No peeking.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” I respond, even though I’m trying to peer through the crack in the bottom.

A laugh rumbles out of him, and he spins me around, bending down to look up at me from under the blindfold. “I’m serious, Lane.”

“Fine, fine,” I grumble, a heavy sigh slipping from between my lips.

“This is supposed to be fun.” His hand folds through mine, leading me forward. Months and months later, and I still haven’t gotten over the feeling of his hand in mine. How his fingers thread through my own, and his thumb never stops making lazy passes over my skin. When I squeeze his hand, he squeezes back, a wordless message.

Alex pauses to open the front door of his apartment and leads me through it. I hear it snick shut behind us, and then he’s leading me down the carpeted hallway, my high-top Chuck Taylor’s padding softly.

“So was that camping trip in the fall, and we both know how that went,” I say as Alex turns me around a corner, stopping to press the elevator button.

I can hear the smile in his voice when he says, “So I’m not the best planner. You knew that already.”

The elevator button dings, and he pulls me inside, his hand leaving mine to circle around my waist, fingers indenting into my hips.

“I still don’t understand how you forgotfood, Alex.”

Instead of answering, he presses me against the wall, his lips finding mine. I don’t need to see him now to know where to touch him. His body is familiar. I know he likes it when my nails scrape against the base of his scalp. I know he gets frantic when I kiss his throat. I know that he will never stop a kiss first, and that if we ever want to get anything done, I have to be the one to pull back.

“Where are we going?” I ask against his lips.

He lets out a long-suffering sigh. I’ve asked him no less than ten times since he told me about this cryptic date idea two weeks ago. Blind date, just for old times’ sake, and ice cream after. That’s all he gave me. And honestly, I’m fine with whatever we do, but he’s been so flustered with my questions that I’ve kept going just to elicit the reaction from him.

The elevator dings again as we reach the ground floor, and I hear the doors slide open, letting in the quiet sounds of the lobby. Alex’s fingers tighten on my hip once, then slide into my hand again, tugging me gently forward.

As soon as we’re out in the lobby, he announces loudly to his doorman, “She’s not in distress.” A laugh snorts out of me, and I have to stifle it behind my free hand. “It’s a blind date, sir,” Alex says, even louder this time.

The doorman, who could not care less about our antics, grunts in our direction, and I have to press my lips together to hold back my giggles.

“No laughing,” Alex whispers in my ear. “He might think it’s a nervous tic and that I actuallyamtrying to kidnap you.”

“I really wish I could see his face,” I murmur back.

“He’s not even looking,” Alex says, leading me through the side door into the parking garage. “I think I should report him. I could totally be a kidnapper, and he doesn’t even care.”

“You’re wearing a knit polo,” I say.

Alex keeps walking us toward his parking spot, our footsteps echoing in the cavernous space. “I don’t see how the two are related.”

“Men in knit polos do not kidnap women. They commit tax fraud.”

We stop at Alex’s car, and it beeps as he unlocks it. “Where’d you get that information?” he asks, and I can’t see, but I know from how close his voice sounds that he’s got one hand propped next to my head, his face hovering inches from mine.

“Oprah, I think.”

His ability to hold back his laughter slips, and he presses a kiss to my nose. “Okay, I’ll make sure to let the cops know that if I’m ever accused of kidnapping.”

“I would like to know what kind of situation you’d be in that would make you a suspect.

“Maybe I stumbled upon a dog fighting ring and there were children present, so I got them out of there,” he says, swinging the passenger door open and helping me inside.

“Sounds plausible.”

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