Accidentally Amy(27)

Is it hot in here? It felt hot to her all of a sudden.
“Nice shirt,” he said, smirking as his dark eyes crinkled at the corners. “Where’s The Darkling?”
She raised her phone so he could see the cat sitting on the back of her neck. That made his lips slide into a full-on grin. She said, “So tell me which one is which.”
"This little pain in the ass is Hole," he said, gently lifting the gray cat's chin to the phone. "He's a hairball nightmare and likes to sit on my ear when I'm sleeping, so I really should've dumped him back in the hole a long time ago."
She only half-heard his words because she was obsessed with his face. The way big, powerful Blake looked at his feline friend as he talked shit on him made her a little weak in the knees.
"And this is Goodyear." Blake raised the fluffy black face to the phone and said, "I'm fairly certain the universe dropped him under my tire as some sort of punishment for my sins."
"Or as a reward for the one good thing you've done in your life," she said.
"Not possible. And there's more than one," he said.
"That sounds made up.”
“So,” he said, re-settling the cats against his midsection. "Are you watching Little House?"
“You know it,” she said, a little surprised he remembered.
“Is that your plan for the rest of the night?” he asked. “Charles Ingalls and pizza?”
“Oh, I’m sure I’ll switch to binge-watching old seasons of Top Chef soon, but Charles is always with me in my heart.”
The cats jumped off his lap and ran out of her line of sight. He shook his head and said, “Bird just landed on the railing of my deck. Somehow Goodyear always knows something’s happening and blindly follows Hole, literally.”
“Show me your deck,” she said, then laughed when he gave her an eyebrow raise.
She re-enunciated, “D-e-c-k deck.”
“Ah,” he said, and then he stood up and was moving. He was walking as he looked into the camera and said, “I’ll show you my big deck, and then we’re going to make a plan for your car.”
“Bossy much?” she said, a little hypnotized by his Facetime eye contact and his deep voice saying my big deck.
“Only to the stubborn,” he replied.
She heard him open the sliding door, and then he turned the camera around.
“Wow,” she said, a little in awe of the high-rise, downtown view. He obviously lived at the edge of downtown, way outside of her price range. “I bet you could kill someone with an apple from that height.”
He turned his phone back around and gave her a you are ridiculous look. “Now about your car.”
“Okay – my car. I will take the title to the lot after work tomorrow and get it out of jail.”
“I can give you a ride, if you want, and then I can have it towed to my garage.”
Izzy still felt weird about that. All of it. “Um, okay, as long as you promise your cats will be awful for me while you’re gone.”
“Oh, absolutely they will. They are the bane of my existence,” he said, sounding like he loathed them while they sleepily purred against his body.


    Blake
“What the hell is that thing behind you?” Blake asked, knowing full well what it was.Izzy looked behind her at the workout tower she never used. “That? It’s a workout thing.”
“A thing, huh?” It was almost midnight, and they’d been Facetiming for hours. It hadn’t been intentional, but they’d started watching the same episode of Top Chef somewhere around nine and had essentially been binge-watching together ever since.
Sidenote: Izzy was pathetically Team Sam, even though Blake had told her all the reasons the guy wouldn’t win, whereas Blake was intelligently cheering for Ilan, the obvious frontrunner.
He said, “I bet you don’t even know how to use it.”
She scowled at him. “Yes, I do.”
“You have scrawny arms – can’t believe you. Sorry.”
She rolled her eyes at him through the camera, then stood. Like he knew she would. “Watch and learn, Mr. Chest.”
Things went blurry for a minute and then he was staring at the workout tower, so she must’ve propped her phone against something. He watched her come into view in that stupid t-shirt and black leggings, and he leaned back against the couch and grinned.
“Now, don’t be jealous of my strength, Blakeley,” she said, dancing around like a boxer getting ready for a fight. “This isn’t something everyone can do.”
“Right.”
It was weird, he thought as she acted like a dork in front of the camera with her messy hair and nerd glasses. His former fiancée was charming in a perfect sort of way (when she wasn’t lying to him). Skye was gorgeous and elegant. He’d been crazy about her, ready to marry her, but he’d never felt this…charmed by her.
It was probably just because he actually had fun with Izzy. He was friends with her, whereas he hadn’t really been with Skye.
Izzy wrapped her hands around the handles and brought up her legs in front of her. Said, “You lift your legs, Phillips, and it strengthens the core. See?”
She brought her legs up and down.
“That is how you’re using that thing?” Blake shook his head as she beamed proudly while dangling from the exercise apparatus. “What about the other side?”
“What?” She dropped her feet to the floor and let go of the handles.
“You’re supposed to grab the top of the other side and do pullups.”