Accidentally Amy(30)

“Well,” she said, “Dibs on the creeper.”
Blake pulled into a parking garage in the center of the city, leaving Izzy to assume he lived in the high-rise above it. She got out of the car without a word, trying to act like she wasn’t crazy-impressed by his address.
She followed him to the elevator enclosure, and when he pushed the up button, Izzy asked, “Can your cats have tuna?”
He looked over at her. “Why?”
“Just curious,” she said, pulling the pouch of Starkist out of her hoodie pocket. “Can they?”
“Yes, they can have pocket tuna,” he said, “But they already have food.”
“This will buy their insta-love for me, though,” she said.
“I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open.
“Why?” Izzy asked, watching as he stepped in after her and pushed the button for the twelfth floor. “They don’t like tuna?”
“They don’t like people,” he said.
“Oh, well, I’m not people,” she replied, watching the doors close. Floor numbers advanced on the display as the elevator went up. “And all cats love me.”
“We’ll see,” he said, pulling his phone out of his pant pocket and unlocking the screen.
“Yes, we will,” Izzy muttered.
That made Blake look up from his phone. His eyes were a little squinty, like he was thinking as his eyes moved over her face, and he asked, “Pepperoni or combo?”
“Pepperoni,” she said, looking down because sometimes his eye contact was a little too direct.
When the elevator reached the twelfth floor and the doors slid open, Izzy followed Blake down a long hallway with ivy-patterned grey carpet. Modern sconces on midnight walls illuminated their way like fairy lights on a dusky garden path. He stopped in front of 1213 and pulled his keys from his pocket.
“I like your door,” she said, then wanted to smack her hand over her mouth for sounding like a child. I like your door - who said that? But it was ridged with heavy wood panels and a huge brass knocker, like it was the entrance to a grand estate instead of an apartment door.
“Thanks,” he said, unlocking the door and holding it open for her. “Is it weird to say that the minute I saw it, I knew I was going to lease this unit?”
“Not at all,” she said, breezing past him and into his apartment. “That’s cute.”
“For fuck’s sake, it’s not cute,” he muttered, and she felt the tiniest of shivers crawl up her back as he hovered somewhere behind her. She heard the door close and tried to tell herself that it was no big deal, being alone with him in his apartment.
“Fine,” Izzy said around a smile, stepping over so he could lead her further into his apartment. “It’s totally lame.”
He stopped beside her. Gave her a questioning eyebrow and asked, “Did you just call me lame?”
“Did I stutter?”
He looked like he was going to smile, but instead he put his keys on the table just inside the door and said, “Hey. Goodyear.”
Izzy turned and stared, looking for the cat. Blake walked farther into the apartment, and she followed at his heels, reaching into her hoodie pocket to open the tuna pouch.
“I’m home, buddy,” Blake said, and Izzy shook her head from her spot behind him. The man was seriously a fearsome thing to behold as his deep voice called to the cat in sweet softness.
Silver bullets, maybe? Perhaps silver bullets were her only chance for survival.
A cat meowed and came around the corner, a sweet little fluffer who headed straight for Blake as he lowered his big body to a deep squat and said, “Hey, buddy.”
Blake scooped up the cat and stood, turning to look at Izzy. She smiled as he rubbed the cat’s head, and she stepped a little closer.
“Hey, Goodyear,” she said, reaching out a hand to pet him.
He hissed and made a little cat-growl noise, instantly backing her up.
“Told you,” Blake said, sounding pleased as he kept rubbing Goodyear’s head.
“It’s only because we just met,” Izzy said, rolling her eyes and pulling the tuna out of her hoodie. “He’ll love me soon enough.”
“No, he won’t,” Blake said matter-of-factly.
“Are you going to show me around your apartment or what?” she asked, waving the pouch of seafood around in hopes of a feline response.
“Oh, don’t be snarky,” he said, treating her to a full-strength smile. “If he could see your face, I’m sure he’d love you.”
“He’ll love me anyway.” The cat seemed entirely unmoved by her fishy stench. “Where’s the kitchen?”
“Follow me.” Blake set down his cat, then led her through a living room that had huge windows, a gorgeous buff-colored turn-of-the-century sofa, a wall of bookshelves and a thick off-white area rug that looked like nap perfection.
“That view does not suck,” she muttered to herself, looking out at the city as she followed at his heels.
When they walked into the kitchen, Izzy had two thoughts.
The first: Blake was an entirely different kind of adult than she was. His kitchen was large, modern, and didn’t have any random items sitting out. No empty pizza boxes, no cans lined up beside the sink, waiting to be recycled, and not a single dish was resting in the sink.
It occurred to her that she should be mortified by the fact that he’d visited her small, not pristine apartment a few days ago.
She should be, but for some reason, she wasn’t.
The second: he had to have a cleaning service, right? There was just no way a young, busy guy had time to make his place shine quite that brightly.