Before Jamaica Lane (On Dublin Street, #3)(11)

Nodding at his phone on the coffee table, Nate answered, ‘Voice recording.’

He was recording our conversation? ‘I better shake out my sharpest wit, then.’

‘Just the usual commentary will do fine.’

Ignoring the slight insinuation that I wasn’t witty, I took another bite of chicken and moaned around it. ‘God, this is good.’

‘Yeah?’

‘So good.’

‘You like that, baby?’

‘Oh, yeah.’

‘How good is it?’

‘I think this is the best I’ve ever had, actually.’

‘That good?’

‘My God, yes.’ The chicken was so tender and the orange sauce was just that perfect balance of sweet and tangy. ‘Mmm.’

‘That’s right. Take it, baby.’

I’d closed my eyes to savor my dinner, but now they popped open to find Nate shaking with silent laughter. My eyes darted to his phone and I mentally replayed what we’d just said and how it would sound on the recording.

Grimacing, I held my plate in one hand and launched a sofa cushion at him. ‘Very funny.’

Nate laughed out loud now, batting the cushion away while holding his plate well out of range. ‘You make it too easy.’

‘You’re a bastard.’ I shoved his hip with my foot. ‘You better delete it.’

He looked back at the screen, still smiling. ‘No way. That one’s a keeper.’

It turned out Nate was right. The pretty-boy actor really did make you want to stick a pen in your eye. ‘That sucked,’ I opined as he took the DVD out of the player. ‘But I guess not every movie can be The Wizard of Oz.’ My favorite movie. ‘Or The Godfather.’ Nate’s favorite movie.

His lip curled up at the corners. ‘Is that your expert opinion? Remember, you’re on tape.’

‘That is my expert opinion.’ I yawned and tipped my head back against the couch. ‘I came up with some choice phrases throughout that movie. You hereby have my permission to steal them.’

‘Well, when discussing the acting skills of the kid playing the hero’s dying brother I think I’ll definitely be using, “Dying is supposed to be sad. I feel as sad as a high school virgin in a Japanese love hotel with a prostitute and a wad of cash.” ’

Nate had almost choked on a prawn cracker when I said that. I wrinkled my nose as he quoted me. ‘I really need to work on my editing. “Virgin with a prostitute” would have sufficed.’

‘And yet not been nearly so funny. Your waffling is what makes you funny.’

‘I do not waffle.’

‘You waffle, babe.’

Deciding to let it go, I smiled wearily at him. ‘Are you really going to write that in your review?’

‘What? That you waffle?’

I rewarded his deliberate obtuseness with a blank expression and he shook his head, his gorgeous soft, dark locks shifting with the movement. His hair was longer than usual, but it looked good. Really good. Great, even. ‘A lot of teens read the magazine.’

As he pulled his jacket on, I eased myself up off the couch and handed his cell to him. ‘Did you get everything you need for it?’

‘Enough to annihilate it with words.’ He leaned over and pressed a kiss to my cheek, the warm, spicy scent of his cologne comforting. ‘ ’Night, Liv.’

I smiled and stepped back to let him pass, then followed him to the door. ‘Thanks for dinner and my Rocky Road.’

Nate grinned back at me. ‘Thanks for the quotes.’

The door was almost closing behind him when I suddenly grabbed the handle. ‘Nate.’

Turning on the second step of my stairwell, he raised two questioning eyebrows at me.

Looking at his hair, I shrugged and leaned against the door. ‘Don’t cut your hair, okay?’

His smile was slow, cheeky, and incredibly cute, and I totally pretended not to feel it in my long-neglected woman parts. ‘Like what you see, do you?’

Laughing, I leaned back, readying to close the door. ‘Just helping a bud out. I know you like to look your best for the ladies.’

I’d almost closed the door when he said, ‘Liv.’

I peeked back out at him.

His eyes were bright with mischief. ‘Don’t stop leaving your red, wet underwear around the flat when you have a man around. We like that. Just helping a bud out, you know.’

What?

My eyes bugged out in horror as I turned to look around my apartment. Red caught my eye and mortification sank in. My lacy bra and panties were draped over the radiator, drying.

How did I not notice this?

‘Kill me, kill me now,’ I moaned, my cheeks blazing with embarrassment as I winced at the sound of Nate’s laughter echoing down the stairwell.

After I’d locked my front door I started to clean up, sporadically shooting lethal glares at the drying underwear, as if somehow it was the underwear’s fault I was stewing over the fact that Nate now knew I had a taste for sexy lingerie.

Finally I rolled my eyes and told myself to buy a sense of humor.

As I undressed in my room, pulling my gray jersey pajamas out of the dresser, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I was wearing my favorite emerald green satin lingerie set today. In the bottom of my dresser and in a wicker box in my closet, there was plenty more where it came from. I liked nice underwear, but I didn’t like looking at myself in it. I just liked the feel of it.