Ugly Love: A Novel(12)

The blond, lanky guy immediately stands up and walks over to me. He extends his hand. “Tate?” he asks. “I’m Ian. I grew up with Miles. I’m a friend of your brother’s.” He points to the elevator guy, who is still seated on the couch. “This is Dillon.”

Dillon gives me a nod but doesn’t bother speaking. He doesn’t have to. His shit-eating grin says enough about what he’s thinking right now.

Miles walks back into the living room and points to the television. “This is kind of a thing we do some Thursdays if either of us is home. Game night.”

I don’t care if it’s their thing. I have homework.

“Corbin isn’t even home tonight. Can’t you do this at your apartment? I need to study.”

Miles hands Dillon a beer and then looks back at me. “I don’t have cable.” Of course you don’t. “And Dillon’s wife doesn’t let us use his place.” Of course she doesn’t.

I roll my eyes and walk to my bedroom, slamming the door unintentionally.

I change out of my scrubs and pull on a pair of jeans. I grab the shirt I slept in last night and just get it over my head when someone knocks on the door. I swing it open almost as dramatically as I slammed it earlier.

He’s so tall.

I didn’t realize how tall he was, but now that he’s standing in my doorway—filling it—he seems really tall. If he were to wrap his arms around me right now, my ear would press against his heart. Then his cheek would rest comfortably on top of my head.

If he were to kiss me, I’d have to tilt my face up to meet his, but it would be nice, because he would probably wrap his arms around my lower back and pull me to him so that our mouths would come together like two pieces of a puzzle. Only they wouldn’t fit very well, because they are most definitely not two pieces from the same puzzle.

Something strange is going on in my chest. A flutter, flutter kind of thing. I hate it, because I know what it means. It means my body is really starting to like Miles.

I just hope my brain never catches up.

“If you need quiet, you can go to my place,” he says.

I cringe at the way his offer works knots into my stomach. I shouldn’t be excited about the possibility of being inside his apartment, but I am.

“We’ll probably be here another two hours,” he adds.

There’s regret in his voice somewhere. It would more than likely take a search party to locate it, but it’s buried there somewhere, beneath all the sultriness.

I expel a quick, relinquishing breath. I’m being a bitch. This isn’t even my apartment. This is their thing that they obviously do on a regular basis, and who am I to think I can just move in and put a stop to it?

“I’m just tired,” I say to him. “It’s fine. I’m sorry if I was rude to your friends.”

“Friend,” he says as clarification. “Dillon is not my friend.”

I don’t ask him what he means by that. He glances into the living room, then looks back at me. He leans against the frame of the door, an indication that my relinquishing the apartment for their game wasn’t the end of our conversation. He swings his eyes to the scrubs strewn across my mattress. “You got a job?”

“Yeah,” I say, wondering why he’s suddenly up for conversation. “Registered nurse in an ER.”

A crease appears on his forehead, and I can’t tell if it’s a result of confusion or fascination. “Aren’t you still in nursing school? How can you already work as an RN?”

“I’m getting my master’s in nursing so I can work as a CRNA. I already have my RN license.”

His expression is obstinate, so I clarify.

“It allows me to administer anesthesia.”

He stares at me for a few seconds before standing up straight and pushing off the doorframe. “Good for you,” he says.

There’s no smile, though.

Why doesn’t he ever smile?

He walks back to the living room. I step out of the doorway and watch him. Miles takes his seat on the couch and gives the TV his full attention.

Dillon is giving me his full attention, but I look away and head to the kitchen to find something to eat. There isn’t much, considering I haven’t cooked all week, so I grab all the stuff I need from the refrigerator in order to make a sandwich. When I turn around, Dillon is still staring. Only now he’s staring from about a foot away, instead of all the way from the living room.

He smiles, then steps forward and reaches into the refrigerator, coming inches from my face. “So you’re Corbin’s little sis?”

I think I’m with Miles on this one. I don’t much like Dillon, either.

Dillon’s eyes aren’t anything like Miles’s eyes. When Miles looks at me, his eyes hide everything. Dillon’s eyes don’t hide anything, and right now, they’re clearly undressing me.

“Yes,” I say simply as I make my way around him. I walk to the pantry and open it to look for the bread. Once I find it, I set it on the bar and begin making my sandwich. I lay out bread for an extra sandwich to take to Cap. He’s kind of grown on me in the little time I’ve lived here. I found out he works up to fourteen hours a day sometimes but only because he lives in the building alone and doesn’t have anything better to do. He seems to appreciate my company and especially gifts in the form of food, so until I make more friends here, I guess I’ll be spending my downtime with an eighty-year-old.