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“I take it back!”
It was too late; he’d opened the door and was going inside. I wondered just how serious he was about giving me a kiss on the cheek. I was riding high from our awesome date, and was tempted to do a lot more than just kiss. But Andy just wrapped me in a wet hug, then took my coat off.
“Next time, I’ll show you my pinball strategy.”
“Oh, is that a second date secret?”
He smiled. “Gotta keep the girls wanting more. Goodnight, Nadia.”
And then he went upstairs by himself.
I pulled off my heels and deposited them by the other shoes in the foyer, which gave me a view of the kitchen. I leaned around the corner to confirm it. “Braden?”
The handsome brunette was sitting at the dining room table on the other side of the kitchen, typing away on a laptop. “Hey Nadia.”
“Waiting up, huh?”
He frowned awkwardly. “Um, no?”
“My dad used to look exactly like that whenever I went on a date. He’d find an excuse to stay awake, whether it was cleaning the fireplace or rearranging the DVD shelf, but I knew the real reason.”
“My reason does involve you,” he admitted, twisting the laptop around. “I’ve been working on our backstory.”
“Backstory?”
“For when you meet my parents. Candy was right—I should’ve given you more information and prep time.” He gestured at the laptop. “So I have.”
I bent over the laptop, conscious that it gave him a juicy view of my cleavage. I scrolled the screen with my finger. There was a list of dates we had been on, with several paragraphs of information for each one. The time, where we went, what we talked about, how it ended. There was a predictable pattern of escalation with each one. A gentle kiss on date one, a longer kiss on date two, heavy petting on date three…
“I put out on date number four, huh?” I read the next line. “I guess the pasta at Del Rosso was a panty-dropper.”
“I was respectful of your boundaries up to that point,” Braden said with a grin. “But eventually you gave in.”
“Gotta put up a little fight.” I kept scrolling. “Dude, this goes on for six pages!”
Braden scowled at me. “I wanted to be thorough.”
“You swung hard to the other end of the spectrum.” I had a sneaking suspicion that this was just an excuse for him to wait up for me and Andy to get home, but I wasn’t going to call him on it. Truth be told, I was glad to have some sort of backstory to read. It was easier than ad-libbing our relationship when we met his parents. All it would take was one inconsistent answer and the plan would fail, as it had with Candy.
I sighed and said, “Want a nightcap? I need to unwind after running through the rain.”
While I made two drinks, Braden disappeared upstairs. He returned with a towel for my hair. I thanked him, wrapped my hair in the towel, and joined him at the table.
“I’ll email you a copy of the backstory,” he said after a long drink. “So you can start studying.”
“When do I read lines?” I asked, pretending like it was an audition. “How many other girls are up for the part?”
“The director has his eye on you for the role,” Braden said with a playful wink. “It’s yours to lose.”
I felt a silly grin slide onto my face. “So did you use a cheesy line to get me to bed on date four?”
“Who says it was a bed?” he smirked.
I remembered the night in the subway room, my legs wrapped around Braden while he fucked me against a work desk. Filling me completely…
“Touché,” I said.
“But yeah, I’ve got some lines that usually do the trick.”
