Page 61 of Tony

Soshee talks to me the entire time I’m in the shower and even though I’m not a talkative guy—like at all—and even though I can’t really understand a word she says over the sound of the water, I kinda like her constant chatter.

It’s something new for me. I’ve lived alone in my cottage on the same street I grew up on since I was twenty-five. I have never lived with a girl. Other than my sister, of course. And she left home at eighteen for college and never moved back, so she hardly counts.

I rarely let girls sleep at my place. In fact, I rarely bring them back to my place at all. I do hookups. And I don’t really care where those hookups happen. So there is almost never a discussion between the girls I ‘date’—if you can call it that—about coming back to my place.

So I smile the entire time I’m washing up, picturing Soshee out there in the rental apartment, helping herself to—well, whatever the fuck she wants. It’s not like anything in this place is mine. I have one suitcase and that’s it. So what do I care if she wanders around while I’m not looking?

I linger in the shower, enjoying the hot water pouring down my back. I didn’t get much sleep last night—maybe two hours? But that’s nothing new. I haven’t slept more than two hours a night in months. Not since Rosalinda came back into my life and tipped me sideways on my axis. Whatever the actual number is, it wasn’t enough and I should be exhausted. I should feel heavy from all the weird shit that happened yesterday.

But I don’t. I feel refreshed and ready to spend a whole day with this red-headed siren. A whole day that has nothing do with stalking our exes.

I shut the water off, reach for a towel, and wrap it around my waist as I step out of the shower and head towards the bedroom where Soshee is still chattering away, her back to me as she riffles through my suitcase.

I chuckle. I can’t help it. The one thing that’s mine here, and she’s got her little hands all over it.

“What are you doing?”

She whirls around, surprised, holding up a t-shirt that says ‘Dumas Romantic Boat Tours.’ “Stalking you.” Then her eyes travel down my bare chest to the edge of the towel that dips just below the cut muscles of my hips. They pause there, then travel back up and meet mine.

I wait for the blush that never materializes.

This girl is confident.

Instead she smirks at me. “Damn, Tony. What did you say you did again? Because”—she points a polished red fingertip up and down my body—“that is quite the physique you have. And this shirt here is a tantalizing clue to a most delicious mystery that needs solving immediately.”

Her eyes dance with delight as she says all that. And her little tennis skirt swishes as she cocks a hip.

I’m the one who blushes. Maybe. No, I take it back. I don’t blush. But… yeah. Soshee Ameci is fucking sexy. Vann Vaughn is a dick. A blind one, at that. “I own a romantic sailing charter service down in Key West.”

“I’m sorry. A what?” She appears thoroughly confused.

“You know, like… fucking sunsets on the water and shit.”

She giggles. But it only takes another second for that giggle to turn into a guffaw. “Hold on,” she says, placing a hand over her heart and catching her breath. “Let me get this straight. You, Tony Dumas, own what? A… sailboat? And you charter couples around the tropics looking for romantic sunset moments?”

I shrug. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

“How the hell does that happen?”

“My parents, I guess?”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “Nope. That’s not enough. Explain this properly because I don’t think I’ll be able to concentrate on our date if I don’t get this story.” She walks over to me, takes me by the hand, leads me to the bed, sits down, and pats the space next to her. “Sit. And spill.”

I sit. Mostly because I just want to sit next to her and not because I enjoy talking about myself. But being close to Soshee like this… it makes my brain spin a little more than usual.

“I’m waiting!” Soshee says. “Start talking.”

“OK. Fine.” I sigh and lie back on the bed so I can stare up at the ceiling and give myself a moment to try to put my very complicated life into something that resembles a neat little box.

Because I like this Poison Ivy girl. A lot. She’s smart. And interesting. And very sexy, of course. Plus, she’s a little bit sneaky. I like that about her. I could totally picture her as my new partner in crime. I think we’d make a very good team.

Which is ridiculous. I’ve known her one day.

Vann Vaughn is a dumbass. He has no idea what he’s missing. Soshee Ameci is fucking amazing. So I turn my head a little and look at her with a crooked grin. She’s positioned herself sideways, one leg bent at the knee, her knee touching my thigh.

I can feel that touch through the towel and it kinda… turns me on.

“Have you ever heard of Bright Berry Beach Cosmetics?”