Naked. Megan Hart

Pretty soon we’d all just implant chips in our heads and never leave our houses. Even so, tapping his long and unfamiliar number into my phone felt somehow intimate and strangely permanent.

      “Now you,” Alex said, and held up the phone’s camera. “Smile.”

      “Oh, you’re not—”

      Too late; he’d taken the shot, and held it up to show me how I had a place now in his list of contacts. I was smiling, my head half turned, and the light was better than I’d thought, the picture clear and crisp. I’d be in his phone forever, or until he deleted me.

      Alex unlocked his car with the keyless remote. He’d put on a black wool peacoat with an upturned collar and a long, striped scarf. With his tousled hair and long bangs he could’ve been a catalog model, and I mentally snapped a few shots of him looking into a sunset, maybe standing next to a golden retriever, advertising something sexy like cologne or designer sunglasses. Not that I ever got those sorts of jobs, but someday I might.

      He caught me looking and smiled as if he was used to being stared at. “Ready?”

      “Yep. Follow me.”

      He put a hand over his heart and gave a half bow. “Wherever you may go.”

      My mouth opened, flippant words ready to spill out, but somehow they got tangled up on my tongue and all I managed was a smile. It had been quite a while since any man had left me speechless with something as simple as a grin and a few words. No wonder Patrick had warned me off. Alex Kennedy was trouble, unfortunately of the best kind.

      And he didn’t like girls, I reminded myself. “I’ll be in the silver Impala.”

      I kept my eye on him in the rearview mirror the entire trip, but Alex had no trouble navigating the sparse traffic and keeping up with me. We pulled into the alley next to the three-story building that had once been the firehouse on Annville’s Main Street, and parked in the lot behind it. He got out before I did, and tipped his head back to look up at the building.

      “Sweet.”

      I felt a rush of pride as we both took a minute to look at the building’s brick backside. The iron fire escape wasn’t pretty, but even so, the building was impressive. And I owned it. The whole thing, just me.

      “So, this is Annville,” Alex said.

      A car crept slowly along the alley and kicked up a stray grocery bag I snagged to toss in the trash. While living in Harrisburg I wouldn’t have bothered, but since moving to the small town I’d taken more pride. “Yep. In all its glory.”

      Alex, hands in his pockets, turned around in a circle to give everything another once-over. “Nice.”

      I laughed as I turned the key in the back door’s lock. “It will be quite a change from your international globe-trotting.”

      “That’s okay. I grew up in a small town. Not as small as this,” he amended, stepping through after me and stomping his feet on the mat. “But believe me, I wasn’t raised a world traveler.”

      The long, narrow hall led to a three-story foyer with the wide, wooden spiraling staircase to our right and the door to the ground-floor apartment to the left. Directly ahead, a front door opened onto the sidewalk along Main Street, and tall windows let in a lot of light. Alex looked up, smiling, and let out a whistle.

      I looked over my shoulder at him as I opened the door to the flat. “Come inside.”

      It wasn’t anything special—a living room, dining area and kitchen, with a bathroom and two bedrooms that had been carved from what had once been the garage housing the fire trucks. It was darker than my place, not having the big second-and third-floor windows, but it did have immense, broad beams in the ceiling, and a nice, open layout.

      “What do you think?”

      Alex walked around, checking out the wooden floors, the plastered walls. He tested the spring-cushioned love seat left behind by the previous tenants, and peeked into the kitchen while I watched. He looked into one bedroom, then the other, and finally the bath. The whole tour took about seven minutes. He turned to me with a broad grin.

      “I’ll take it.”

      “Really? That fast, huh?”

      “Sure. It beats sleeping on someone’s couch,” he said. “I like it.”

      “You don’t even know the price,” I pointed out, though I hadn’t planned on charging much since the place did need some work and something was better than the nothing I’d had from it before.

      “Name it.”

      I thought. “Four hundred a month?”

      “Sold.”

      “Should I have asked for more?”

      Alex looked around. “Probably. That couch adds a lot of value. The smell, especially.”

      “It doesn’t smell!” I cried, horrified. “Does it smell?”

      He laughed. “I’m kidding you, Olivia. It’s fine. So…you want first and last month’s rent? A security deposit? Got paperwork to sign?”

      I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Umm…”

      Alex came forward, hand out. I thought he meant to shake, but when he took mine, he didn’t let go. He pumped my hand slowly, smiling. “Maybe we should just spit on our palms.”

      “Wow. No. How about we skip that part. First and last month’s rent is fine, if you have it.”

      “I have it.” Alex squeezed my hand and let go, then looked around again. “When can I move in?”

      “Whenever you want.”

      “Sweet.” He turned to me. “Next week? It’ll take some time for me to get some things shipped here. Buy a bed. That sort of thing.”

      “That’s fine. I’ll get you a copy of the keys.”

      Alex studied me. “You sure you don’t need references or anything like that?”

      “Why? Because you’re trouble?”

      Alex laughed. “Right. That’s me.”

      “I can handle you,” I said.

      “I’m sure you can.” Alex’s stomach rumbled suddenly and loudly. After the pancake orgy earlier I’d have thought I wouldn’t eat until the next day, but of course my own stomach had to answer his. “Let me take you to dinner.”

      “It’s only three o’clock.”

      “Late lunch, then.” He grinned. “Where do you want to go?”

      “Alex…I really need to get some work done.”

      “Olivia,” he wheedled, a man totally used to getting his own way. “I heard your stomach rumbling. You can’t deny you’re hungry.”

      I’d known him for less than forty-eight hours and already I’d seen how he looked when he came, tasted his cooking, had my ass handed to me playing Dance Dance Revolution, and now I was going to practically be living with him.

      I let Alex take me to dinner, too.

      It was hard to eat while laughing, and he wasn’t giving me much chance to do anything else. Alex had stories, and if I could tell that many of them were exaggerated for effect, it was also easy to believe them. He’d been all over, done so much, that I felt like a real country mouse beside him.

      “What is your story, really?” I said over slices of cheesecake and mugs of espresso. “How’d you make it here from Japan?”

      “I came from Holland, actually. Before that I was in Singapore. Went to Scotland, too.”

      I made a face. “Smart-ass. You didn’t come to Central PA just to visit Patrick?”

      “Well…”