“I’ve always thought the best way to get through a door was to break it down,” Dax said as the elevator doors silently slid open in the center of his living room. I gasped as I stepped out and saw that the entire east wall of the place was made up of floor to ceiling windows that looked out over Lake Michigan.
“Oh my God, what a view!” I whispered as I walked forward into the room. “This is incredible.”
“I’m pretty fond of it,” he said, following my gaze and nodding in agreement.
Having grown up with wealth, there wasn’t much that surprised me in the way of living quarters, but Dax’s home was something altogether different. The room stretched from one end of the building to the other without a break. Done in shades of chocolate, tan, and olive green, the furniture had a kind of casual, cozy feel to it rather than the usual modern sterility. Normally these types of formal rooms were done in white or taupe and served as the place where all the entertaining was done, but Dax’s living room actually looked lived in. There was a freestanding bookcase behind the large, leather couch and when I went over to examine the titles on the shelf, I saw that a good number of the books had colored tabs sticking up out of their pages.
“You like to read?” I asked as I ran my fingers over titles that I recognized.
“Surprised?” he asked as he stood off to one side watching me explore his home.
“No, not really,” I smiled as I turned my head sideways to read a title I didn’t recognize. “The sticky notes are kind of a cute touch, though.”
“They’re color coded so I know how many times I’ve read the book,” he said as he moved toward a second bookcase, pulled open a door, and revealed a hidden bar inside. “Whiskey?”
“That sounds lovely,” I said as I slowly walked around the room admiring the rugged art that was positioned at points throughout the room. I stopped at a table that looked like it had been carved out of a log and asked, “Did you make this yourself?”
“I wish,” he laughed as he walked over holding out a glass containing an amber liquid. “No, my Pop made that table after he retired. Gram said it was the ugliest thing she’d ever seen, so he made her one, too. She ended up putting it in the living room because he teased her about how she’d urged him to take up a hobby once he’d retired.”
“I’ll bet they’re quite a pair,” I laughed as Dax motioned toward the couch.
“They were,” he said, looking down at his glass before looking back up at me. There was sadness in his eyes that I recognized.
“I’m sorry,” I said, settling down on the couch with one leg tucked under me so I could face him. He’d taken off his jacket when we’d come in and I couldn’t help staring at his broad shoulders and muscled chest under the tight t-shirt he was wearing. “Are they both gone?”
“No, Gram’s still alive,” he said casually resting his arm on the back of the couch and making me want to scoot closer. I resisted.
“Does she live in the city?” I asked as I sipped the smooth, rich whiskey and silently reminded myself to take it slow.
“Yeah, she’s still living in the house they bought right after they got married,” he said smiling over the rim of his glass. “I grew up there, so it’s full of good memories. I tried to bring some here when I moved in.”
“It looks like you succeeded,” I said, scanning the room and noticing that there weren’t a lot of photos of people in it. “It doesn’t look so professionally done.”
“Gosh, thanks, I think,” he said.
“No, I mean that as a compliment!” I said, reaching out to touch his hand as I spoke. “Most people who have the kind of money you do can’t be bothered to decorate, so they hire someone to make it look like home or whatever they’re after. It’s never very convincing because it always looks like a showroom rather than someplace that people actually live. Your place looks like you live here.”
“I see,” he said as he glanced at my hand and then ignored it by taking another drink before continuing. “Gram always said that a home is someplace you store the things that matter most. So, when I got this place, I brought her here to help me figure out what belonged and what didn’t. She picked out this couch because she said I needed something that looked masculine, but felt feminine.”
I nodded, but didn’t withdraw my hand. The conversation continued as we both pointedly ignored the fact that we were touching.
“It’s a nice couch,” I said moving my hand a fraction of an inch down his arm. I wanted to stroke his hand; to touch his long, strong fingers and see if that might clue him in to how I was feeling. I could feel my pulse racing as the anticipation built. I wanted to kiss Dax Connor, but this time I wanted him to initiate it.
“If you like this, you should see the rest of the place,” he said, pulling away so he could stand up. “C’mon, I’ll show you.”
I stood on shaky legs and pretended to admire the view as I steadied myself. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Why wasn’t he making a move? I’d given him all the right signs, hadn’t I?
“On this end is the kitchen and dining room,” he said, leading me toward the opposite end of the penthouse. “I don’t like all the fussiness of a formal dining room, so I had the living room extended and simply bought a big table for the eat-in kitchen.”
The kitchen was a mix of modern and contemporary with deep-grey marble countertops and lighter-grey tiles on the floor. The appliances were a mix of silver and red, giving the otherwise dark room a cheerful pop of color. The dining table was made of what looked like reclaimed wood with chairs on either end and benches on either side. It looked like the perfect place to host a party for friends and play board games or cards.
“Do you throw a lot of parties here?” I asked as I walked around the table, running my hand over the wood and marveling at the solid construction.
“Huh? Oh, no, not really,” he said, ducking his head and excitedly leading me back toward the living room. “Come see this!”
There was something almost innocent about the way he showed off his home. It was as if he hadn’t done it very often, but that made no sense to me. A man of his stature and wealth had to have a wide range of people who moved in and out of his life. I could imagine the big names in sports spending time hanging out in the living room or gathering around the table to smoke cigars and play poker like my father had done.
“This is the office,” he said, sliding open a door that I would have never even known was there had he not opened it. We stepped into a room that looked like it had been pulled from a Hepburn-Tracey film. The entire room was lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves. At one edge of the room was an old-fashioned librarian’s ladder attached to an iron bar that ran around the center of the room, allowing the ladder to be moved wherever it was needed to access the books on the higher shelves. I breathed deeply as I looked up and turned around, taking in the sheer number of volumes.