“Are you allergic?”
God!
“Oh for goodness sakes,” I snapped.
I then threw up my hands and gave in.
“When I rented this place, I went to the shelter and suffered temporary insanity, selected three cats and a dog for adoption and put in my application. Before I could pick them up, I told my mother I’d made these selections, and she lost her mind. Regardless, the shelter considered my living arrangements, and they would only allow me a single pet. They encouraged, due to my lack of outdoor space, a cat. I picked the worst off of my choices, Oscar, my darling, who had recently battled an untreated-for-too-long severe respiratory infection which caused his little kitty lungs some damage, making him prone to another one. We were careful, but alas, he contracted one. We fought it, his struggle was valiant, but he didn’t make it for very long.”
I took a deep breath so I could get through the last part, which was the hard part.
Then to be done with this, I gave it to him.
“I had him six months, which I hope were glorious for him. I’m still in mourning. Yes, I only had him six months, but he was a great cat. Truth is, I’m not ready. However, when I am, according to Mom, I’ll either need to buy a farm or something akin to that, or I’m not allowed to go back to a shelter again on my own. There you go. Now, can we move on from this?”
“Totally knew you needed an overflow,” he said quietly with an expression on his face as he gazed at me that I never wanted to see again.
Yes, it was that beautiful.
And therefore, that dangerous.
Ugh.
“Do you want a whisky sour, Judge?” I bit off.
“There’s a lot of things I want right now,” he replied.
Oh God.
I felt that in a variety of parts of me, and not all of them were physical.
I planted my hands on my hips and waited for him to get over it.
“But I’ll take some water and we’ll wait to make the sours when your friends get here,” he allowed.
“Fine,” I snapped, turned on my bare foot, and marched into the kitchen.
Judge followed me.
I opened my fridge door and asked, “Topo Chico with lime, Perrier or still spring?”
When he didn’t answer, I looked over my shoulder at him standing at the butcher-block top, steel-based kitchen island I’d purchased to offer additional counterspace, a seating area and a delineation between cooking and living areas and saw him smirking at me.
“What now?” I asked.
“You sure you don’t have five other varieties to offer me?”
Right.
That did it.
I closed the fridge door and turned to face him.
“Ground rules,” I declared.
“This should be good,” he muttered.
“That,” I snapped, jabbing my finger at him. “That right there. None of that.”
His brows went up. “None of what?”
“No teasing.”
“Well, shit,” he said through a grin.
A flirtatious grin.
Therefore, I added, “No flirting either.”
“Hmm,” he hummed but spoke no words.
“Also, no being super nice and thoughtful,” I went on, determined, especially with this, to be thorough.
He leaned into a hand on my island and crossed his ankles like he had all night to talk about this and he was settling in.
Not to mention, looking forward to it.
“Okay, so what level of nice are we talking?” he inquired. “Like, low to medium nice or medium to high nice? Or should I just try to be a dick, so when I leave, your friends won’t get in your shit about the fact you should date me seeing as we got great chemistry and I’m pretty sure we look perfect together.”
I completely ignored that he was already breaking rule one, and possibly rule two, and I couldn’t even begin to let his final words penetrate.
So I didn’t.
“Solid medium nice is acceptable,” I allowed, like I was taking him seriously. “Though, a few dickish remarks will be expected.”
“We’ve already established I can’t be a dick on command. I can only do it when I’m flirting with you. And you told me that’s out, unless I can dickishly flirt with you?” He ended that on a suggestion.
But not a real one.
“Judge, I’m being serious,” I warned him in a tone that was, I thought, quite serious.
“No, you’re being hilarious, and cute, which, don’t freak out. I’m sure no guy ever called you that because they’ve probably been too damned terrified of you. Oh…and you’re also making me want to kiss you again.”
“Judge—”
“Though I hadn’t really stopped.”
“Judge!”
“And you should know, the urge was nearly overwhelming when you told the Oscar story.”
“Oh my God,” I cried. “Every time I think you couldn’t be more exasperating, you get more exasperating.”
His face got serious.
“Sorry you lost him, baby,” he said softly.
We could not possibly talk more about Oscar or I’d lose it.
“Stop it,” I bit out. “That is well above medium nice.”