She gives me a huge, excited grin. “I’m so damn happy for you, Miranda.”
When she opens the door and I see Jake standing there, I have to remind myself to breathe. I don’t want him to know how nervous I am.
“Hey,” he says. “You look great.”
“Thanks.” He walks in and I wait for him to look around our closet-size home and judge it.
He doesn’t, though, because he’s looking at me.
“Jake, this is my sister, Paige. Paige, Jake Birch.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jake says.
“You, too.”
Paige still has that goofy grin on her face. I grab my purse and coat and head for the door.
“Have fun,” she says.
“Happy studying,” I say to her as I close the door.
Jake’s wearing jeans, too, and a plain dark T-shirt beneath his black leather jacket. When I see his Doc Martens, it reminds me of taking them off the night I found out what a happy drunk he is.
I slide on my coat, which is actually Paige’s. It’s white and down-filled, and it’s a little too sporty, but it was this or my long, ugly old quilted coat.
“So how’s it going?” Jake asks as we start down the first of three flights of stairs to the main floor of my building.
“Good. My boss was gone today so that was nice.”
“The asshole who bitches about your vacuum lines?”
“Yeah. Tony.”
I pick up on a hint of his clean, manly scent. Every time I take the sheets off his bed I notice they smell faintly of his Irish Spring soap. Clearing my throat, I look over at him.
“What about you? How was your meeting this morning?”
“It was good. Met with my agent, Cal. Then I had practice. Exciting stuff.” He grins.
When we get to the bottom of the stairs, he takes my hand. It’s been a long time since a man held my hand. I’m immediately self-conscious about how dry my hands are. I wash them so often at work that no amount of lotion seems to help.
He leads me to a black Escalade parked down the block from my apartment. When he opens the door and I get in, I’m greeted by the smell of him mixed with the leather interior of the car.
Jake drives toward downtown and I ride with my hands clutched in my lap.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Fine.” It comes out in a croak and I clear my throat, my cheeks warming.
“You’re not nervous, are you?”
“No.” I wave my hand and scoff. “We’re picking out a floor color and eating some dinner. Nothing to be nervous about.”
When I look over I see the corners of Jake’s lips tugging up in a smile. “Well, I’m kinda nervous.”
I give him a skeptical look.
“I am,” he says. “You’re different, Miranda. I like that. You’re the one woman I know who will call me out if I’m an asshole.”
“Is it really that hard not to be one?”
He shrugs. “Sometimes. I’m not used to caring what people think of me.”
We’re waiting at a stoplight and I see the people in the car next to us looking at Jake. Do they recognize him? If they do, he’s oblivious.
“I think I’m nervous because it’s been so long since I’ve been out on a…” I catch myself and scramble for word.
“A date?” Jake finishes for me.
“I mean, I know this isn’t a real date.” My face is on fire with embarrassment.
“It’s real to me.” Jake turns to enter an underground parking deck. “But listen, don’t be nervous, okay? I really like that you’re not starstruck by me, so don’t let my Escalade and North Side apartment change that.”
“It’s not that.”
“Is it my sex appeal? Are you intimidated by it?” His dramatic smolder makes me snort-laugh.
He parks in a spot near an elevator, which we step onto. When he takes my hand again, I cringe. It has to feel like sandpaper.
Jake pulls a key from his pocket and inserts it into a slot on the elevator’s keypad panel. A round yellow light next to the slot turns on and the elevator starts moving up.
“You like Italian food?” he asks me.
“Yeah.” I keep myself from telling him that women who survive on ramen and cereal are very unpicky.
The elevator stops and we step into a small entryway. Jake lets go of my hand and digs a keychain out of his pocket. He unlocks the dark wood door and opens it, nodding for me to walk in first.
When I do, I’m in awe. His apartment is spectacular, even in its under-construction state. The whole place is empty, but enormous.
“Looks like they’re all done with the demo,” Jake says.
“They took out everything?”
“Yeah. There was a reclusive heiress who lived here alone for the past thirty years. Everything was outdated, but when I saw that view…” A grin spreads across his face as he looks out the floor to ceiling windows with an expansive view of the lake.
“It’s incredible,” I say. Before I can turn on my internal filter, I add, “God, my place must have seemed so awful to you.”
He turns to me, his brow furrowed. “What? No, Miranda. I didn’t think anything like that.”
“I’m not ashamed of it or anything, I’m just saying…we’re from opposite ends of the pay scale, Jake.”
He walks over to me, an intense look in his blue-gray eyes. “You know what I thought when I saw your place?”
My heart is pounding as he studies me. “What?”
“I looked at your bookcase full of books and your plants and the paintings on the walls and your gray couch and I thought, ‘Damn, this place looks like a home. I wish I could lay on that couch with her and watch a movie or something.’ ”
“Really?”
“Ask me over to watch a movie and find out.”
I can’t help but smile. “Jake, do you want to come over and watch a movie sometime?”
“You mean like a porno? You dirty girl.”
I shrug. “I do have a couple of those.”
“You’re my dream woman.”