“What?” He turned in his seat to look at me. “You said third house on the left. This isn’t your house?”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean . . .” I huffed. “I don’t live in there.” I pointed to the side of the garage, to the stairs that led to the door of my apartment. “I live up there. You knew that. From my emails.” Hadn’t I explained my whole apartment-over-the-garage situation to him?

“Up those rickety stairs? No. You’re not going up those stairs in the rain.”

I clucked my tongue and unfastened my seatbelt. “Oh, yes, I am. I do it all the time.”

“Not in those little shoes, you don’t. You’re going to slip.”

“I’m not going to slip.” He was right, but there was no way I’d admit it. The wood plank stairs were soaking wet by now, and these sandals had no tread on the bottoms. I could absolutely break my neck trying to prove him wrong.

“Come on.” He unclicked his own seatbelt and turned off the truck. The windshield wipers slammed to a halt and the truck cab filled up with silence from the sudden lack of engine noise. “I’ll help you up the stairs.”

I scoffed. “What are you going to do, fireman-carry me up there? You’ll get a hernia and we’ll both fall.”

He sighed a long-suffering sigh. We really hadn’t been together long enough for him to be this annoyed with me. “No, but I can walk behind you and make sure you don’t slip.”

I sighed in response and peered up toward my door. So close and yet so far. I’d hoped that while we were bickering the rain would stop, but no such luck. Water covered the windshield now, blurring the streetlights. Lightning lit up the sky, closely followed by a crack of thunder.

“Storm’s getting worse.” Daniel didn’t sound accusatory; he was just making an observation. But I frowned anyway.

“Okay.” I took a fortifying breath. “Let’s do this.” Another deep breath, and I threw open the door to his truck and darted out into the storm. I shrieked as the cold water pelted down on me, and as I ran to the stairs I heard Daniel’s startled shout as he followed me, getting just as wet as I was. And sure enough, on the third step up my foot slipped out from under me on the wet wood. A squeak erupted from my mouth as I started to fall, but Daniel was there. He caught me with his hands on my hips, steadying me until I had a good grasp on the handrail, and then we both pounded up the stairs. I dug for my keys and the rain fell harder just to spite me.

“Fine, you were right!” I shouted to be heard above the storm as I fished my keys out of my pocket. “I would have fallen on the stairs!”

“I can gloat later!” he yelled back. “Open the door!”

I turned the key in the lock and pushed, and we practically fell into my apartment like something out of a French farce. He slammed the door behind us, and the noise of the hard-falling rain was cut off like a switch had been thrown. For a few moments all I could hear was our breath, hard and a little labored from our mad dash up the stairs. I turned around, raking my disheveled hair out of my eyes, and looked up at Daniel, leaning back against my door. He was so tall in this tiny space, but it wasn’t an imposing presence. He was a mess, soaking wet, looking as bedraggled as I felt, and a helpless laugh bubbled out of me. He joined in almost immediately, his laugh more a loud rush of breath, and as it died out I noticed the rain was coming down even harder, the water pinging off the skylights above us. Another noise too: a faint chirrup from the vicinity of the couch.

“Oh.” Daniel pushed his hair out of his eyes, raking it straight back before taking a step forward. “This must be Benedick. Your true love.” He reached out his other hand, but Benedick looked at him with startled eyes before zipping away toward the bathroom.

I tried not to laugh at the hurt in his eyes when he looked back at me. “That’s right. I forgot you’re not a cat person.”

“I never said that. I said I’ve never had one. There’s a difference.”

“Well, it shows.” But I kept my voice kind. “Cats startle pretty easily. He doesn’t know you, and with you looming over him like that—”

“I don’t loom.”

“You’re ten feet tall, of course you loom. Not to mention you’re soaking wet.” So was I. And with the air conditioner running I was also freezing. I suppressed a shiver.

“Oh.” He looked down at himself, plucking his wet shirt away from his chest with a sigh. “Well, there is that.”

I ducked into the bathroom for towels and to check on Benedick, who glared at me from behind the toilet. When I caught sight of myself in the mirror, I tried not to scream. I’d worked so hard on my hair, and now the carefully pinned-up curls listed to the side like a drunken wedding cake, flowers poking out haphazardly. And the less said about my supposedly waterproof mascara, the better. When I came back out, Daniel was back to leaning on the front door, his expression unsure.

“I should probably . . .” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the downpour outside, and my heart fell into my stomach. It was only his uncertain expression that kept me from despairing completely. He didn’t want to go. He was just giving me an excuse to kick him out if I didn’t want him there.

I didn’t take it. “Don’t be silly.” I handed him a towel as thunder rumbled outside. “You can’t go back out in that. It should let up soon. Stay.”

Seventeen

The word hung in the air between us, and I was afraid to breathe, to make any sound that would erase it. Daniel reached for the towel but I didn’t let go, so when he tugged on it, he pulled me closer to him. He ran a thumb under my makeup-smudged eyes before stroking my hair. “You’re wet.” His voice had dropped an octave, and a shiver ran through me that had nothing to do with the cold.

I wanted to snicker. I’d been hanging out with Mitch for too long, because my first instinct was to respond with a dirty joke. But Daniel had let go of the towel to take my face between his hands, and I remembered he’d been about to kiss me at the wedding reception before the rain interrupted us.

There was nothing to interrupt us now. His kiss was a greeting, an affirmation, a confirmation that he was meant to be here at this very moment. No perfectly-broken-in pair of jeans had felt as comfortable, as right, as his mouth felt on mine.

But comfortable didn’t last long. The heat in his kiss chased away the chill of being caught in the rain. I let my mouth open under his as he began to press, to explore, and before I knew what was happening he had turned us, so now my back was against the door and he pressed against me, crowding into me, and I didn’t mind it a bit. I let the towel fall to the floor as I reached for him. The skin of his neck was cold against my palms but warmed up fast, and the wet hair at the base of his skull slicked between my fingers.

“Stacey.” My name was a whisper, a prayer on his lips. His fingertips traced a tingling trail down the side of my throat. He pulled back to catch my gaze with his, and whatever he read in my eyes must have been encouraging since he bent to me again, catching my mouth in a quick, searching kiss as if he couldn’t bear to be away. Then his mouth dropped to my neck, nuzzling just under my jaw, and my blood raced in response.

I stretched onto my toes to get closer to him, and he stooped a little, his hands cupping my hips. We were dealing with a definite height difference here, but I could work with that. I’d climb him if I had to. I just needed to be closer to him. From the way Daniel’s touch had turned from caressing to grasping, he was feeling the same way. He leaned into me, pressing me against the door, almost lifting me against it, and I could feel myself melt against the hard lines of his body.

And then my landline rang, and it was like being doused with a bucket of ice water. I groaned and let my head fall back, thudding onto the door behind me. “Mom.”

“If you’re thinking about your mom right now, I’m doing this wrong.” But he smiled against my neck and slowly, slowly released his grip on me. The loss was devastating, but my phone was still ringing.

“On the phone.” I lightly pushed at his chest with my fingertip and he stepped back. I got to the phone on its fourth ring, thank God. I didn’t have an answering machine hooked up and Mom was tenacious; she’d just let it keep ringing till I answered. Or worse: she’d give up and come looking for me.

“Hey, Mom.” I blew out a breath and tried to slow my racing heart. I sounded pretty calm for someone who was just making out fifteen seconds ago.

“Oh, hi, honey.” There was Mom’s usual mild surprise that it was my voice on the other end of the line. “How was the wedding?”

I had to laugh at that. “The wedding was great, Mom. You were there.” But even as I laughed, alarm bells went off in the back of my mind. None of her health issues had ever been neurological. Could this be a new thing?

Mom scoffed. “Well, of course I was. Emily was a beautiful bride. I hope Simon appreciates her.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure he does.” The alarm bells faded a little, replaced by impatience. The last thing I wanted to do right now was rehash Emily’s wedding. I loved her, and I loved my mother, but there was a much bigger priority in the room right now. A priority that was well over six feet tall and was the best kisser I’d ever experienced. So why were we having this conversation? Why now?