No man I’ve ever dated has even dared offer me a bite off his fork, much less tried to eat one off mine. It’s a level of intimacy for women like Elena, people who are all impulse and no boundaries. Hesitantly—curiously—I reach for the chopsticks Deiss has balanced in his carton of fried rice. With careful precision, I gather a tiny scoop of fried rice and lift it to my lips, wrapping my mouth around the place Deiss’s was only moments ago. Unsurprisingly, it’s delicious.
“Here it comes,” Deiss says, balancing my soup on his knee as his other hand turns up the volume on the remote. On the screen, Jen approaches a deckhand with a scowl on her face. “Someone is about to get eviscerated.”
“Do we care why?” I ask, using Deiss’s chopsticks to excavate a shrimp out of the rice.
“Nope.” He takes another bite of soup and passes it back to me before reaching for the moo goo gai pan.
For the rest of the show, we trade the cartons back and forth between us, keeping up a running commentary on what’s happening onscreen. To my delight, when the episode ends, just like magic, another one begins. At some point, I notice that Deiss’s thigh is pressed against mine. I study it out of the corner of my eye, noting how natural it looks. It’s a perfectly normal amount of closeness for two friends who grew up together.
There’s absolutely no reason for it to make my stomach flutter the way it does.
CHAPTER 15
Five for me,” our neighbor Chris calls out a few days later, passing us on the sidewalk as Deiss and I head toward Sounds. We saw him earlier on our run, so he’s likely referring to the number of miles he did this morning. “Did I win?”
“Deiss insisted we run six,” I say, pretending to complain.
Truthfully, I appreciated the challenge almost as much as I do this casual conversation. Despite all the years I lived in Santa Monica, I never felt like a part of a community. There seemed to be unspoken rules for high-rise living. Neighbors could hold spare keys. They could leave politely worded notes on your door if they disapproved of your noise levels, or even issue complaints through the board. They did not, however, involve themselves in your life.
The casual way I’ve been folded into the Los Feliz landscape is a marked change. Every morning on my runs with Deiss, someone calls out a greeting or stops us with a cheerful shout. I seem to have been granted genuine neighbor status. And I love it.
“He gets ambitious like that when he feels guilty about his food choices,” I add conspiratorially. “I told him spaghetti was too many carbs.”
“If anyone should be feeling guilty, it’s you,” Deiss says, shoving me with his shoulder. “You know that last meatball was mine.”
I laugh, despite the fact that I probably should feel guilty. I had every intention of cooking for him last night after so many nights in a row of delivery, but then we’d stayed late at Sounds and ended up grabbing takeout on the way home.
“Don’t you dare apologize to him, Liv,” Chris says, turning to walk backward so he can holler after us. “I haven’t seen Deiss run this many days in a row since I moved in. You’re like his fitness muse.”
I grin at Deiss smugly, but he just shakes his head and squints against the sun like a vampire caught out after dawn. It’s a ridiculously beautiful day. Even the birds seem to be celebrating it with their eager chirps. One lands on the sidewalk and waddles for a couple of steps before lifting back into the air. The air sweeps softly against my skin.
“I’m your muse,” I say sweetly.
“Because you inspire me to run?” Deiss’s mouth twitches with a smile as he pushes open the door to Sounds. “The same could be said about fire.”
“Aww, are you trying to tell me you think I’m hot?”
Mia, who usually works the opposite shifts from Booker, groans from behind the counter. “Keep your flirting outside, please. This is a place of business.”
I flush, but Deiss just lifts an eyebrow.
“A place of business, you say?” He runs an eye from her inky-black mohawk to the piercing in her lip and down to her Alien Sex Fiend t-shirt. “Maybe I should consider uniforms then.”
She glowers and points a bitten-down fingernail at him. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Something pink, maybe,” Deiss says, pretending to think it over as he heads into his office. “With bows. And ruffles.”
Before Mia can respond, he closes his door. I stifle a laugh and slip behind her. The tips of her mohawk are purple today, and I press as closely as I can to the wall as I pass so she’s not tempted to stab me with them. Mia is not the most pleasant person I’ve ever met, but I choose not to take it personally because she doesn’t seem to like anyone. And that includes the customers.