He was warm and strong and powerful, but absolutely no match for terror that was The Exorcist. What had we been talking about? Now I couldn’t think about any walls banging except the one Regan was currently banging the shit out of and spraying down with pea soup. We watched the rest of that damn movie wound around each other like pretzels, and he finally succumbed to the false security that an afghan eyehole can provide.

Click. Click. Click.

What the hell was that?

Click. Click. Click.

Oh no.

I lay paralyzed in my bed, every light in my entire apartment blazing.

Click. Click. Click.

I pulled the covers up higher, covering my face up to my eyes, which kept a constant vigil around the bedroom. Brain knew we were safe and secure, but also kept replaying scenes from that terrible, terrible movie, making it impossible to shut off for the night and go to sleep. Nerves had everything on lockdown, blazing a trail of fiery adrenaline throughout my body. I hated Simon with every fiber of my being in that moment. I also wished he was here.

Click. Click. Click.

What was that?

Click. Click.

Nothing.

Then Clive leaped on the bed, and I screamed bloody murder. Clive puffed out his tail and hissed at me, wondering why the hell Mommy was screaming at him, I’m sure. The click-click-click was his goddamned kitty hangnail.

My phone vibrated an instant later, shaking the entire nightstand and eliciting another scream from me. It was Simon.

“What the hell is wrong? Why are you screaming? Are you okay?” he yelled when I answered, and I could hear him through the phone and through the wall.

“Get your ass over here right now, you motherfucking scary movie pusher,” I seethed and hung up. I pounded on the wall and ran out to unlock the door. In much the same way I’d run up the last few steps of the basement stairs when I was a kid, I hightailed it back into my room, jumping the last few feet and landing in the center of my bed. I wrapped the covers around me and peered out, waiting. He knocked, and I heard the door push open.

“Caroline?” he called.

“Back here,” I yelled. Sad that I’d been reduced to this, but I was glad to see him.

“I brought the pie,” he said with an embarrassed grin. “And this,” he added, producing the afghan from behind his back.

“Thanks.” I smiled at him from behind my pillow shield.

A few minutes later we were settled on my bed, each balancing a plate and a glass of milk. We’d been too full, then too terrified to eat pie earlier. Clive and his phantom hangnail retired to the other room after rolling his eyes at Simon and swishing his tail.

“How old are you?” I asked, cutting into my pie.

“Twenty-eight. How old are you?”

“Twenty-six. We are twenty-eight and twenty-six years old and terrified of a movie,” I mused, poking in a bite. The pie was good.

“I wouldn’t say I’m terrified,” he countered. “Spooked? Yes. But I only came over to stop you from screaming.”

“And to taste my pie,” I added, winking.

“Shut it, you,” he warned, and then he went ahead and tasted my pie.

“Jesus, that’s good,” he breathed, eyes closed as he chewed.

“I know. What is it about apples and homemade pie crust? Is there anything better?”

“If we were eating this na**d, then it would be better,” He grinned, opening one eye.

“No one is getting na**d here, buddy. Just eat your pie.” I pointed at his plate with my fork.

We chewed.

“I feel better,” I added a few minutes later, drinking my milk.

“Me too. Not too spooked anymore.”

He smiled as I took his plate and set it on the nightstand. I sighed contentedly and lay back against my pillows, sated and less scared.

“So, I gotta ask…James Brown? I mean, James Brown?” He laughed, and I kicked him as he lay down next to me. We turned on our sides to face each other, arms curling under the pillows.

“I know, I know. I can’t believe you held it in as long as you did! I know you’ve been dying to make jokes since last night.”

“Seriously, who is this guy?” he asked.

“He’s a new client.”

“Ah, got it,” he said, looking pleased.

“And an old boyfriend,” I added, watching for his reaction.

“I see. New client but old boyfriend—wait, the lawyer?” he asked, trying to keep his expression neutral, but failing.

“Yep. Haven’t seen him in a few years.”

“How’s that gonna work?”

“Don’t know yet. We’ll see.”

I really didn’t know how things were going to go with James. I was glad to see him, but it was going to be tough to keep things professional if he wanted more. And every instinct I had told me he wanted more. In the past he’d had more control over me than I was comfortable relinquishing. I’d found myself sucked into the gravitational pull that was James Brown—lawyer, not Godfather of Soul.

“Anyway, we’re just going to be working together. It’ll be a great job for me. He wants his entire place redone.” I sighed, already planning the palette. I rolled onto my back and stretched. I’d really abused my stomach tonight and was starting to get sleepy.

“I don’t like him,” Simon said suddenly, after a long pause.

I turned and saw him scowling.

“You don’t even know him! How could you possibly not like him?” I laughed.

“I just don’t,” he said, now turning his gaze to mine and unleashing the power of the baby blues.

“Oh, please, you’re just a stinky boy.” I laughed, ruffling his hair. Wrong move. It sure was soft…

“I don’t stink. You said yourself I was April fresh,” he protested, lifting his arm and sniffing.

“Yes, Simon, you smell delicious,” I deadpanned, sniffing the air around me.

He left his arm up higher on the pillow, and I knew if I rolled just a little I could slide right on into the nook. He looked at me, raising his eyebrows ever so slightly. Was he thinking what I was thinking?

Did he want to nook me?

Did I want to nook him?

Oh the hell with it…

“I’m coming into the nook,” I announced and went full snuggle: head nestled in, left arm over chest, right arm tucked under his pillow. Legs I kept to myself—I wasn’t a total fool.

“Well, hello there,” he said, sounding surprised. Then he curled himself around me immediately. I sighed again, wrapped in boy and voodoo.

“What brought this on, friend?” he whispered into my hair, and I shivered.

“Delayed reaction to Linda Blair. I need some nook time. Friends can nook, can’t they?”

“Sure, but are we friends who can nook?” he asked, tracing circles on my back. Him and his demon finger circles…

“I can handle it. You?” I held my breath.

“I can handle just about anything, but…” he started, and then stopped.

“What? What were you going to say?” I asked, leaning up to look at him. One piece of hair uncurled from my ponytail and fell down between us. Slowly, and with great care, he pushed it back behind my ear.

“Let’s just say that if you were wearing that pink nightie? You’d be in a heap of trouble.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re just friends then, right?” I forced myself to say.

“Friends, yes.”

He stared into my eyes.

I breathed in, he breathed out. We traded actual air.

“Just nook me, Simon,” I said quietly, and he grinned.

“Come on back down here,” he said and coaxed me back to his chest. I slid down, resting where I could hear his heart beat. He folded the afghan over us, and I noticed again how soft it was. It had served me well tonight, this afghan.

“I love this afghan, but I have to say it doesn’t really fit your apartment—the cool-dude motif you have going on,” I mused. It was orange and pea green and very retro. He was silent, and I thought maybe he had fallen asleep.

“It was my mom’s,” he said quietly, and his grip on me became infinitesimally tighter.

There was nothing to say after that.

Simon and I slept together that night, with every light in the entire place on.

Clive and his hangnail stayed away.

Chapter Eleven

I WOKE UP A FEW HOURS LATER, startled by the warmth of the body next to me, which was decidedly bigger than the cat usually nestled against my side. I rolled carefully onto my back and away from Simon so I could see him. I could see him just fine as the lamps, along with all my other lights, continued to blaze away into the night, fighting back the evils of that awful movie.

I rubbed my eyes and inspected my bedmate. He lay on his back, arms curled as though I was still in them, and I thought of how good it felt to nook with Simon.

But I shouldn’t be nooking with Simon. Brain knew better. Nerves were in agreement. That was definitely a very, very slippery slope. And though the images of climbing a slippery Simon that immediately came to mind were far from innocent, I pushed them aside. I looked away and noticed the terribly wonderful afghan tangled between his legs—and mine, for that matter.

It had been his mom’s. Heart broke each time I thought of his sweet, timid voice sharing that little nugget with me. He didn’t know I’d talked to Jillian about his past, that I knew his parents were no longer alive. The idea that he still clung to his mother’s afghan was inexorably sweet, and once again my heart broke open.

I was close with my parents. They still lived in the same house where I’d grown up, in a small town in southern California. They were great parents, and I saw them as often as I could, which is to say holidays and an occasional weekend. A typical twenty-something, I enjoyed my independence. But my parents were there when I needed them, always there. The idea that I would someday have to walk this earth without their anchor and misguided guidance made me wince, to say nothing of losing both of them at only eighteen.

I was glad Simon seemed to have good friends and such a powerful advocate as Benjamin watching out for him. But as close as friends and lovers could be, there was something about belonging to someone completely that gave you roots—roots you sometimes needed when the world battled against you.

Simon stirred slightly in his sleep, and I watched him again. He murmured something that I couldn’t quite pick out, but it sounded a little like “meatballs.” I smiled and allowed my fingers to slip into his hair, feeling the soft silk tousled on my pillow.

God, he gave good meatball.

As I stroked his hair, my mind wandered to a place where meatballs flowed endlessly and there was pie for days. I giggled to myself as sleepiness began to return, and I nestled back down into the nook. As I felt the comfort that only warm boy arms could provide, a little alarm went off in my head, warning me not to get too close. I had to be careful.

Clearly we were both divinely attracted to each other, and in another space and time, the sex would have been ringing out across the land and around the clock. But he had his harem, and I had my hiatus, not to mention that I did not have my O. So friends we would remain.

Friends who meatball. Friends who nook. Friends who were headed to Tahoe very soon.

I pictured Simon soaking in a hot tub with Lake Tahoe spread out in all its glory behind him. Which sight was actually more glorious remained to be seen. I settled back to sleep, rousing only slightly when Simon snuggled me a little closer.

And even though it was barely above a whisper, I heard it. He sighed my name.

I smiled as I slipped back to sleep.

The next morning I felt a persistent poking at my left shoulder. I brushed it away, but it continued.

“Clive, stop it, you asshole,” I moaned, hiding my head under the covers. I knew he wouldn’t stop until I fed him. Ruled by his stomach, that one. Then I heard a distinctly human laugh—quiet and definitely not Clive.

My eyes sprang open, and the night before came back to me in a rush: the horror, the pie, the nook. I reached backward with my right foot, sliding it along the bed until I felt it stop against something warm and hairy. Although I was now more sure than ever it wasn’t Clive, I poked with my toe, inching my way higher until I heard another chuckle.

“Wallbanger?” I whispered, not wanting to flip over. True to form, I was spread-eagled diagonally across the entire bed, head on one side, feet practically on the other.

“The one and only,” a delicious voice whispered in my ear.

My toes and Lower Caroline curled. “Shit.” I rolled onto my back to take in the damage. He was huddled in the one corner my body had allowed him. My bed-sharing habits had not improved at all.

“You sure can fill a bed,” he noted, smiling at me from under the little bit of afghan I’d left him. “If we’re going to do this again there’ll have to be some ground rules.”

“This won’t be happening again. This was in response to a terrible movie you inflicted on both of us. No more nooking,” I stated firmly, wondering how dreadful my morning breath was. I cupped my hand in front of my face, breathed, and gave a quick sniff.

“Roses?” he asked.

“Obviously.” I smirked.

I looked at him, exquisitely rumpled and in my bed. He smiled that smile, and I sighed. I allowed myself a moment to indulge in a fantasy where I was then quickly flipped and ravaged to within an inch of my life, but I wisely got control of my inner whore.

“What if you get scared tonight?” he asked as I sat up and stretched.

“I won’t,” I threw back over my shoulder.

“What if I get scared?”