The lunch hour came and went without mention. Brad, Arnie, and Ramone finally vacated the third floor around 3:00 p.m., leaving Iris alone with a glowing monitor, a two-way radio, and twenty sheets of hand sketches that needed to be digitized by Monday.

The dead calm in the personnel office was only broken by the soft clicking of the keyboard and mouse. Every fifteen minutes she checked in with Ramone. He was starting to get annoyed. After two hours on the edge of her seat, she couldn’t take it anymore. She grabbed her field bag and Ramone’s radio and headed back down to the vault.

She pressed the call button and rested her forehead on the service elevator doors. Iris tried to remember what the intruder had looked like. Blue shirt and darkish hair, but she’d only seen him from the back.

This was crazy. The intruder might have come back. She gripped the radio tighter, debating whether or not to buzz Ramone. She had no idea how she would explain what she was doing in the vault. She was lost in thought when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

Iris screamed.

“Jesus, Iris! Take it easy!” It was Nick. He backed away with his arms up to guard his face. He still had a faint black eye from the last time he snuck up on her.

“Nick!” She swatted him in the arm. “You scared the living shit out of me! Stop doing that!”

“Sorry! You’re right.” He laughed. “One of these days you’re liable to kill me.”

“What are you doing here?”

“What do you think I’m doing here? I came looking for you.” He eyed her up and down.

She looked like shit. Her hair was falling out of its ponytail. Her shirt was covered in black stuff. She hadn’t slept in two days and couldn’t even remember if she had on clean underwear.

“I—I thought our date was later,” she stammered. “I need to go home and shower.”

The word “shower” made his eyebrows lift and his eyes wander over her body as if he were sudsing her up right then and there. She hit him in the arm. “Hey, I thought we were going on a real date!”

“Of course! Do you have beer?”

“Huh?”

“At your house. Do you have beer at your house?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, I’ll need something to keep me entertained while you get ready.”

“I just . . .”

The elevator doors opened. She needed to go back to the vault and return the keys, but she didn’t want to explain the whole thing to Nick. Mostly, she didn’t want to admit she’d taken the keys at all. Wretched guilt gnawed in the pit of her stomach. If Nick knew, she might get in trouble at work for slacking off and stealing from the building. She had no idea if he could keep a secret or if he would keep one for her. Besides, the whole thing sounded so stupid.

“Okay.”

Nick followed Iris home to her new apartment three blocks from his house. She chain-smoked the whole way.

“Don’t you have to go home first?” she asked nervously as he got out of the car.

“What for? Hey, nice place. Good location.” He winked at her and sauntered up to her front door.

She fumbled with the key, feeling his hot stare all over her. She couldn’t believe she was inviting him into her house. Her jaw muscles tightened in determination. She would be damned if he talked her into bed again before at least buying her a steak. It wasn’t dignified or ladylike or whatever it was supposed to be.

“Thanks! Well, here it is. Beer’s in the fridge. Help yourself,” she called over her shoulder and then ran into her bedroom.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” he called through her closed door. She heard him stumble around the forest of unpacked boxes, fighting his way to the fridge.

This was a terrible idea. She hadn’t unpacked. The house was a mess. She was standing there naked and only then realized her bath towel was across the hall in the bathroom. She didn’t own a robe. She lived alone, so what was the point? Now she was naked and trapped in her own bedroom.

“I haven’t unpacked yet,” she replied loudly, and searched the room for something to cover herself. Paper bag? Pillowcase? The room was littered with useless objects. It was only three steps from her door to the bathroom, and the kitchen was around a corner and out of sight. She cracked open her bedroom door and searched for her uninvited houseguest. He was in the kitchen, searching for a bottle opener. She could hear him opening and closing drawers. Perfect. She flung the door open and made a naked dash for the bathroom.

She made it. She slammed the door closed and locked it. Iris had just successfully streaked through her own apartment. She couldn’t help but laugh.

“What’s so funny?” His voice was way too close to the door.

“Nothing!” she sang out, and turned on the hot water and the ceiling fan so that any further conversation would be drowned out. She proceeded to take the longest shower of her life. She shaved her legs. She deep-conditioned her hair. She was debating scrubbing the shower walls when she heard a pounding on the door.

“Hey! Did you drown in there?”

Iris shut off the water and the fan. She wrapped a towel around herself and cracked open the door. “Sorry. I guess I was pretty dirty.” She winced. “I mean, I had a long day.”

Nick burst out laughing. “Dirty, huh? Well that little sneak preview was pretty filthy, I have to say.”

Iris’s eye bulged in their sockets. He’d seen her running to the bathroom. Now he was nearly in hysterics.

“You sneak!” she protested, blushing from head to toe. She swung the bathroom door open and slugged him in the arm. “You’re not even supposed to be here. Why couldn’t you just pick me up like a normal person so we could go have a normal date?”

Nick backed away, chuckling, as she smacked at him in protest. Iris didn’t realize until it was too late that he had backed into her bedroom. Her hair was dripping from the shower, and she was wrapped in a ratty towel that was barely big enough to cover her ass. It was a trap. She took a step back toward the door.

“Hey. Not so fast.” He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her against his warm, soft shirt. He gazed down at her, then kissed her softly on the lips. She couldn’t help but kiss him back. His fingertips left a trail of fire down her back. He grazed her neck with his lips, and she gasped involuntarily. Before her head could catch up to his hands, her towel was on the floor.

CHAPTER 45

Iris woke the next morning to an empty apartment. All that was left of Nick was an empty pizza box and a handful of beer bottles. She’d chased him out in the middle of the night. She had to work in the morning and was far too uneasy to actually sleep next to him after he’d seduced her again. And again. She rolled over on the dirty sheets and buried her head under her pillow. The bed would have to be burned.

On the way to her car, she decided to bring coffee and doughnuts over to Nick as a sort of peace offering after throwing him out so abruptly. He couldn’t be too angry with her after their night together. At least she hoped not.

She stopped by the coffee shop across the park and drove the three blocks to Nick’s little townhouse. A sweet old couple was out walking a dog. Iris smiled at them before climbing up his stairs. She knocked and waited. She knocked again, trying to balance two cups of coffee and a bag of fried dough. On the third knock, a disheveled Nick answered the door in boxer shorts.

“Hey, there!”

Nick squinted in the morning light and said nothing.

“Sorry I woke you up. I just thought I’d bring you some breakfast.”

“You all right? You need something?” He was clearly not happy to be out of bed.

“No, I’m fine. I just wanted to say hi I guess.” Iris tried to look dopey and lovable, but she realized she probably just looked dumb.