Page 6

Until then, I would just enjoy the sunset and more wine. Thank goodness it was a small cup and only counted as half because who sits alone and drinks five glasses of wine? I tipped the bottle up to top myself off and was surprised to find it was empty.

“Well, shit, Schmoopie! Why you gotta drink all the good stuff?” I asked. The damn dog was really starting to act like a man by ignoring me in my time of need, so I huffed at him before I said, “Lookee here! I’ve got another bottle!”

When I accidentally knocked the empty cup off the armrest of my chair, it rolled too far away for me to pick it up, so I just took a sip from the bottle itself.

Of course, I didn’t plan to drink it. I had just brought it with me to put in the wine fridge for some other day. But I was here, as was the bottle, so why the hell not, right?

Right.

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NAVY

“Where in the hell is your brother?” I asked Boogie as I walked through the apartment looking for Spicoli. “I swear to God, if he’s passed out in the courtyard, I am not gonna carry his big ass up the stairs for dinner. He can just starve for all I care.”

Boogie just sat next to her bowl, watching me search high and low for Spicoli - not that I had to search very hard since he was a big guy and there weren’t many places for him to hide.

“What the fuck?” I whispered to myself as I stopped in the middle of the living room and looked around. “It’s not like him to miss a meal. The dog can’t hear me calling him from three feet away, but he could hear the sound of his kibble hitting the bowl even if he’d been born without ears.”

Boogie walked toward the front door and stood there waiting for me, knowing that I couldn’t resist going downstairs to find Spicoli for my own peace of mind.

Once we were in the breezeway, Boogie didn’t run down the stairs like she usually did.

Instead, she started climbing the stairs that led to the roof.

“What the hell?” I asked as I followed her up.

Spicoli usually couldn’t be bothered to go upstairs.

The only reason his lazy ass used the stairs at all was so he could go to the courtyard and relieve himself.

Getting him back upstairs for almost any reason required a lot of coaxing, a handful of treats, and a back injury those times when I gave up and just carried the bastard.

I was shocked to get to the roof and find Spicoli sharing a lounge chair with a woman who had her legs propped up on his back.

I didn’t want to scare her, so I cleared my throat as I got closer and stopped about six feet away. When she didn’t look over, I said, “Excuse me, ma’am?” There was still no reaction, so I walked a little closer, angling myself around the chair so I could see her face.

I was just about to announce myself again when I heard a soft snore and knew that delicate sound hadn’t come from my dog, who was also ignoring me.

I leaned forward to get a better look, wishing the string lights weren’t quite so dim, and then stood up straight when I realized that this wasn’t some random stranger.

It was Dalisay Albright, the girl who had annoyed the shit out of me when she was a child, made me crazy right alongside my parents as she approached her teenage years, and then blew my mind when I came home from prison because she’d turned into a ravishingly beautiful woman.

Dali had haunted my dreams since that afternoon I’d found her outside the bar. I hadn’t seen her since then and took a minute to notice that she was still just as gorgeous as she’d been more than a decade ago.

Dalisay had always been petite like her Filipino mother and looked more like her than she ever had her father.

Her brown skin always looked sun-kissed, and the smattering of freckles across her nose that had been adorable when she was a kid were sexy as hell now that she was an adult.

I had to look away when I remembered that she was sleeping like the dead while I acted like a complete perv and checked out her body.

I pulled myself together and said her name a few times, but she still didn’t stir. I was about to get worried until I saw the empty bottle of wine lying on its side next to one that had a cork in it, hopefully unfinished.

Dalisay Albright had gotten drunk as a skunk alone on the rooftop, and I had no idea what in the hell to do with her. Without thinking, I pulled my phone out to call my sister and then remembered that she was on a ship with her family enjoying a long-awaited honeymoon and getaway.

“Well, shit.”

It wasn’t like Corrie not to let me know that she had a houseguest on the off chance that I happened to run into a stranger on my way into or out of my apartment, but I had no doubt that was where Dalisay was staying. Since she wasn’t about to wake up, I couldn't ask her, but it only made sense.

I reached out and tugged on her big toe in the hopes of waking her, but all that did was annoy Spicoli, who was still camped out beneath her gorgeous legs. He opened one eye and stared at me for a second before he lifted his head and huffed.

“Have you been guarding our new neighbor, big guy?” I asked as I ran my hand over his head. “Good boy.”

With a sigh, I decided I would relieve Spicoli and take over the task and bent forward to take Dalisay into my arms. I found it funny that I wasn’t nearly as annoyed at the thought of carrying her downstairs as I had been at the thought of carrying my lazy dog up.

Then again, even though I loved him, my dog wasn’t a beautiful woman who smelled like sunscreen and red wine.

I knew that those vivid dreams would start back up tonight, but they’d be worse now because I knew exactly how soft her skin was and how perfectly she fit in my arms.