Page 5

I feel an unexpected moment of camaraderie.

Jayson’s Saturday night plans are as unsexy as mine.

Software engineers tend to be nocturnal.

We’re the bats of the corporate world, coming out at dusk and generally misunderstood by the rest of the world who believe that we coders are all the same (geeks and nerds), nuisances that get tangled up in your hair (we certainly can mess with your deadlines) and are blind to all but our laptop screens, banging out lines of unintelligible gibberish that run the world.

I’m brainstorming polite ways to ask Jayson if he knows that I’m no longer employed by Miles to Go and am therefore an inappropriate choice for his after-work-hours request when my phone buzzes with a follow-up text of a big-eyed puppy dog. PLZ?

I was a sure thing at Miles to Go. I worked eighteen hours a day and was always online. I never refused when someone asked me to review their code because I never said no.

Sometimes, Shonda, a no is harder than a yes .

I fire an opening salvo. Do you know who I am?

Jayson does not respond. I hope he’s having an existential crisis or suffering horrible pangs of embarrassment.

“A little help here?” This comes from the shirtless cat burglar, who has even less right to be asking me for my help than Jayson does. Fortunately for them both, I’m good at multitasking. Unfortunately, I’ve reached my limit.

I march over to my door, flick on the balcony light, and then spin around to assess his progress.

Sun-bronzed fingers with knuckle tattoos wrap around the bottom of the railings; I’m certain the rest of the man will shortly follow.

My options dwindle. I should go back inside, lock the door, and either retrieve my aluminum baseball bat or, more prudently, retreat downstairs to wait for the police.

This is a job for a trained professional, not a software engineer.

I lean forward for one last look at the intruder, the better to identify him in a police lineup later, and his face comes into focus.

A jolt of recognition travels from my eyes down my body, making heady pit stops in my chest, heart, and stomach on the way.

Possibly, that jolt keeps right on going, too, down to more southern regions.

Delicious curls of sexual awareness sprout in my belly like Jack’s bean stalk seeds, shooting tendrils up toward the sky.

This is impossible.

Like perfect random number generation or an infinite loop that does not consume all available resources like a ravenous code locust, Ozzy Wylder cannot possibly be scaling my condo.

He kissed me, he bounced away with his pack of admirers, and he never, not once, reached out to indicate that he might welcome a repeat appearance in my life.

To sum up: screw Ozzy Wylder.

Nevertheless, I double-check and confirm that it’s him. I’ve been unable to forget him, having fiendishly googled him after our midnight kiss. Pictures of his beautiful, laser-focused face filled my browser history for weeks.

Maybe it’s his doppelg?nger? Does he have an evil(er) twin? I just want to go inside, throw myself down on my bed, and sleep for a month. I’m delirious from lack of sleep. I don’t have the bandwidth for this level of embarrassment.

There’s also anger. Social paralysis. Lots and LOTS of confusion.

Ozzy Wylder should be riding house-sized waves in Maui and collecting gold trophies, not climbing buildings in the dead of night.

And he really, really has no business climbing my building.

We don’t have that kind of relationship. I’m not Rapunzel, and he’s not my prince.

Ozzy pulls himself up, bracing his bare feet on the outermost edge of the balcony, arms folded on the top of the railing as he winks at me. It’s déjà vu. “Good evening.”

For a brief second, I hope he recognizes me.

I expect him to recognize me.

My body certainly recognizes him. He’s imprinted himself on me with his beach kiss and his big, wet body.

I’m going up in flames—flames that are one part humiliated embarrassment and one part lust—and yet here he stands, unbothered and mellow, calm and unflappable.

My evil, thoughtless brain that can’t remember the day of the week or even the month has no problem recalling his half-naked, sea-drenched self.

I have memorized each and every second of him sauntering up the beach, water droplets trickling down his body like he was in some sexy photo shoot, neoprene wetsuit cupping his goodies.

He’s broken me. Replaced my logic with lusty chaos.

My eyes inventory his sculpted shoulders, the tousled, sun-kissed hair that is neither brown nor blond but a delicious shade halfway in between.

Powerful arms, lots of muscles, and the man’s chest…

well, it’s an outright miracle, a miracle that descends straight to a sexy V-cut that I have been unable to forget since our brief beach encounter.

Unlike last time, he wears a pair of faded blue jeans, a grin, and nothing else. Sweet baby Jesus.

He pauses while I stare, as if he could care less that he’s mostly undressed and about to be visited by cops. Or maybe he just recognizes the effect he has on me (even if he doesn’t recognize me ).

Ozzy Wylder.

My kryptonite and my crush.

“I’m your new neighbor,” he declares.

“No way.”

“Yes way,” he retorts, as if we’re five and arguing on the playground.

I can feel my eyes narrowing as he swings himself up over the railing.

The physics are suspect. One second, he’s poised on the other side, the next, he’s vaulting over the railing to land lightly on his feet.

He’s probably an Olympic-caliber hurdler in his spare time, my brain suggests.

Or a pirate. He’d board a vessel with panache.

He sticks his hand out in my direction. “Let’s start over. Ozzy Wylder. And you are?”

Mad. Very, very mad. Does he not remember me? Am I the asshole here for remembering him ? I should play this off, act nonchalant. We kissed? That was you I rolled around on the beach with? Four out of ten for execution, but bonus points for style. I should say these things. But I don’t.

“Uninterested,” I lie, instead.

In a rookie mistake, I stare down at his palm while he mulls over my response.

Ozzy’s hands are big and callused, sun-bronzed and powerful.

They make me shiver. I squint, trying to make sense of the ink decorating his knuckles.

He chuckles and holds his hands up, backs toward me so that I can better admire his artwork. He’s the helpful sort of burglar.

“I lost my key.” He flashes an easy grin at me, willing me to trust him. For a period of three sandy moments, I thought his interest in me was genuine. I look at him now, relaxed and open, and I want to make him want me back. I want revenge. To push him off the balcony and out of my life.

I restrain myself. “And your shoes and shirt.”

He shrugs as if to say, details . “They’re with my things. Inside.”

I counter with the obvious. “You don’t live here.”

According to Google, he has a house in Maui. It’s an award-winning contemporary design that blends natural and tropical elements. Whatever that means.

A frown creases his perfect forehead. “You’re not very welcoming.”

“I’m on the building board,” I inform him, “and no new residents have been brought to my attention.”

“Is there an application process? Are you taking applications for friendship?” His eyebrows draw up in mock surprise.

A police car pulls up below, double-parking in the street. Reinforcements have arrived.

I ignore his questions and go with the truth. “You are not a middle-aged dentist.”

When I met my dentist-neighbor, he explained at great length how you could tell someone’s stress levels by examining their smile. He followed this up with pointing out several very stressed people on a house-flipping show he’d been watching on Netflix. It was both informative and memorable.

“Thank Christ, no. That would be boring.” Ozzy leans back on the balcony railing. He and gravity are best friends, and gravity has his back. “My dad would love it, though. Thumbs-up.”

I ignore his FOO issues and focus on the relevant data point here.

“My neighbor is a middle-aged dentist. He’s in South America at the moment, providing free root canals and dental implants in rural communities.”

“Very charitable.” Ozzy sounds unimpressed. The only thing he gives away are kisses.

“You don’t belong here. Get off my balcony.”

I stab a helpful finger in the direction of the street.

He ignores me, folding his arms over his muscled, bare chest and planting his feet firmly on the dentist’s half of the balcony.

A ridiculous waist-high wall divides the two parts of the balcony, a his-and-her solution that makes a fine boundary line on a map but that affords me with zero privacy.

Fortunately, the dentist travels frequently.

“No,” he says. “Also, it’s only half your balcony.”

I exhale. Inhale. Count to three. Go back inside and let the cops into my unit and provide them with a brief rundown of the intruder climbing the wall of my building to trespass on my balcony.

When I step outside with my new police friends, Ozzy blinks. I swallow down a triumphant laugh. See? I’m not a pushover.

“The cops?”

“Trespassing.” I raise a finger. “Breaking and entering.” I add two more fingers to the count.

“But I am your neighbor,” he says.

I don’t believe that, but I do believe he has no business climbing the wall of my building—and I’m not feeling like the bigger person.

“I don’t know you,” I lie sweetly. “And I just witnessed you climb up the wall of my building. Have a nice night now.”

Then I turn and go inside.