Night Whispers - Leslie Kelly [36]
“Gee, don’t run off on my account. I really didn’t mean to interrupt your date,” Mitch said with an absolute lack of sincerity.
“No problem,” Brian responded as he stood by the open door. “Kelsey’s not my type, anyway.”
Mitch shrugged as the other man gave him another long glance, then sighed and slipped out the door. Suddenly he noticed Kelsey beginning to chuckle. He turned to face her as her chuckles turned to uproarious, gut-clenching laughter, and she fell to the couch.
“What’s so funny?” he asked indignantly.
Kelsey couldn’t answer him. Oh, it was too much! Mitch was paying her back for the trick she’d played on him with that blond witch. He thought Brian was her date, and he’d come up here to give her a little taste of her own medicine.
Finally, she calmed down and looked over to where Mitch stood, looking at her as if she were insane.
“I’m sorry,” she said between giggles. “It’s just…well, if Brian were to come to the brownstone for a date, I imagine he’d be knocking on your door…or Fred’s.”
Mitch didn’t understand for a moment. Then it sank in. Kelsey’s “date” was gay. Mitch tried for self-righteous indignation. He tried to be offended. He tried to feel stupid that his plan had blown up in his slightly drunk face. But he couldn’t. He started laughing and fell to the couch to sit beside Kelsey, who once again erupted in chuckles.
When they’d both calmed down, Kelsey said, “Oh, Mitch, what were you thinking? What would possess you to come up here like this?”
“Like this?” Mitch asked as he playfully stood and posed in the towel.
She grinned at his impersonation of a muscle-man, not that he couldn’t pull it off, but because she knew him so well. Mitch had never flaunted his looks. His personality and brains had taken him anywhere he ever wanted to go. But, oh, if ever a man was born who could have coasted a little on an absolutely mouthwatering physique, this was he.
“Well,” he continued, “I suppose I could have come like…this.”
Mitch grabbed the knot at his hip and loosened it, giving her an evil leer. Kelsey gasped and threw her hands over her eyes, but peeked through her fingers as the towel dropped to the floor.
“You cheater,” she exclaimed when she saw the running shorts he was wearing.
He grinned wickedly. “Did you think I’d be crazy enough to come up here totally naked under that towel?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “When you were a kid you might have. But the Mitch Wymore I’ve been sharing this house with for the past few weeks…he’s so uptight, I’m surprised he didn’t show up in a three-piece suit.”
“Uptight?” he exclaimed with mock offense. “I am the least uptight person on the planet. Unless, of course, you happen to be Lady Love, the sex queen of Baltimore.”
Kelsey searched his face for any bitterness but saw only his teasing laughter. “I miss you, Mitch. I miss this. I miss my friend.”
“Kels, we’ve never really been friends. You were a royal pain in the butt.”
“Speak for yourself,” she said as she swatted at him with a pillow. “Seriously, do you think we could manage friendship? I mean, acquaintances, that’s absolutely out. And you’ve made it perfectly clear you don’t want anything more…intimate. Can we just be friends?”
Kelsey sounded uncertain, her voice quivered. Could it be she didn’t know how much he desired her? Could she really not tell that this whole fiasco tonight had been prompted by pure jealousy?
Mitch didn’t question her. Kelsey was giving him exactly what he wanted, what was right. Friendship with no strings. Perfect. He would forget about desire. He hoped.
“Being friends sounds great, Kelsey.”
AT TEN O’CLOCK THE NEXT MORNING, Kelsey stood outside the door to Mitch’s apartment and knocked sharply. He’d asked her to come down and help him sort some paperwork in the spirit of their new friendship.
“Reporting for duty, sir,” she said as Mitch answered his door.
“Come on in,” he replied.
Kelsey entered Mitch’s apartment, noting the piles of papers and