Just My Luck by Rosalind James Page A

put our heads together about this event. I’m getting quite nervous, tell you the truth. Only a couple days away. Just glad you’ll be there to hold my hand.”
     

Partners
    Kristen jumped a bit when she heard the knock, even though she’d been anticipating it since she’d buzzed Liam in. They’d made this climbing date after their picnic with Jack, and he’d called her a few days ago to confirm. And to ask if she wanted to have lunch afterwards, to which she’d found herself, surprisingly, saying yes. But she’d been thinking Ally would be here when he came by, and Ally was out with Devon.
    She ran her hands down her pant legs, because she could tell that her palms were sweating. Took a deep breath, let it out, and went to open the door to him.
    “Morning,” he said, and he didn’t look scary at all. Just stood there quietly and looked big, and strong, and solid, and . . . good, like he always did to her. Even the broken nose merely seemed like another badge of strength, an essential part of him. Just like the Maori tattoo that extended down from his T-shirt sleeve to well below his elbow, the intricate whorls and twists a dark pattern against the background of smooth brown skin. She knew it continued up to cover his shoulder, one entire solid slab of pectoral muscle, because she’d checked online. And she’d thought that looked good too.
    He stood patiently where he was, and she realized she’d been standing there like an idiot, staring at him. “Oh. Sorry. Come in. I’m ready to go, I just need my bag.” She stepped back so he could enter the living room.
    “You look pretty,” he said, and she glanced down at the skinny deep-blue pants with their suggestion of a zebra stripe, the drapey silk top tucked loosely into the waistband around which she’d slung a black leather belt with copper accents.
    “I know we’re climbing,” she apologized, picking up her gym bag. He was already in shorts, she saw, would only have to change his jandals for climbing shoes. “But I thought, if we’re going to lunch, I’d change at the gym, then change back afterwards, you know, so I could look a little nicer, walking around.” She snapped her mouth shut. “Sorry. I’m babbling. I’m a little nervous.”
    “You’re allowed to be nervous, inviting me round and all. Even,” he said with a smile, “as a friend. Still a big step. And dressing up’s good. I’d be the last to complain about that, wouldn’t I, since I’m the one who gets to look at you. But—” He looked down at her feet. “Why are you wearing those shoes?”
    She looked at the low-heeled sandals with surprise. “Because . . . uh . . .”
    “Because if you wore the shoes you’d normally wear, you’d be taller than me,” he guessed.
    “Well . . . uh . . .”
    “How about showing me what you would’ve worn, if I weren’t such a stumpy fella?” he suggested.
    He smiled in satisfaction when she came back from her bedroom holding the high black suede heels. “Much better,” he pronounced.
    “But you don’t mind?” she asked, sitting on the couch to slip off her sandals and slide her feet into the heels. When she stood up, she topped him by a good half-inch or more, she realized with a flash of worry. “Because I can change back. When you’re five-ten, you get used to adjusting your shoes to the . . . the occasion.”
    “The minute my masculinity feels threatened,” he promised, “I’ll let you know.”
    “And don’t you feel better now?” he asked, taking her bag from her and holding the door as they left the flat, seeming not in the least bothered by their height difference. “Now that you like how you look?”
    “I do,” she admitted. “But that’s shallow of me, I know.”
    “Why? If I like looking at you too?” He was holding the car door this time.
    “So that is why you want to be with me,” she said as he slid into the driver’s seat of the substantial, if unflashy, sedan.
    “Nah,” he corrected, turning