All of You Read Free Page A

ground and fight you for him.”
     
“I believe you would, Mrs. Jackson,” I said, waving. “I believe you would.”
     
I loved our banter; it was the best part of my day. Mrs Jackson was in residence because her
     
husband could no longer care for her due to his own medical problems. After her stroke, she’d needed
     
around-the-clock care, which included feeding, changing, medication management, and physical therapy
     
for her weakened limbs.
     
Her children were grown with lives of their own, and Mrs. Jackson had hinted that she’d never
     
burden them. They visited her once a week and you felt the affection rolling off of them in waves. From snippets of conversations I’d heard, they had all offered to take her into their own homes, but she fought
     
them tooth and nail. Told them they couldn’t afford to lose their jobs or provide for all of her needs.
     
Since her admission, Mrs. Jackson had also had two smaller strokes, called TIAs . Hopefully they
     
wouldn’t lead to the big one—the mother of all strokes—anytime soon. I’d sure as hell miss her around here.

Chapter Three
I hadn’t seen Chivalrous Hot Boy Bennett since his move-in day, outside of the one occasion I brought
     
my laundry up to the fifth floor for old times’ sake. I heard hammering behind his door. I figured he was
     
affixing something to a wall—maybe a poster of a hot girl with dark hair and dark eyelashes, the exact
     
opposite of me—and I knew going up there in the first place was a bad idea, too stalkerish. So after
     
transferring my clothes to the dryer, I hightailed it out of there, setting a reminder on my phone to check
     
back again in an hour’s time.
     
Except I fell asleep reading my nursing textbook, and by the time I rushed out of the elevator to
     
retrieve my clothes, I spotted Bennett pulling my red lace bra from the dryer.
     
“Planning on stealing my unmentionables for your private viewing pleasure?”
     
Bennett froze with my B cup dangling from his fingers, his expression unreadable, except for a
     
twitch in his jaw. If this beautiful man could remain unaffected by sexy lingerie, then all hope for us was
     
lost.
     
He had on a pair of cut-off khaki shorts, and I scanned down his toned legs to his calves, which
     
were rock hard. He turned toward me, a smirk hanging from his lips. “This belongs to you, huh?”
     
“It does,” I said. I noticed how he took in my shorts and pink heart T-shirt, his eyes lingering on my
     
breasts, as if imaging me in that red lace. “Care to borrow it—or maybe you want to see it on display?”
     
“Now that would be a sight.” My cheeks became inflamed. Was Hot Boy’s flirting voice finally
     
rearing its sexy head? “Why are you doing your laundry all the way up here?”
     
“Habit I picked up while your place was vacant. The guy across from you is never home, and the machine on my floor is always broken,” I said, smoothing my hands down the front of my shirt. I
     
noticed how his eyes carefully followed my fingers. “Why were you picking through my things?”
     
And this is where Hot Boy Bennett became flustered. “I . . . uh . . . you . . .” He ruffled his fingers
     
through his hair. “I was waiting to dry my clothes and I figured I’d just move yours aside until you
     
retrieved them.”
     
“Yeah, sorry about that.” I inched closer and noticed the stubble on his chin. It made him look more
     
rugged tattoo boy, less clean-cut jock. “I fell asleep reading about the finer points of infectious
     
diseases.”
     
“That would be hard to stay awake for. My textbooks aren’t much better. Especially the
     
Impressionist period.” His eyes scanned up my legs and stomach before landing squarely on my eyes. “I
     
wouldn’t take you for a nursing student.”
     
“Really. What kind of student, then?” I leaned against the washer and inhaled his faint scent of
     
coconut. This one ought to be good. Not sure why