Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie Page B

in silence, their footsteps echoing together.
    Min looked up at him. "You must have felt right at home with me tonight."
    "Nope,"
Cal
said. "You're not mad because you're scared. I doubt that much scares you. You're mad because somebody was lousy to you. And there's not enough charm in the world to get you out of that until you've resolved the deeper issue."
    "And yet you kept on trying," Min said.
    "No, I didn't,"
Cal
said. "Once you'd told me you'd been dumped, I backed off."
    Min thought about it. "I guess you did. Pretty much."
    "Now aren't you sorry you were such a grump all night?"
Cal
said.
    "No," Min said. "Because you were pouring on the charm before that which means you were trying to get something from me, God knows what—"
Sex to win a bet, you beast
. "—and you deserved to be called on that."
    A few steps later
Cal
said, "Fair enough."
    Min smiled to herself in the darkness and thought,
Well, he does have an honest bone in his body. Too bad its just one
. They walked on in silence until they reached the steps to her house. "This is it. T hank you very much—"
    "Where?"
Cal
said, looking around. "I don't see a house."
    "Up there," Min said, pointing up the hill. "The steps are right there. So we can—"
    Cal
peered up the hill into the darkness. "Christ, woman, that looks like Everest. How many steps are there?"
    "Thirty-two," Min said, "and another twenty-six after that to get up to my apartment in the attic." She held out her hand. "So we'll say goodnight here. T hank you for the walk home. Best of luck in the future."
    He ignored her to look up the hill again. "Nope. I'm not leaving you to climb up there in the dark."
    "It's okay," Min said. "Seventy-eight percent of women who are attacked are attacked by men they know."
    "Is that another shot at me?"
Cal
said.
    "No. I don't know any men who would climb thirty-two steps to attack me, so I'm safe. You can go home with a clear conscience."
    "No," he said patiently. "I can't. Get moving. I'll be right behind you."
    Behind her
? Thirty-two steps with him looking at her butt? "No, you won't."
    "Look, it's late, I'm tired, can we just—"
    "It'll be a cold day in hell when you follow me up those steps. You want to go up, you go first."
    "
Why
?" he said, mystified.
    "You're not looking at my rear end all the way up that hill."
    He shook his head. "You know, Dobbs, you look like a sane person, and then you open your mouth—"
    "Start climbing or go home," Min said.
    Cal
sighed and took the first step. "Wait a minute. Now you'll be looking at my butt all the way up the steps."
    "Yes, but you probably have a great butt," Min said. "It's an entirely different dynamic."
    "I can't even see yours,"
Cal
said. "It's dark and your jacket is too long."
    "Climb or leave," Min said, and
Cal
started up the steps.
    When they got to the top, he hesitated, and she saw the mid-century stone and stucco house through his eyes, dark and shabby and overgrown with climbing rosebushes that were so ancient they'd degenerated into thornbushes. "It's nice," she said, on the defensive.
    "It's probably great in the daytime," he said, politely.
    "Right." Min pushed past him to climb the stone steps to the front porch. She unlocked the door. "There, see? You can go now."
    "This is not your door," he said. "You said you live twenty-six steps up."
    "Fine, climb all the way to the attic." She waved him in front of her into the square hall of the house. With him there, the faded blue wallpaper and dull oak woodwork looked shabby instead of comfortable, and that irritated her. "Up," she said, pointing to the narrow stairway along one wall, looking even narrower now that he was at the bottom with what looked like several yards of shoulder blocking her way, and he climbed two more flights of stairs to the narrow landing with her following.
    He had a great butt.
    And that's all that's nice about him
, Min told herself.
Be sensible, keep your head here. You're never going to see him