Hard to Hold (True Romance) by Julie Leto Read Free Book Online

not attracted,” Anne said. “If he was, he would’ve thanked me properly.”
    Flowers. Chocolate. She didn’t need Godiva—a Hershey bar would have sufficed.
    “What did you expect him to do?” Shane asked. “Sweep you up into a sexy kiss, maybe do you against the wall while his dog ran around, waiting to pee?”
    “You’re so crude,” Anne shoved two skeins of amethyst and plum-colored yarns into Shane’s arms. “I didn’t expect anything from him, okay? He’s very nice, but stop trying to set us up. If the magic hasn’t happened by now, it’s not going to.”
    “Is that what you’re waiting for? Magic?”
    “Why not?”
    Shane shrugged, raising her yarn-holding hands in surrender to Anne’s rather over-emotional challenge. “No, no. I am a total, one-hundred percent believer in magic. It just seems like there’s already been a lot of the stuff twinkling around you and Michael. I’m not exactly sure how much more you could possibly want.”
    “Are we going back to the
my standards are too high
argument again?”
    Shane dropped the yarn into a basket. “What do you think?”
    Anne beelined to the aisle that held an assortment of knitting needles, not because the idea of stabbing Shane through the eye with one right about now didn’t have its appeal, but because she wanted to finish this trip quickly and get on to the drinking part of the evening.
    Though her mother had taught her to knit back in junior high, she’d only recently rediscovered the hobby thanks to the cold Albany winter nights. When a couple of friends had shown interest in taking up the craft, too, they’d moved to a neighborhood bar where they sipped wine and created hats, scarves and squares for afghans. More often than not, the wine took center stage and they became a drinking club with a knitting problem rather than the other way around. Anne had been looking forward to bringing Shane along for the fun, but the evening was going to be a bust if her friend insisted on talking about Michael all night long.
    “Look, can we stop talking about Michael, please? He’s not interested. I don’t know what magic you’re talking about, but I certainly haven’t seen any evidence.”
    “Number one,” Shane said, hardly taking a breath before she launched into her counterattack. “You happen to go to a concert with me, and we run into a cute Jewish boy named Michael, who I haven’t seen in years, but just so happens to be at the very same concert.”
    “Coincidence,” Anne snapped.
    “Hm,” Shane hummed. “Magical coincidence. Number two—”
    Anne speared her friend with a warning look, but Shane continued, wholly unfazed.
    “—Of all the apartment buildings in the city, Michael not only moves into the one you live in, but he happens to be in the act of transferring his worldly possessions into the building at precisely the same moment that you are walking by. And number three—”
    “Please don’t tell me that his forgetting his keys is magic, too?” Anne begged.
    “Well,” Shane said, “Michael is practically famous for his organization and neatness. His friends used to give him a hard time about it. What are the chances that a guy with OCD tendencies would forget his apartment keys at the office?”
    Anne thought back to the state of Mike’s apartment after he’d spent the day moving in. Now that Shane mentioned it, he did seem to have the boxes color coded and stacked in neat rows against the door. The carpets had been newly vacuumed, as if he’d taken the time to give the apartment a quick cleaning before he set up his stuff. While this was something Anne’s mother might do, it wasn’t exactly expected behavior for a guy moving in to his new bachelor pad.
    “Maybe he’s changed.”
    “No guy changes that drastically unless he’s had a head injury, and Michael looked perfectly healthy last time I saw him. Except for the cold. Anyway, magic may not be at play in the most obvious way, but it is here and