She laughed, long and loud and genuinely happy. This whole thing was kind of hysterical. "I..." Hmm. Could she? Nope, she wasn't quite to that point yet. The lesser variation would just have to do, even if it did make her feel like she was in junior high again. "...like you a lot, too." She gave him a nudge back. This was the last thing she'd expected when she'd met him. Or even the last thing she'd expected after they became friends, which was a much better standard for starting any relationship. What kind of hooker fell in love with the cop that busted her? There was something fundamentally wrong with that. Yet she wouldn't have it any other way.
"Course, that should have been pretty damn obvious. You think I give just any creep off the street the key to my apartment?" They were going about this about as ass backwards as possible. She'd seen romantic comedies. She knew, just like everyone else in the world, the way these things were supposed to go. How as it that they'd managed to jumble up all the steps?