The Sexiest Man Alive by Juliet Rosetti Page A

pride in her flat. A fresh paint smell lingered in the air, and as she turned on the lights, the living room sprang to life, looking warm and inviting. The Cézanne-style oil painting she’d bought for a few dollars from a Marquette art student set the tone for the room: jade greens, terra cottas, and cool blues that were reflected in the room’s furniture and accents.
    The only jarring note in her lovingly arranged realm was the blaze orange ice chest in the middle of her fake Persian carpet. Johnny immediately made a beeline for the cooler. A civilized person, Mazie reflected—in other words, a
woman
—would have noticed your throw pillows, your paintings, your color scheme. A guy, on the other hand, didn’t even see your colors; he saw your cooler.
    Not that she stooped to gender stereotyping.
    “Hey,” Johnny said, sounding excited as he opened the cooler. “Is this bass?”
    “I guess so,” Mazie said.
    “
Black
bass?”
    “Uh-huh.” What was it about men that made them want to stick a hook in every creature that swam, flew, or crawled?
    He whistled as he hefted the fish in his hands. “They’re beauts, Mazie—they must have gone five, six pounds. Where’d you catch them?”
    “At the lagoon in the park,” she explained. “I tied a shoestring to a ruler and used peanutbutter crackers for bait.”
    “Really?” His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. In high school, she remembered, Johnny’s hair had been dark blond and shoulder-length—his nickname had been Bon Jovi—but now that he was in his early thirties, it had dulled to a sandy shade, with a couple of streaks of gray. He broke into a grin as he realized that Mazie was pulling his leg. “Okay—do a number on the dumb country rube. But you seriously need to freeze these beauties, Maze. Unless—you weren’t planning to fry them up tonight, were you?”
    He sounded so hopeful, so hungry, and so pathetic that Mazie changed her mind about tossing the whole fishy mess into the garbage. She led him into her kitchen, handed him a dish towel to wrap around his waist, and put him to work rinsing off the fish. It’d been a while since she’d prepared fish. How had her mother done it?
    Pat the washed fillets dry with paper towels—she made Johnny handle that. Whisk a couple of eggs, then slosh the fillets through the eggs. She didn’t have cornmeal but thought flour would do, so she dredged the egg-soaked fillets in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Rummaging through her stove drawer, she found the heavy cast-iron skillet her grandmother had given her. Glug in some olive oil, then turn the heat to medium-high.
    Johnny discovered a package of frozen French fries tucked into the bottom of the cooler; He dumped them onto a cookie sheet and chucked the whole thing into the oven.
    “Set it to four twenty-five,” Mazie said. “If you actually know how to turn on an oven.” She was fairly certain Ben Labeck didn’t.
    “Yes, ma’am, me and stoves get along fine. I’ve been cooking for myself since I got divorced.”
    How weird to have Johnny Hoolihan brushing up alongside her in the galley-size room instead of Labeck, Mazie thought; to feel the electric bristle of his arm hair, smell his aftershave, have his wide shoulders taking up too much room. She kept stealing sideways glances at him. His biceps bulged beneath a casual summer shirt with rolled sleeves, and his well-worn jeans clung very nicely to his butt.
    “Are you thirsty?” Mazie asked.
    Johnny nodded. “Dry as a desert.”
    Her fridge was an ancient, round-shouldered Amana that hummed in the key of G and felt to Mazie like a large, companionable white cat. Mazie opened it, shoved aside orange juice andmilk, and found a single bottle of beer in the back—the last of a six-pack she’d bought for Labeck back when she was still the sappy little girlfriend who waited around for him to come over. Tough luck, Fish Boy. She handed the beer and a church key to Johnny.
    “Heineken,” he