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“Honestly, I don’t mind. The couch is pretty good. I can’t have my husband sleeping on the couch on our first night as a married couple.” I wink and grin.
With a defeated sigh, he nodded. “Okay. I’ll take the bed, but only until we can find a better solution. This way?”
“It’s the room on the left. Let me just grab something to sleep in and I’ll be out of your hair.” As I made my way to the narrow hallway, I brushed past him, goosebumps erupting on my skin where we touched and my breath catching in my throat. My lips ached with the memory of our kiss.
I shook my head and looked at my feet as I passed. I couldn’t do that to him. I had zero intention of pushing or encouraging my new roommate to be physical with me. Just because I found him attractive didn’t mean he felt the same about me. Besides, he’d had a girlfriend back home. There was no reason to believe he was anything other than straight. Besides the way that kiss had felt, of course.
I opened dresser drawers and pulled out sweatpants and a tank top before spinning around to find Soren standing there staring at me.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Hey, listen. If this business partnership—and this marriage—are going to work out, we have to be honest with each other, right?” When he nodded, I kept talking. “Okay then. I’ll let you know if it’s not working out for me. And you do the same.”
“Of course,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
When I brushed past him again to leave the room, butterflies coursed through me. Damn it, stop crushing on the straight guy, I told myself. Not good.
I ducked into the bathroom to get ready for bed and by the time I emerged, Soren had shut himself in my bedroom for the night. I shuffled down the hall and grabbed a light gray flannel out of the basket of blankets I kept next to the couch before snuggling up on the couch and falling asleep.
I woke the next morning to the scent of coffee in the air and the crackling sounds of bacon sizzling in a pan. When I woke, I noticed there was a second blanket covering me, a quilt my grandma made when I was a teenager. As I stirred, I groaned and stretched my arms out, yawning widely.
A moment later, Soren popped his head in the room from the kitchen. “You’re awake.”
I glanced at the time on my phone. It was only a few minutes until seven. “What’s got you in the kitchen so early this morning?”
He shrugged. “I thought I’d make you some breakfast before you go to work. After all, what else are husbands for?”
I couldn’t stop the grin from spreading on my face. “You’re so right.”
I got up and set the table in the kitchen nook for breakfast, putting out plates, cutlery, and pouring us both mugs of coffee. The table in the nook was against a window and bright sunlight streamed into the room as we ate. It felt surprisingly peaceful and domestic and I found myself thinking that I could get used to it.
“Thanks for the extra blanket, by the way,” I said as I finished setting the table.
Soren’s cheeks turned slightly pink. “You looked cold,” he mumbled, not making eye contact. “Hand me the plates.”
A couple of minutes later, as soon as he sat down, he cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Is that a bad thing? Should I be scared?” I scooped up some scrambled eggs onto my fork and took a bite, nearly moaning when I did. I didn’t know what he’d done to them, but they were the most heavenly scrambled eggs I’d ever had in my life.
He laughed and took a bite of crispy bacon. When he’d finished chewing and swallowing, he shook his head. “Not necessarily. I was thinking about how we got to share the wedding with your parents last night. It was really great of them to come. Now we need to tell my folks, don’t we?”
“Hmm.” I sipped my coffee. “Good point. How would you like to handle that?”
“I want to tell them in person. They’re… they’re good people, and my brother Hugo is gay so it won’t be too hard for them to accept, but…” He put down his bacon and frowned. “Here’s the thing. They’ve only ever known me as straight. My bringing someone home and trying to convince them—surprise, I’m happily in love, married, and oh by the way, I’m not straight anymore—it might be a hard sell over the phone.”
I took another sip of my coffee and another bite of the scrambled eggs before I responded, weighing my words. “Of course we can tell your parents in person. When would you like to go visit?”
He grimaced. “I was thinking… this weekend?”
Without hesitation, I nodded. “Consider it done. I’ll have to let the team know that I won’t be around for the game this weekend, but they’ll find a substitute or something. We can reschedule the post-wedding trip to the bar they were planning. That’s not a problem. Will it be hard to get plane tickets on such short notice? Wait, you’re not expecting me to drive, are you?”
Soren laughed. “I mean, I do hate flying, but no, we don’t have to drive. I don’t know how hard tickets will be to get at this point, but I can figure it out and let you know. I have a little money saved up still and—”
I held up my hand. “No way. I’ll pay for the flights.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he said immediately.
“I have the money. There’s no reason for you to spend whatever you have saved up when I have plenty to go around.”
