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“Why? We’re already here?” I look around, not sure what he saw that made him change his mind.
“Frankie, you don’t have a couch. Or a TV.”
Oh.
“I don’t have people over much.”
“Much? Or ever? You don’t even have a table. Where do you eat?”
“Um, at my desk.” He raises an eyebrow at my answer. “Okay, fine. But look—” I scurry over and grab the screen, folding it up against the wall, revealing my unmade bed and the laundry haphazardly strewn on the floor around it. “Er. Hang on.”
My arms are full of clothes when a heavy hand lands on my shoulder. “Frankie, it’s fine.”
I straighten, blowing a piece of hair out of my face. “Give me five minutes?”
“Sure. I’m going to order the beef and broccoli. What do you want?” He speaks quietly and holds out his phone so I can see the menu.
“Sweet and sour pork. Oh, and an egg roll, please.”
He turns away, tapping at his screen, and I frantically shove the clothes I’m holding into the gap with the others.
Five minutes later, my bed is clear and I have my third monitor angled to face it. It’s not a couch, but it’s close. I unearthed the TV trays Grady bought me when he helped me move in and set two up in front of the bed. Julian watched me fly around the space from his spot, leaning against the front door, a smile flitting across his face.
“See, problem solved.” I’m slightly out of breath but grin at him as he pushes off to cross the space. I’m hyper aware of the sweat trickling down the back of my neck as he comes closer, head cocked, eyebrows drawn. “What?”
Julian stops a few feet away and looks around before he speaks. “I’ve just never seen you so…at ease. It’s weird.”
I open my mouth to protest, but he speaks before I can say anything.
“Not in a bad way, I promise.”
A piece of hair falls in my eyes, and I shove it back before changing my mind and twisting my hair into a messy bun on top of my head, securing it with the hair band I rescued from the unmade bed. “I’m not always a stress-ball. Just, you know, at work. Or with strangers. Or—”
“Most of the time,” he interrupts me. “But not now, huh?”
Something heavy hangs in the air between us until Julian clears his throat and speaks. “So, food should be here in twenty minutes. Do you want to pick a movie while we wait?”
I sit down on my bed, pulling my legs underneath me. “Before you say no, hear me out.” I pat the bed beside me and wait.
Julian pulls my chair next to the bed, sitting in it and swinging to face me. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“Have you ever seen Scream?”
Julian closes his eyes and sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Dammit. I set myself up for this, didn’t I?”
I point finger guns at him when he opens one eye to peek my way. “You know it, Bullwinkle.”
That startles a laugh out of him. “Is that nickname really going to stick?”
I wonder for a second if he knows the double reference. Probably not. Something tells me Julian doesn’t watch Supernatural. I grin and shrug. “Don’t you like it?”
With a laugh, he pounces, the chair rolling backward as he lands on the bed beside me. He pins me to the mattress, poking at my sides relentlessly. For a second, I hold still, the shock of it freezing me in place, but then he hits a particularly ticklish spot, and I shriek with laughter, wriggling beneath him in an attempt to get away. Not that it’s possible.
The zings shooting up and down my body with his touch must be short-circuiting my brain. I’m not an affectionate person. As Manesh would say, “not a hugger,” but the sheer pleasure of being touched, and touching someone in return, has me melting and warm inside, even as I squirm and giggle, poking Julian back.
He’s got one of my wrists clamped in his huge hand, but he’s hindered by the fact that he’s perched sideways on the bed and trying not to crush me beneath him. I, however, have no qualms about being able to do any damage to him, so I don’t hold back. One of my legs is tangled under his, and I snake my free hand past it to squeeze his thigh just above his knee.
Julian yelps and kicks out, toppling backward on my bed. Laughing, I wrench my wrist free and attack his thigh again while he laughs and begs for mercy.
