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I hadn’t even been aware Duke had a roommate.
Now ask if the roommate pardoned me for screaming in his face or even offered up his own apology for scaring me in the first place?
Yeah, that would be a big, glaring no.
Narrowing his eyes as if my very existence offended him, he pointed past me into the room and demanded, “Did you just spend the night with him?”
“Uh…”
Okay, one: was the answer truly not obvious enough that he just had to ask and make it so spoken and public and out there? I was carrying my shoes in my hands, for God’s sake. Talk about embarrassing.
But two: what was with the attitude? I hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Duke and I were consenting adults with no relationship ties to anyone else. Just because I was currently calling myself ten kinds of stupid right now for giving in to him, didn’t mean Mr. Loom here could too. So yeah…
How dare he judge?
And finally, three: how was it any of his business what I did, even if any of the above was true? This was my mistake I’d made with someone else; not him.
Pretty sure no one would believe me if I lied and answered no, no, I hadn’t just spent the entire night with Duke, I blinked at Loom, wondering why he seemed so freaking mad, and I decided to just go honest by cringing apologetically—because he was really glaring at me as if I should apologize for something.
“Er, yes?”
Not sure why I posed my reply as if it were a question, but it was morning, I hadn’t had my coffee yet, I’d just woken up after a night full of really regrettable decision-making, and now I merely wanted to go home and sulk in a hot bath with wine, but this dude was blocking my way, preventing me from my noble goals with all his accusative questions. It scrambled my brain. And thus, out came a very uncertain yes.
“How could you?” he hissed, hovering over me like pure rage personified. “Do you not realize what condition he’s in? How fragile his immune system is? Jesus God, having relations with a woman at this point could kill him.”
“I…” Well, damn.
At first—and I can’t believe I’m admitting this because it’s simply awful of me, but—I wanted to laugh and snort over the word relations. Seriously though, who used relations to describe sex? So strange.
But then the rest of his accusation soaked into the old brain cells, and this blooming mass of guilt just kind of killed all traces of humor. Had it honestly been so dangerous for Duke to be with me, though?
Great. Now I was a murderer.
“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Well, to catch you up to speed,” the ever-sunny Mr. Loom snarled, “Duke has stage four lymphoma, he’s already on hospice, and most pressing of all, he’s about to be late for a vital doctor’s appointment this morning, thanks to you.”
“Oh, shit,” I mumbled, wincing. “I had no idea. About the appointment, I mean. I knew the rest; I was at his goodbye party last night at work, and—”
“Then you should’ve known better!”
I blinked. “Well, he didn’t say anything about how dangerous it would be to—”
“And you didn’t think to ask?” Loom sniffed incredulously and gaped at me as if I were stupid.
“Well, I—I guess not,” I snapped back, finally losing my cool. “Being that he’s a grown-ass man, and I figured he could decide for himself if he’s capable of having sex or not, why would I question his competence?” I sniffed and rolled my eyes. “That’s not the number one way to give a guy performance issues or anything. And I was trying to make him feel better, not worse.”
“Did the whole cancer part not give you any kind of pause?”
“The cancer part was the only freaking reason I didn’t turn him down flat in the first place,” I yelled.
“And for your information,” he went on, ignoring my response. “He’s not a grown-ass man; he’s a damn overgrown child.”
I opened my mouth to argue back because I really wanted to argue with this jerk and put him in his place, but he made a very valid point. Duke was definitely the epitome of an overgrown child.
But still…
“Look. Do you really think that irresponsible, immature, inappropriate playboy in there is actually my type? Uh-uh. I mean, he’s a sweet enough goofball, but I would’ve told him to shove it where the sun don’t shine if he hadn’t thrown the whole I’m-dying spiel in my face to begin with. Give me one last hurrah before I go, he begged. I mean, really, how do you say no to that?”
