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I don’t know why, but my heart freezes in my chest, and every ounce of oxygen in my lungs vacates my body as Dean and I stop dead in our tracks, hands on boobs and cocks, as if we’re a couple of teenagers caught in the act by our parents, and lift our heads to see Niles standing in the doorway looking absolutely pissed.
“I can explain,” Dean and I say in unison, and really we can. But depending on how Niles receives it, it may fall on deaf ears. I’m praying as I remove my hand from Dean’s quickly deflating bulge and his falls away from my breast that I didn’t read Niles wrong, both in body language and the spoken word. I thought he’d been pretty clear, but I’m doubting everything now.
“Explain what?” Niles rebuts. “Because this all looks pretty self-explanatory to me.”
“Dude,” Dean interjects, “she said you were down.”
“Down? With this?” Niles waves a hand at us. “Certainly not. Why would I be down with any of this?”
Okay, so I did, somehow, massively misread this entire situation. Inside, I panic, thinking back to the words exchanged between us and wondering how I could have possibly gotten it so damn wrong. I was sure…
“I thought we had an agreement,” Niles continues. “Rules.”
Now it’s Dean’s turn to get upset, and while he does that, I slide down off the counter and sidestep out of the way in case any items in the room that aren’t bolted down go flying. Or, as men tend to do when they’re flexing their muscles at one another, they decide to throw down with each other. The last thing I want to do is get caught between a fury of flying fists.
“Rules? Ha! You broke those rules already, my friend.”
“I did?” Niles challenges. “You did it first. Why should I feel sorry about it?”
“Exactly. And why should I?”
“Because I was just evening the playing field,” Niles argues.
I’m totally lost. Trying to decode why men are fighting is nearly impossible, and I stopped trying to win that battle back in high school. I assume they’re talking about me, in some roundabout way, but if I bet money on it, I’m certain I’d be wrong.
“What do you want me to say, I’m sorry?” Dean throws his hands up in the air. “Fine, I’m sorry.”
Niles stands there, silently, his jaw working as he glares daggers at his roommate, and then he says, quite contrarily, “Say it like you mean it.”
I almost belt out a laugh. Maybe because I can see the humor glinting in his green eyes, even in the dark, or because I sense the change in the atmosphere, the tension suddenly lifting from the room, but I don’t feel like there’s any danger anymore. In a flash, it seems the men have reached some kind of agreement, a new accord perhaps, but they’re certainly over whatever anger they’d felt a moment ago.
“I’m sorry,” Dean repeats grudgingly. “I got in over my head.”
Niles’ gaze drifts to me, where I’m standing behind and to the right of Dean’s shoulder, just within Dean’s view. “Yeah, that’s easy to do with this one.”
My cheeks flush, feeling the compliment, or what I assume was intended as one, all the way down to my toes. It’s difficult not to feel cherished when he looks at me like that, which is crazy, since I’ve hardly known him long.
“Well…” Dean turns sideways, opening his view to me while still maintaining his line of sight with Niles. He combs his fingers through his hair, sighs, and says, “Shane won’t be happy.”
“Shane can get over it.”
“What is Shane getting over?” The voice comes from behind Niles, and a moment later, the man in questions appears from around the corner. His blue eyes are heavy lidded as he struggles to shake off sleep, his dark hair tousled, as if he’s spent the last couple of hours tossing and turning. I wonder if he’s been as high strung as me, but then he’s the last one down here, probably responding to some noise or other.
Or the call of food, like I had.
Which reminds me, I haven’t eaten yet. Those few bites of rice weren’t enough to fill me up, but I have more pressing matters to worry about right now, and my preoccupation is enough to stave off the worst of the hunger a while longer.
“Dean was trying to seal the deal with Elle,” Niles informs him, and the hint of a smile tells me he thinks he’s just thrown his roommate under the bus.
Dean isn’t about to let that happen. “Nothing you haven’t already done.”
“Wait, both of you have been dipping your hands in the cookie jar behind my back?”
Shane sounds indignant, but no one is more indignant than me. “Wait a second here,” I interject. “I’m not some damn cookie jar.”
“We’re not saying you are, honey,” Dean says, and my temper flares.
“Honey?” I’m no one’s “honey.”
