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“I was coming out to pour myself a glass of scotch,” she says. “And to have something small to eat. I bought some food today since your fridge was getting pretty bare. If you open that jar of pickles, I’ll make up for my mess by making you a great snack. You look like you could use a drink too.”
No, I should say.Goodnight. See you in the daylight when I’m not a minute from jacking off to thoughts of you.
“Scotch sounds great,” I say instead. The wrong choice, but hell if I know what I’m doing anymore. “I’ll put on some clothes. And maybe”—I gesture at her general self—“you should too.”
“Right. Yeah.” Her cheeks flame red, and she ducks her head, being painfully cute in her embarrassment.
We disappear into our respective bedrooms, where I aggressively shove on sweats and a T-shirt, practically tearing a hole in the cotton. A few deep breaths later, I emerge from my room one hundred percent in control.
Jazz tunes croon from Jolene’s Bluetooth speaker. She’s tucked into the corner of the couch, also wearing sweatpants, but her shirt is still a problem. She’s not wearing her hides-nothing tank top. She swapped that torture device for the larger green leprechaun shirt I bought her, and a blanket of warmth cocoons my chest.
“Guess this is normal for you,” I say as I sit on my love seat, facing her. “Getting home late, being wired for a while.” I lift the tumbler of scotch she poured for me and take an appreciative sip.
“Nature of the job.” Using her foot, she nudges the jar of pickles toward me on the coffee table. “If you want that snack, I need you to open this.”
I lift my scotch on the rocks. “After you poured me this complicated drink? I’m surprised you have the energy.”
“Watch the sarcasm, Bower,” she says. “I know where you sleep.”
“You mean in this slum that used to resemble a clean home?”
Her lips twitch. “If you wake up with a mustache and horns doodled on your face with permanent marker, I swear it wasn’t me.”
“Do that, Daniels, and you’ll be out of the running for Roommate of the Year.”
“If your only other roommate has been Jake, pretty sure I win anyway.”
I smile into my drink. “He has a father complex. Always ragging on me to take better care of myself.”
“You should, you know.”
“I should what?” Placing my glass down, I grab the pickle jar and muscle the top open. I hold it out to Jo, but her attention is on my arm.
“Take better care of yourself,” she says, delayed, like her mind was elsewhere. She blinks and takes the pickles. “Work less. I’m assuming there’s hardly any food here because you haven’t had time to cook or shop. I hear how early you leave in the morning. Townsfolk have mentioned how late you work. If you’re not careful, you’ll burn yourself out.”
Or I’ll work less and won’t be tired enough to pass out without dreaming of Jo. “I miss having the time to cook, but I love what I do—the physical aspect and helping people improve their homes. Townsfolk should mind their own business.”
“Tell me about it,” she mutters, heading for the kitchen. “Every five minutes, someone’s mentioning Jake to me—how much he misses me or how badly they feel about those ridiculous rumors from eons ago.”
She sets up a cutting board and knife, grabs mayo, sundried tomatoes, and prosciutto from the fridge. She starts cutting the pickles and swaying to her jazz tunes, like she didn’t just say something shocking. Becausehell. If she thinks those cheating rumors are ridiculous, she might suspect I’m the cause of them.
“You know Jake didn’t cheat on you?” I ask tentatively, watching her from the couch.
“Of course Jake didn’t cheat on me. This gossip-hungry town turned a kindness he did into a reality show.”
“Then why’d you break up with him?” I’m relieved she doesn’t suspect my involvement, but I’m seriously in the dark.
Her back is to me. Still, there’s no missing the tension in her body as she pauses mid-slice of a pickle. “I realized some stuff.”
“What stuff?” I plant my elbows on my thighs and tip my body forward. I was positive she broke up with Jake because of the rumors I spread.I’mthe catalyst that shattered their love.
Nothing else made sense at the time.
She finishes her precise pickle cutting and starts on the sundried tomatoes. Without answering me, she builds tiny stacks, placing the pickle rounds on the outsides, with mayo and tomatoes and prosciutto stacked in between.
Finally, she sighs. “I really thought Jake was what I wanted. Or, more to the point, Iwantedto want him. To love him and slot into that easy life, but it was a safe relationship when the rest of my life was up in the air. We both only loved the idea of each other.”
“Jake’s love was real.”
