AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Not like that,” he said with a soft chuckle. “Jem, me, Kota, and Lars share the place. You haven’t seen him around the building? He’s been there a few weeks now, I guess. Took Taylor’s place.”
I felt like an idiot for jumping to conclusions because I’d known there were a bunch of them who shared that apartment.
Jem lives next door.
I couldn’t believe my luck. Even if I couldn’t track Jem down, I could wait up for him.
Chris gave me his number before grabbing his backpack and leaving the theater. I quickly pulled my own stuff together and texted Jem.
Me: It’s Dawson. Where are you?
When I didn’t get a response after twenty minutes, I went on home and decided to wait for him there. After showering and throwing on pajama pants and an old hoodie, I propped open my apartment door while I made something to eat and poured a glass of wine.
The waiting was impossible. I itched with worry and frustration. Why did I care this much about him and whatever the hell his family had going on? I barely knew him. And how selfish was I for even thinking he’d accept my offer of comfort or a listening ear when he got home? For all I knew, he had someone else. His sister or one of his roommates. But what if his sister was the one at the hospital?
I paced back and forth until I’d talked myself into leaving him alone. I went to close the door to my apartment and lock up for the night, and that’s when I saw him trudging up the stairs to our landing. He looked exhausted and alone. I froze in a moment of indecision. Every fiber of my being wanted to go to him, wrap him up in my arms and tell him how sorry I was and that I would be whatever he needed, even if just for one night.
But the words piled up behind my teeth.
Jem looked up and saw me standing there. His eyes widened in surprise. Clearly, I hadn’t been the only one oblivious to our shared address.
Our eyes locked for a long breath before his face crumpled. There wasn’t a word spoken; we both simply moved toward the other in the span of the next breath until his nose was pressed into the side of my neck and my arms tightened around his back.
I let out a breath and squeezed my eyes closed to inhale the familiar city scent of him.
For now, it was enough.
7
JEM
How was he even here? Was he real? I’d spent the ride home from the hospital wishing for the impossible, for someone to be there for me without any agenda other than to comfort me after a long, hard day.
And if it could be the man who occupied my deepest fantasies… well, that would be a bonus.
So when I walked up the last step to my apartment landing and saw Dawson Priest standing in the open doorway of the apartment next door to mine… I stared at him in disbelief. Part of me thought my desperate soul had conjured up a hallucination of some kind, but I decided very quickly it didn’t matter. Dawson was here, and I needed him. For some reason, I felt deep in my bones that I could trust him. And since I was too tired to remember all the reasons he was on my shit list, he looked like the best thing to ever happen to me.
When I walked into his strong arms, the relief of it overwhelmed me, and the tears I’d been holding back all evening finally came. My sister had had some cramping and dehydration caused by her morning sickness, but otherwise, she was fine. The baby was fine. In fact, they were doing better than ever, since the news that Lina’s doctor had sent her to the hospital for observation had finally gotten Garret out of hiding. He’d shown up at the hospital in a flurry of remorse, and I’d left her in the loving hands of her dumbass but committed boyfriend, who was now, finally, her fiancé.
“You live here?” I asked stupidly through my tears. My voice was muffled against the warm skin of his throat. He smelled clean and delicious, like bath soap and red wine. My new favorite scent.
The low rumble of a laugh vibrated through his chest. “I do. Didn’t know we were neighbors until tonight.”
“I…” I didn’t know what to say. Part of me wanted to tell him about my sister, about the scare we’d had with her pregnancy. But part of me wanted to put the whole thing behind me and simply beg him not to let go of me.
His head turned just enough to brush his lips against the side of my head. “I’m sorry about earlier. So fucking sorry. I didn’t mean to say being with you was a mistake. I only meant to say we shouldn’t have done it at work. I know now isn’t the time to discuss it, but—”
