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“What part of ‘direct communicator’ is it to tell me you’ll stay out of my way after you move in?” she flashed straight back. “If that’s not what you wanted to do? Or to say that you’re fine with me going out with other people, because you’re just my tenant? I have another date tomorrow, by the way. His name is George Vandergriff, and he’s a banker from Kalispell. I’m one and done on the blue-collar guys, I guess, which should probably give you even more pause, except that you feel weirdly in-between. It may be because you don’t chew, or that you’re so clearly bright, I can’t tell. George is coming to pick me up here, because I figured why not? As I’ve got you here, and you’re obviously willing to do that brother thing and be my bodyguard.”
“For the record,” he said, “I’ve got no interest in doing any ‘brother’ thing with you. Or in you introducing me to your dates. And I’m clearlybright?Like that’s a surprise? And I don’t chew? I do chew! I have excellent table manners. Well, I have acceptable table manners.”
“Tobacco,” she said. “You haven’t noticed that faded ring on your guys’ back pockets? Or all the spitting? It’s pretty hard to overlook. So you don’t even want to be friends? It really is just a tenant thing? I …”
“I want to sleep with you!” It may have come out as a bit of a roar.
Did she step back? Of course not. “Well,” she said, “how am I supposed to know that?”
“How are you supposed to …” His hand was in his hair now. That was how confused he was. “Because you asked me if you should put on scent, and I said yes?”
“That’s not exactly direct communication,” she said. “I’m just pointing out, because you said you were a ‘bloody direct communicator.’ Just now. That’s what you said.”
“When a man,” he said, through his teeth, “tells you he wants to have a glass of wine on the couch in front of the fire with you, and that, yes, you should put on your pretty scent so he can smell it on you, you can take it as read that he wants to have sex with you.”
“You didn’t say that,” she said. “About the glass of wine.Isaid that.”
He blinked at that. “You did?”
“Yes. I did.”
She had her arms crossed and was glaring at him, and suddenly, he grinned. “Did you want to have sex withme,then?” he asked. “As we’re communicating directly?”
“Yes,” she said. “No. Maybe. Well, probably.”
“Well,” he said, “that’s conclusive.”
She laughed, because shewasQuinn, and he grinned some more. “Maybe we should sit on the couch,” he said, “and have that glass of wine. And try to work out what the answer might be.”
“That doesn’t mean I’ll do it,” she said.
“No worries,” he said. “I think I’ve sussed that out by now.”
* * *
“This is so nothow sex scenes go in romance novels,” she told him, when she was kneeling in front of the wood stove, its delicious heat so welcoming, taking a sip of the wine—full of tannins and a sort of plum-and-blackberries flavor, and definitely worth $32.99 and 93 points in somebody’s wine newsletter—and Beckett was putting marshmallows on straightened-out wire coat hangers like he hadn’t just learned to do it tonight, “because,” he’d said, “the man’s supposed to do things that involve fire. Your grasp of sexual politics is rubbish.”
Which was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard, so she’d told him so, and that, “Besides, it’s my house. And if we’re going by your ridiculous rules, putting marshmallows on coat hangers is probably a cooking function, which is traditionally a woman’s job.”
He'd laughed. “Probably. But then—barbecue. Open flame may be different.”
“Gas stoves,” she’d shot straight back, which had made him laugh again and say, “I’ll put them on the stick, we’ll each roast our own, and I’ll do the washing-up. How does that sound?”
“I can accept that,” she’d answered, so, yes, he was putting marshmallows on sticks—two apiece, because, he’d said, “Indulgences should be indulgent”—handing her hers, and saying, “Time to tell me why you’ve been so odd this week.”
“I have not been odd,” she said, placing her double marshmallows carefully in the exact right spot above the flames for optimum toasting. She considered redirecting his own marshmallow placement, but decided her mom wouldn’t approve. “I’ve been completely normal. I told you, it was a roommate situation! Also, how was I supposed to know you minded about the dating thing?”
“Maybe the way I chucked the bloke out?” His marshmallows caught on fire, as anybody could have predicted, and he jerked them out, blew on the flames, and swore.
“You’re supposed to hold it a little bit away,” she said, “and toast it gently, so it melts and turns brown.” Fail on the femininity front, but oh, well.
“Cheers,” he said. “I’m gathering that.” Then shrugged, swiped the blackened mess onto a graham cracker, added a hefty square of chocolate, and bit in.
“Also,” she said, “you put the graham cracker on both sides.”
“When I want to eat extra wallboard,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “I will.”
“Now you’re insulting graham crackers,” she said, handing him a napkin. “You’ve also insulted American barbecue tonight, and probably American pizza.”
