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Cashel
As the whirlwind strode right out the door, the living room felt oddly empty and heavy. I wanted to say something important or at least ask Gareth if he’d realized what he’d agreed to, but that just wouldn’t come out.
“Do you know his name?” Well, it wasn’t a brilliant question but it was better than sitting there in shock looking like an idiot.
Gareth’s head cocked and his brows pulled together. “Um, no. I thought it might just be me who didn’t know his name…and I didn’t want to be rude by pointing that out.”
Shit.
Um…
“He’s a grad student. I heard him talking to one of the girls a few weeks ago.” That was all I knew, really. “They were trying to get him to go to a party or something.”
It hadn’t seemed like they’d succeeded, but he was so polite it’d been hard to tell.
“Is he into girls?” Gareth seemed to be focused on the most irrelevant details of the whole encounter, but that was better than him just sitting around in shock, so I pretended it was a good question.
“He didn’t mention being bi.” Hmm, okay, maybe it hadn’t been a bad question.
“Did he mention being gay?” Gareth frowned as he finally turned to look at me, his words echoing my thoughts. “He said he wanted to go out on a date, right?”
Glad I wasn’t the only one who was confused, I shrugged and tried to mentally go back through the conversation.
“Yeah.” He’d said a lot of interesting things but that was one of the awkward but easier to sort out parts. “With both of us.”
We didn’t do that, though.
We’dneverdone that.
We’d known each other since we were in diapers.
I didn’t think Gareth had ever thought about doing that.
“We’re really loud.” Going back to something that probably felt easy to focus on, Gareth sighed and looked at the window that was now fixed and closed. It’d been stuck open for so long we’d started to forget about it and that had obviously led to a lot of oversharing with the weird but sexy neighbor. “He didn’t seem to mind, though.”
That finally made me laugh. “He’s nosy as fuck. I think he loved how loud and clueless we were.”
But in our defense, there really had been a big-ass spider in the Christmas tree and Brady’s mother had kind of poisoned us with pot brownies.
Gareth gave the faintest smile. “Yeah.”
Telling myself that at least Gareth didn’t think the whole weird situation made it too awkward to talk to me, I forced myself to bring up the elephant in the room since I wasn’t sure he would. “Are we going on a date with the neighbor together, or are we both just dating him at the same time?”
Yep, that was definitely the best sentence I could’ve asked.
Utter silence.
I wasn’t even sure he was breathing.
He made me crazy sometimes, but thankfully, he came back to life without finding anything else to be confused and worried about. “Um, I’m not sure whathethinks is going to happen. He seemed confused about our relationship. But…but I think both of us just going out with him at the same time would work?”
He didn’t seem sure of that but I couldn’t blame him.
“Okay…but we’re actually going to do it?” Had he been listening to the whole weird conversation? “You heard why he wanted to get to know us better, right?”
“The spanking thing.” Gareth said it so casually, I still wasn’t sure he knew what he’d said. Was his brain actually working? “Yeah, it’s probably not something we should jump into with a stranger. He’s happy, though. He’s confident and he smiles.”
Sure, he wasn’t Brady’s grumpy Daddy, but that didn’t mean we should let him spank Gareth.
