Josh put a hand out to me, his face stern. I didn’t take it.
“This isn’t open for negotiation. Let’s go,” he said, unblinking. I didn’t budge. “Tyler is not going to be okay with this.”
“The next time he calls, hand me your phone.” “What?” Was he serious?
“Any man who would allow his girl to be unprotected in this situation is either uninformed or an asshole. Which one is it?”
Damn, he was good.
I pressed my mouth into a line. “He’s seven thousand miles away. He doesn’t need to worry about something he can’t do anything about.”
That’s how you managed military relationships—you kept the bad things from each other. He didn’t tell me when an IED went off under a Humvee or when a suicide bomb detonated at a checkpoint, and I didn’t tell him when a creeper was coming into my yard at night to have a beer and a smoke. We kept our conversations light and fun, and that was the rule. Otherwise you lost your mind.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “I’m not leaving you alone here. So you have a few choices. Call Sloan, tell her what’s going on, and stay over there until Tyler comes home. Get a hotel. Or let me sleep here, in the guest room.” He looked at me, stone-cold serious. “This is no different than having a roommate. There’s nothing inappropriate about it. You can’t be here by yourself with this shit going on.”
I let out a resigned sigh. Of course he was right. And honestly, I was pretty scared. The first time I was moderately bothered but just figured it was a onetime deal. But this morning really freaked me out. I’d been super jumpy when Josh left on his date and I was alone in the house again. I’d been stress cleaning all day.
I couldn’t go to Sloan’s. A pipe had burst in her guest room last week and the bed was still dismantled. I wasn’t sleeping on a sofa and I wasn’t paying for a hotel. Fuck that.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Do I have to put on a bra? Because if I have to put on a bra, I’m not going.” I blinked at him matter-of-factly. I also wasn’t taking the curlers out, for reasons already covered.
My comment earned me a break in the serious expression. I let him pull me from the sofa and I made him wait while I popped two more Motrin for the road. I was on day eleven of my period and there was no sign of it letting up, but at least it had finally downgraded from ultras to regulars.
I tried to see the silver panty liner whenever I could.
* * *
Josh’s apartment was a studio full of boxes. He had a mattress on the floor with a sleeping bag for a blanket and a single lamp next to it that constituted all the furniture in the room. It smelled faintly like him: clean cedar.
He was opening boxes labeled “bedroom” while I waited, leaning against the kitchen counter.
“You still haven’t done much unpacking,” I said, looking around. I peeked into a cabinet by the microwave and found it empty.
He closed the lid to the box he was in and ripped open the next one. “I work forty-eight-hour shifts and then I go to your place and build stairs for tiny dogs. I haven’t exactly had time.”
He pulled out a black metal box and unlocked it. He reached in and came out with a small hand cannon.
“Wow. That’s a big gun.”
“You know, you’re not the first woman to tell me that.” He smirked, shaking out a few bullets from a box and loading it while I watched.
Goddamn it was sexy.
My phone pinged.
Sloan: Is Josh still there?
I thumbed in a reply.
Kristen: Sloan, some serious alpha male shit is going on right now. I need to focus.
Sloan: What are you talking about?
Kristen: He’s pulled out his gun and he’s showing it to me. It’s HUGE. I’ll call you tomorrow.
I turned off my ringer, imagining the horrified look on Sloan’s face and grinning to myself.
I looked back at Josh. “Brandon should come help you unpack.”
He put the gun back into the box. “It’s fine. It’s just clothes. I’ll get to it eventually. Celeste took everything in the house.” He stood up.
“You let her?” I asked, sliding open a drawer by the sink. A single plastic fork and two ketchup packets sat inside. “This place is depressing.” No wonder he hung out after he was done working in the garage.
“I didn’t feel right leaving her with an empty house. She stuck me with some bills that I would have liked to leave her too,” he said, looking around the room like he only now realized how the place must look. “She’s dating a guy named Brad.”
I scoffed. “Brad? I bet he wears pink cargo shorts and smells like Axe body spray.”
He laughed and leaned against the counter across from me, crossing his legs at the ankles.
I cleared my throat. “My futon really sucks. Are you sure you want to do this?”
Not that I wasn’t appreciative of the gesture. I would feel better having him there.
If Tyler wasn’t moving in, someone like Josh would be the perfect roommate. He had a stable job. He was gone half the week, so I’d still have alone time, and he was really cool to hang out with.
The attraction I had to him was a major issue. I couldn’t live long-term with a guy I’d want to hook up with—because I probably would. It would just be way too convenient. But I’d always liked the idea of a male roommate. I’d never had the option because I’d lived with Sloan right out of high school, which was great. But in another universe, I would totally have lived with a man.
He crossed his arms over his magnificent chest. “Yes, I want to do this.
If something happened to you because I didn’t, I couldn’t live with it.”
I cocked my head, my curlers shifting. “When did you stop drawing penises on stuff?”
He snorted. “What?”
“Like, how old were you when you stopped drawing penises on stuff? I was just thinking how great a guy roommate would be and I realized the only downside would be finding penises drawn in the steam on the bathroom mirror.”
His dimpled smile made me grin.
“I just drew a penis on Brandon’s truck the other day.” I laughed. “So men never outgrow it. Nice.”
He smiled at me. “Is this really what you’re standing there thinking about?”
“Welcome to my brain. Strap in and keep your arms inside the ride at all times,” I said, peering into a drawer I’d pulled open with my finger.
Inside sat a photo next to a spare set of car keys and a pen. I picked up the picture. It was framed by four sloppily painted Popsicle sticks, like a kid made it. The magnet had broken off the back and sat in the drawer. It was Josh, on his hands and knees with a boy on his back riding him like a pony. I laughed and he cleared the space between us and leaned against the counter next to me.
“My nephew, Michael. Two years ago. He gave me that for my birthday.”
My smile fell the tiniest bit. “You like kids, huh?” “Love ’em.”
He was standing just a little too close. He crossed his arms and it made
his muscles push out and press into my shoulder. God, he smelled good.
That yoga instructor messed up running him off. If she would have just shut up about tofu, he might be over there instead of here.
Her loss.
“Do you want a big family?” I asked, already guessing the answer.
“Oh yeah. I loved growing up in a big family. I want at least five myself.
I kind of thought I’d have kids by now, actually.” “Why don’t you?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t get out of the military until I was twenty-two. I wasn’t ready yet. And then I was with Celeste. She never wanted kids, but she was a lot younger than me. I thought maybe she’d change her mind as she got older, you know?”
“And she didn’t.”
He shook his head. “Nope. She was fucking pissed at me for breaking things off too. That’s why I gave her everything. It wasn’t her fault. I was the one who changed the rules. I just couldn’t stay in a relationship that was a dead end like that.”
“I see.” A dead end. “And are you going to make your wife give you all these kids you want, or are you going to adopt some of them?”
“Nah, I want them the old-fashioned way.”
A disappointment I had no right feeling dropped into my stomach.
He looked at me with those deep-brown eyes. “How about you? Big family?”
I shook my head, looking away from him. “I’m an only child.” “But do you like kids? Wanna have them?”
I handed him back his photo, hoping he couldn’t see the crack in my heart through my eyes. “Yeah. I do.”
It wasn’t a lie.
It also wasn’t ever going to happen.
