Roommates Box Set #4-6

12. Sierra

12

SIERRA

At two a.m., I pushed back the covers. Experience had taught me it was best to get up for a few minutes before trying to go back to sleep. Why I woke up at this time every night was still a mystery, but I’d learned not to fight it.

Soft light filled the living room because the window in the kitchen didn’t have a blind over it. It didn’t seem to bother Drew, who was sprawled out on the sofa. He had a pillow doubled up under his face, and his lips were parted. His chest was bare, as were his legs, one of which was hanging off the side of the couch.

He looked innocent in his sleep, and young—perhaps as young as me. But there was one part of him that didn’t look boyish. His boxer briefs were on the tight side, and I saw the rather substantial outline of what was underneath. His dick rested against his thigh, and it looked big to my eyes. Not that I had very much experience with that particular male body part. But I found myself staring longer than I meant to.

Then I shook my head. I’d hate to have one of the men watch me while I was asleep. I should extend the same courtesy to Drew, especially since he’d given up his bedroom for me. I thought about covering him up with the blanket bunched up at the end of the sofa, but I didn’t want to risk waking him.

Moving quietly, I used the bathroom and got a drink of water. When I got back to my room, my bed was occupied—naturally.

Zeus looked up and wagged his tail when I shut the door behind me. Carter made me uncomfortable, but when I thought about it, Zeus was the most forward of the bunch. “Did I invite you in here?” I asked him in a whisper.

His tail wagged harder, as if to say that I hadn’t, but I should have.

He was right in the middle of the bed, so I climbed over him and then worked to free the covers. Finally getting the hint, he stood up, but as soon as I was all tucked in, he settled down by my side. His bulk was welcome even though it wasn’t too cold in here. I patted his head. “How long have you known Carter?” I asked rhetorically. “He doesn’t seem like the type to own a good boy like you.”

Zeus tilted his head so I could rub under his chin. Drowsiness set in, but I didn’t stop petting the dog. All my anxiety, both on this trip and from a lifetime, faded as I stroked his soft fur. It was nice to be able to let my guard down. That didn’t happen to me often, but it did with Zeus.

Too bad I worked such long hours. It would be nice to have a dog to come home to. My thoughts grew fuzzy as I petted the collie, and I fell back asleep.

My thoughts about Zeus were a little less charitable when he woke me at an ungodly early hour. Well, okay, according to my phone it was seven thirty, but since coming up here, I’d gotten in the habit of sleeping in.

With bleary eyes, I opened the door just enough for the dog to slip out. Someone else could take him outside.

I went through my very small assortment of clothes and decided to wear my hoodie with Drew’s sweatpants. We were in the mountains—it was okay to look baggy like an abominable snowman, right?

No one was in the living room before or after my shower, which seemed a small mercy. I hadn’t had a roommate in years. Even if I wasn’t staying with three hot-as-sin men who made me nervous on several levels, I wouldn’t have enjoyed sharing a bathroom. But at least they weren’t slobs. The bathroom had smelled like aftershave and body wash, but it wasn’t a mess.

I ventured into the kitchen, wondering where the others were. Tristan and Carter might be upstairs. Did that mean Drew was outside with Zeus? I wished I knew if any of them had had breakfast. I couldn’t cook much, but I was pretty good at scrambled eggs. However, I didn’t know if I should make them for myself or for everyone.

While waiting, I popped some bread in the toaster. Then the front door opened. A rush of cold air preceded Carter and Zeus in. The dog made a beeline for me, but Carter took his time putting his bow and arrows away, while I tried not to think about what he’d been doing with them. At least he didn’t have a dead rabbit with him or anything like that. Maybe he was a bad shot? The thought had me biting back a grin.

Zeus danced around my feet when Carter entered the kitchen. He had on a blue sweater and black jeans, and his boots made him look impossibly tall. His cheeks were flushed from the cold, and his eyes, as always, were unreadable. “He wants a treat.”

“Huh?”

“Zeus. His treats are in that top cabinet next to the fridge.”

Oh. It might help me understand Carter better if I stopped jumping every time he appeared, but that didn’t seem to be in the cards. Zeus grew frenzied as he saw where I was headed, but once I opened the cabinet, I had a problem. A large bag of dog treats was on the top shelf. Carter would have no issue reaching up there, but me? Not so much.

My heart sank as I stood on my tiptoes and still couldn’t reach the bag. It had been a long time since I’d had the simple pleasure of giving a dog a treat—well, besides the unauthorized cookie I’d given Zeus down at my cabin. Placing one hand on the counter for leverage, I jumped, reaching upward.

All I managed to do was to bump my hips into the counter and then rebound backwards—directly into a very hard, immovable mass.

Carter grasped my shoulders as I ricocheted back against him. His long, hard body had all the give of a brick wall. He was an entrepreneur—why the hell did he need all those sculpted muscles? They sure as hell didn’t provide a very soft landing place, though, I had to admit, pressing back against him made my blood pump harder.

My instinct was to slip to the side, out of his grasp, but the fridge stuck out too far on my right. Plus, he leaned forward, pressing me against the counter as he reached for the bag of treats.

His scent filled my nose and clouded my brain. It was a heady combination of the aftershave I’d noted in the bathroom, outdoorsy pine, and pure male. Even if he hadn’t pinned me in place, I would’ve been frozen by how intimate the position was.

My back was to his hard chest. My ass was smashed against his tight jeans—jeans that had a decided bulge in them. His arm stretched over my shoulder, pressing against my hair. It was almost like we’d embraced.

Then the bag passed in front of my face as he lowered it down. I took it from him, trying not to tremble, and finally, he stepped away.

Crap.

I couldn’t process my feelings, and there were a lot of them. Annoyance, yes. He could’ve waited for me to clear out of the way before grabbing the treats. But… arousal, too. He had a big, powerful body. No way had I invited it to be smashed against mine, but once it was… wow.

But Zeus was going nuts, so I gave myself a pass on analyzing the jumble of emotions. Instead, I reached in the bag and gave the dog some sort of foul-smelling jerky treat. When that disappeared in a second, I gave him another one.

“That’s probably enough.” Carter was over by the coffee maker. He held up a mug in my direction which may or may not have been an offer to get me some. Either way, I shook my head and stashed the treats on a lower shelf. Zeus watched with hopeful eyes for a few seconds more before slinking away in resignation.

Which left me alone with Carter. “Um, I was going to make scrambled eggs.”

He leaned against the counter, one eyebrow cocked upwards. “And what stopped you?”

You , I almost said. But non-engagement seemed like the best course of action with a man like him. “I didn’t know if you all had eaten.”

“Are you offering to cook?”

Did he have to sound so skeptical? “You all cooked for me yesterday. But I wasn’t sure how many eggs I should use. There’s only one carton left.”

“Make ‘em all.” With that pronouncement, he sat down at the table and took out his phone, as if waiting at a restaurant.

Did all women find conversations with him unnerving, or was it just me? I sighed as I grabbed the eggs from the fridge. Both possibilities seemed plausible. It was true that most women weren’t so skittish around men… but it was also true that he was one hell of an intimidating specimen. He had the body of a Greek god and then some.

The thought made me grin. Maybe he and Zeus should switch names—or was Zeus a Roman god? Not that it mattered.

I felt a little self-conscious at the stove with my back to Carter, but soon, I got preoccupied with my task. Since these were our last eggs, I didn’t want to screw them up. Fortunately, it seemed like I got the right mixture whipped up in the skillet, and I grew absorbed in my task.

“Eggs. Excellent,” Drew said, entering the kitchen with Tristan right behind him. I was so focused that I hadn’t heard either of them come down the stairs. “How can I help?”

“It smells great in here,” Tristan said, heading for the coffee. While his rumbled t-shirt and sweatpants made it look like he’d just rolled out of bed, Drew was dressed in jeans and a button-down flannel shirt.

“Morning,” I said, supremely grateful that it wasn’t just Carter and me in here anymore. “You could make toast,” I told Drew.

Tristan took his coffee and a bowl of fruit to the table, where he proceeded to sip the hot liquid and peel an orange. I was glad that he seemed to be preparing enough to share, since the fresh fruit wasn’t going to last too much longer, either. But there was frozen fruit and plenty of food in the pantry. It just wouldn’t be quite as tasty.

To my surprise, breakfast was a relaxed affair. I got plenty of compliments on my eggs. There was strawberry jelly—my favorite—to go with the toast, and the orange slices were surprisingly good, which was saying something coming from a California native.

While we ate, Drew entertained us with details of the phone call he’d been on upstairs. Apparently, the IT department at his company was a little lost without him.

“That’s because he’s the best,” Tristan said when I made that observation.

I finished a bite of toast. “So, you all work together now?”

“Yep,” Tristan said.

“But you’re starting your own company so that you can still work together?” They must really get along well.

“Among other reasons,” Carter said.

“We want to be our own bosses, and not work for soulless corporate overlords,” Drew said with a wink. His statement didn’t seem very wink-worthy, but he looked sexy when he did it.

“And you’ll make environmentally friendly buildings?”

“We’ll source the materials for others to make them,” Carter said. “We’re not architects.”

“Oh.” My confusion must’ve shown on my face because Tristan spoke up.

“More companies would probably spring for sustainable materials if they were easier to come by and offered at a reasonable cost. That’s where we come in. We’ve made connections with people all over the world, and in another six months, we should be able to hit the ground running.”

“Once we hire staff, get more funding, secure our clientele, and do a million other things,” Carter said. Then he shook his head at the collie who was eyeing him hopefully. When the tall man shut him down, Zeus came over to sit next to me.

“But we’ll get it done. Tristan’s on top of this,” Drew said. “Carter, too.”

“We all are,” Carter said.

“It sounds like it.”

Their dedication and assurance made me wonder about my own project. Ever since Ronnie had told me about the chance to meet Miranda on the press tour, I’d gone back and forth about whether I could possibly tell her about my screenplay. In the shower, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. But while poking at my scrambled eggs, it seemed ridiculous for a brand-new writer like me to even dream of it.

After breakfast, Drew insisted that the guys do the dishes, since I’d cooked. Carter didn’t look too happy about it, but Tristan was willing enough, except something seemed a little off about him today. I couldn’t put my finger on what, though. Maybe he’d just overslept, or gotten up on the wrong side of the bed or something.

I needed to write—it seemed more important than ever to finish the draft of my screenplay before the press tour started—but I decided a little fresh air would do me good.

There was more snow on the ground today, which made walking a little less slippery, though still not easy. The boots I’d found were ski boots, so they didn’t have the super thick tread that the men’s boots did. After ten minutes or so picking my way across the flattest ground I could, I headed back, stopping at the little sheltered alcove I’d found before.

I dusted off the fallen log, and this time, I packed some snow up against the branches that provided shelter. When I was done, I had a chair with a back. A cold chair, but it was relatively comfortable. It was pleasant enjoying the fresh air and the lovely scenery until my teeth chattered.

Later that morning, the four of us settled down at the worktable. I asked Carter if he needed his laptop back, but he waved me off as he pored over his phone.

Drew worked for about an hour before he excused himself upstairs to jump on a conference call. The men seemed to have some sort of rule that if you needed to take a phone or video call, you didn’t do it in the main room. That was nice.

Then Carter whistled for Zeus, and they disappeared outside. I tried to get back into the scene I was writing, but I kept peeking at Tristan out of the corner of my eye—and not because he was handsome. He was, but right now, his forehead was wrinkled in concentration and his mouth turned down at the corners.

“What are you working on?” I asked him to get the conversation going even though I saw he wasn’t working. For at least the last twenty minutes, he’d doodled on a notepad, which seemed unlike him.

Tristan didn’t answer for a moment, and then he pushed the pad away from him. “Nothing.”

I hesitated, not wanting to intrude. Finally, I said, “That doesn’t seem like you.”

He sighed. “It’s not—usually.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I hate waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

He closed the lid of his laptop as he looked over at me. “For anything, really. But in this case, a phone call. Or a text.”

“About?”

“A deal. An important one. We’re trying to contract with a company for a steady supply of recycled steel, which would go a long way toward getting our company off the ground. I found the source. I handled the negotiations. But now it’s all in the hands of the lawyers.”

He looked so tense, I wanted to reach over and pat his hand. “I hope it goes well.”

“Me, too.” He checked his phone even though he’d just checked it a minute ago. “I don’t like it when I’m not in control.”

He looked like a man who was used to being in control, but I couldn’t empathize very well because I didn’t know what that felt like. All my life, I’d been under the control of someone else—a director. My mother. My agent. Until I’d come out here, pretty much every decision in my life was made by someone else. So I switched subjects. “What were you drawing?”

His cheeks reddened slightly. “It’s nothing.”

“I doubt that. Can I see?”

To my surprise, he slid the notebook across to me. On it were a series of circles and squares with the letter S prominently displayed, or sometimes SF. I didn’t have a clue what they were, but I wanted to make him smile. “Star Fleet?”

His expression softened for half a second, but then his scowl returned. “When I get stuck on what I’m doing, I try sketching out logos for our company.”

I examined the sketches again. A few of them looked logo-like. “What does it stand for?”

“Sustainability First, Inc.”

“Can’t you hire a graphic designer?”

“I did. This was what they came up with.” He pushed up the sleeve of his long-sleeved t-shirt and showed me a blue emblem on his wrist. It… uh… well, the letters S and F showed through clearly. That was about the best I could say about it.

“I like it,” I lied.

“I don’t. I thought it was right, but it wasn’t.”

“Are you stuck with it?”

He finally gave me a ghost of a smile. “On my arm, yes. For the company, no.”

“Well… that’s good. And I’m sure you can get the tattoo removed if you want to.”

He nodded. “For now, I’m leaving it there to remind myself that some things shouldn’t be rushed.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

His eyebrow cocked upward. “Maybe?”

I looked away for a moment, not sure I wanted to get into it. But he’d told me what was bothering him. “I just found out that there might be a chance for me to show my screenplay to someone influential. Someone who might be able to help it get made into a movie someday.”

The smile that spread across his face erased the furrows in his brow. “That’s amazing. Who is it?”

“Someone in the industry,” I said hastily. I couldn’t exactly tell him that it was a famous director without explaining that I was in the industry, too.

“So, what’s the problem?”

“ Problems .” I emphasized the plural. “First, it’s not finished.”

“Well, you’ve got time, don’t you?”

“I guess. Before my cabin got clobbered, I’d planned to stay until the end of the month.”

“Us, too,” he said. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need. I mean, unless they find you another cabin or something once the roads are clear.”

Jeesh, what was with these guys? It was as if the three bears invited Goldilocks to stay indefinitely. “But you have work to do.”

“So do you. We can do it together—as soon as I hear back from the fucking legal team.” He checked his phone and then pushed it away, visibly trying to calm himself. “Sorry.”

“You all didn’t sign on to babysit me for your entire stay.”

He shrugged. “Good thing that’s not what we’re doing. You’re working; we’re working. What’s the other issue with showing your screenplay to the pro?”

I bit my lip for a moment as I contemplated what to say. “What if it’s not any good?”

“Isn't that what he’s supposed to tell you?”

“She.”

“Okay, she. If she’s in the industry, she should be used to having people pitch ideas to her, right? I’m sure she’s gotten good ones and bad ones.”

“What if she thinks mine’s the latter?”

“She’d probably tar and feather you,” Tristan said with a straight face.

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help giving him a crooked smile. “I think they only do that to people with misguided logo drafts on their wrist.”

He laughed. “Touché.”

The moment of humor faded and worry returned. “She doesn’t even know me—why would she want to read my screenplay?” Miranda Morales Sanchez definitely didn’t seem like the type to care about action movies, and even if she did, my role in Thrill of the Chase wasn’t bound to impress an important director like her.

“Then introduce yourself first,” Tristan said.

“I was planning to. I wasn’t just going to go up and shove my script in her face. I mean, if I’m brave enough.”

“No, introduce yourself ahead of time. Contact her and tell her about yourself. Maybe give her your best elevator pitch. Trust me when I say that generating hype is half the battle in most endeavors.”

I frowned as I thought it over. Maybe there was a way to contact Miranda before the press tour. Just the thought of it made me nervous, but Tristan was right. It was better than trying to get up the nerve to walk up to her out of the blue.

My agent could probably get Miranda’s contact information, and if she couldn’t, Ronnie might be able to get Aiden to find it. “Maybe.” A smile spread across my lips. “Maybe I could do that.”

“You should. And you’re being all hush-hush about who this person is, but while you’re at it, could you ask if she designs logos?”

“Will do.”

Tristan answered my smile with one of his own.