6. June
June
“I’m not going to murder you.” Magnus pokes me in the ribs.
“What, you read minds now, too?”
“No, but I read people. And your cards are exposed.” He shifts in his seat. “Speaking of, you play poker?”
“Texas hold ‘em?”
“Yeah.”
I shrug. “A little bit.”
"Oh man, I'd love to take you some time. The guys wouldn't know what hit them."
Our SUV finally comes to a complete stop, the doors unlocking once it’s in park.
Did he just sort of ask me on a date? In the future? I don’t do dates, or the future. As friends, maybe. But nothing more. If he’s trying to make plans, I have to keep this strictly platonic. How the hell am I going to do that when he’s out here looking like he does?
He even smells sexy, with his cedar cologne and bourbon breath.
Magnus hops out the side and holds out his hand to me. “Princess.”
I smack it away and shake my sleeping friend. “Cora, wake up, we’re here.”
She sucks in a breath and glances around wildly. “Where’s here?”
“Magnus’ place. He’s going to feed and provide us shelter.”
"You make it sound like I picked up a pair of feral cats." Magnus waits outside the door for us, his arm resting on the roof, exposing his tattooed skin.
Friends, June. You can do this.
My mind immediately goes to the gutter, thinking about stripping that t-shirt over his head and running my fingers down his chest, straight to unbutton his black jeans and revealing what he’s working with.
“Or maybe I have.” Magnus winks, reminding me about the whole reading people thing he mentioned.
Whoops.
“Wait, did someone say something about pizza?” Cora fumbles for the handle of her door, popping it open and stumbling out.
“Do you always bring home strays?” I ask Magnus while climbing out after Cora.
“Not usually, it’s actually against the HOA rules.” He steadies Cora and points her toward the entrance to his house.
Rules were meant to be broken.
Magnus places his hand on my lower back, guiding me, too. “Rules were meant to be broken.”
A chill runs up my spine, both from his touch and the repetition of the exact words I spoke in my head only seconds prior to his.
“Holy shit.” Cora’s mouth drops open and she turns to Magnus. “I think we’re in the wrong house.”
He chuckles and leads us through a hallway and into a massive open area. A gigantic living room, with a couch bigger than anything I’ve ever seen, and a flat-screen to match the overall theme of go-big-or-go-home.
I notice his nervous energy, almost like he’s embarrassed, and become more in tune with that than the enormousness of his place.
“This kitchen is…” Cora runs her finger along a giant slab of granite, or marble, I can’t really tell the difference. “Any housewife’s dream.”
“Or househusband,” I add.
“House-partner.” She spins around to take it all in.
Magnus pauses next to me, his arm hovering barely against mine.
I lean into him gently and glance up at his face, all the alcohol from the night making my head spin just a bit.
Damn is he pretty, though. Like in a photoshopped kind of way.
A buzzer dings somewhere in the distance, snapping me back to reality.
“Be right back.” Magnus points to Cora. “Don’t let her touch any of the guns.”
“Guns?” I call out after him.
Cora strolls over and plops down on one of the stools tucked under the counter. She leans her head on her hand and pats the spot next to her.
I join her, tucking her wild waves behind her ears. “You’re a mess.”
She smiles a toothless grin. “I know.”
“What are we doing here, Cor?”
“Listen, J, if I wasn’t this drunk, I’d probably be asking the same thing. But I am, and it seems like a pretty okay place to be.” She pivots at the waist and looks around. “Please marry this man.”
“Money isn’t everything, Cora.”
She turns to me, her gaze locked onto mine. “You’re right, it isn’t. But have you seen him? Heard him talk? Watch the way he walks? Have you noticed how damn sweet on you he is? He’s a fucking gentleman, J. Much better than all the other tool-bags you spend your time with.”
“Touché.”
“Yeah, yeah, you don’t do relationships. Whatever. You’re a lunatic if you don’t at least give him a shot.”
Footsteps tread against the hardwood floor, Magnus appearing a second later with two boxes in his grasp.
“That smells heavenly.” Cora nearly drools at the sight of food.
“My ears were burning.” Magnus plants them on the counter and goes across the kitchen to get a few plates.
“Can I help?” I offer.
“I’ve got it, princess. Just sit there and look pretty.” He opens the door to the large refrigerator. “Water, tea, lemonade…” Magnus glances at Cora then at me. “Beer?”
“Water is fine, for both of us, thank you.”
Cora side-eyes me but is more focused on pulling a slice of pizza out of the box than disagreeing with me about the drink I chose for her.
That girl needs to hydrate, not consume any more booze.
He slides the bottles across the counter toward me and claims the seat to my right. He grabs a plate, and points to the two open boxes. “Which do you want?”
“I can get my own.”
“I’m aware. Would you like to decide, or should I?”
I narrow my gaze at him and reach for my plate.
“Both it is.” Magnus places the largest pieces from both boxes on my plate and puts it in front of me. “That wasn’t so hard.”
“She hates when people do stuff for her,” Cora says with a mouthful of pineapple pizza.
“I’ve noticed.” Magnus gives himself a slice of each and wipes his fingers on a napkin. “You going to eat, or do you want me to feed you, too?”
I sigh and take a bite, doing my best to hide the fact that it’s fucking delicious.
“Good girl.”
The same thing the mystery guy had said to me in the bathroom before he screwed me senseless.
What the hell is going on? Why are they all weirdly reminding me of each other? And why do I like it so much?
This isn’t going to end well. Not for me. Not for them. Not for any of us.
We eat in silence for a few minutes, the only sound aside from our chewing is faint music playing throughout the house.
“What is that?” I point to the ceiling. “That noise.”
Magnus swallows the bite in his mouth before speaking. “Instrumental. Mostly piano. You want me to change it?” He reaches for his phone.
I stop him, my hand resting on his arm. “No. It’s nice.”
“Peaceful.” His blue gaze meets mine.
“Yeah.”
Cora clears her throat. “I think I’ll leave you two to bone, now.” She hooks her thumb toward the living room. “Can I crash on the couch?”
Magnus stands, his chair scooting out behind him. “No, you can stay in one of the guest rooms.”
Of course, he would have multiple.
“I’ll be right back, princess.”
It’s starting to sound more like the actual name he has for me than it does a way to get under my skin. I should just tell him already, but that would mean giving him another piece of me that I can’t take back. I’m not sure if I’m ready to do that.
It’s not that I have anything against admitting it to him.
I mean, he already knows one of the places I work, which would make it relatively easy to locate me if he wanted to.
I guess without much effort, I try to make it harder for people to find me once we’ve run our course.
The little information I give them, the less likely they are to find my social media or track me down and attempt to stick around.
I don’t do long-term. I never have. And going through the trouble of blocking people repeatedly is exhausting when they refuse to stick to just being friends.
Ladies, if you want a boyfriend, act like you don’t. Then they won’t leave you alone.
It’s some kind of weird science. They want what they can’t have.
I guarantee the second I switched things up, they’d all run for the hills. I’m doing everyone involved a favor by keeping myself out of their reach.
“Miss me?” Magnus slides into the seat beside me again.
“You wish.” I sip the water he had given me, glancing at the unfamiliar bottle, and setting it down.
Not at all surprised that he has fancy H2O.
“Cora is all set up, in heaven she says.” He even uses air quotes to detail the word.
“She doesn’t come from much, so she gets excited about shiny objects easily.” Cora’s only saving grace is that her parents are still together, meaning some stability in her life, despite their financial situation.
Her mom is a nurse, who works crazy hours at the hospital, and her dad recently got laid off from his corporate job doing who-knows-what. Their house is high stress, but it’s still completely different than anything I’ve known.
My mom died when I was two, leaving my dad a blubbering mess, drowning his sorrows in whatever vice he could get his hands on.
He wasn’t a mean drunk, just a neglectful one.
Home was never something I looked forward to going to, which is funny considering my current living situation.
I must be drawn to unsafe and volatile environments.
“Me, too,” Magnus says quietly. “I grew up without money, so this,” he points his slice of pizza at the room around us, “is strange to me. It’s nice and all, don’t get me wrong. But it’s weirdly uncomfortable, if that makes sense.”
“Yeah, it does.” I push my plate forward, resting my napkin on top of it.
I want to ask questions, figure out how he evolved into this version of himself, where his abundance came from.
But I keep my mouth shut because that’s how feelings get caught.
The more layers you peel back and expose, the higher the chance of connecting with someone on a deeper level.
The only way to avoid that is to keep those walls up and refuse to ever let them down.
“What about you?”
Shit, I knew this was coming, the whole him wanting to get to know me thing.
“What about me?”
“Why do you do that?” His question surprises me.
“Do what?”
“Deflect.”
“I don’t,” I lie, shifting a bit in my seat.
He rubs his finger under his chin. “You forget I can see straight through you.”
“Oh? Then tell me, what do you see?” I cross my arms over my chest.