Chapter 3 #3
“I’m so glad you two found each other,” she says. Which probably means that this hottie is one of Nate’s single college friends she mentioned earlier. She turns toward him and says, “I’ve been looking for you. Did Sierra already catch you up on the roommate situation?”
Roommate situation? My brain must be a little fuzzy from the Prosecco, because I thought her little brother was going to be my . . .
Oh.
Holy.
Crap.
They both look at me expectantly, but it’s like my tongue is paralyzed inside my mouth. My brain is too busy trying to convince my lungs not to hyperventilate, it can’t focus on forming words anyway.
“The roommate situation?” he says.
“Yeah,” Jackson says when I don’t respond.
“Sierra needs a place to stay while she looks for a new apartment, so I told her she could have one of the bedrooms in my condo. I hope you’ll be a good roommate,” she says to him, but the way she says it, she might as well have said don’t be a dick to my best friend.
“Probably time we set some roommate ground rules then,” Beau says, and gives me a wicked grin. “Talk to you later, Jax.”
Jackson bristles, as she always does when anyone but Nate calls her by that nickname, but she doesn’t move. She looks at me like she’s trying to figure out if I want to stay and have this conversation or if I need her to help me escape.
“I’ll be over in a minute,” I tell her. She nods, and as she walks away, I suddenly wish I’d just gotten up and gone with her. Why the hell did I stay here with Beau?
“So,” he says before his top teeth sink into that lower lip. “I guess you didn’t recognize me.”
“Obviously.” My mind is spinning, and a million questions are bouncing around in there.
Has he grown a foot and gained forty pounds of muscle since I last saw him?
How could a shorter haircut and facial hair so completely change someone’s look?
Oh shit, does flirting with my best friend’s little brother make me the sleaziest maid of honor ever?
I can’t take my eyes off him, how am I going to live with him?
That last thought is the one that’s got my stomach turning over, because I can’t convince myself that this delicious man sitting in front of me—so confident and powerful and large—is the scrappy little brother I used to hang out with every weekend growing up.
The boy I knew was just that—a boy—and he looked and sounded nothing like this man.
Even the last time I saw him, when he was still in high school, he hadn’t lost the baby fat in his face, was barely taller than me, and probably outweighed me by all of twenty pounds.
Still, how could I not have known? I wonder. I guess because I expected Beau to look like a grown-up version of that boy, and he’s changed a lot. I try to remember the last time I saw a picture of him when he didn’t have ski goggles and a helmet on, and I can’t think of a time.
“I feel like you’re having a moment right now,” he says, his eyes sweeping over my face before he turns toward the bar and orders us both more drinks.
I watch him talk to the bartender, and I realize that I had actually bought into Petra’s plan for rebound sex, and I’d been hoping it would be with him. No, no, no.
Why does he have to be so easy to talk to? Why does he have to be so good looking? Why does he have to be so much younger than me, and share DNA with my best friend?
“Here you go,” he says as he hands me the champagne flute filled with another glass of bubbly. I stare at the glass in my hand like I’ve forgotten what to do with it.
“I can’t be your roommate,” I blurt out.
I cringe at this new reality, where I am officially the most awkward person in human history.
Beau raises an eyebrow at me, and says, “Take a breath, and a drink.”
“Don’t patronize me, Beau.”
“Why are you looking for a new place to live?”
“My old living arrangement fell through.” I take a drink just to break the eye contact, then glance at the mirror above the bar. He’s still staring at me, but he doesn’t press me for more details, which I appreciate.
“So why can’t we be roommates, exactly?”
“I . . .” I don’t know what to say. “I don’t really want to live with a guy.”
“But you knew what the roommate situation was, and you agreed to it. Until you realized exactly who I was.” He puts a hand on his chest and I realize the trap he’s placed me in.
I was okay living with Beau when I thought it was Jackson’s little brother who I had zero interest in.
But this gorgeous man bantering with me, the one I’m stupidly attracted to but could never touch because of who he is—him I don’t think I can live with.
“You afraid you won’t be able to keep your hands off me if we’re roommates, Sierra? ”
The sound of my name on his tongue might be the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard, and it has me flushing. The heat travels up my chest and my neck as I mumble, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then it’s settled, Roomie. On one condition.”
“I haven’t even agreed to live with you and you think you’re setting conditions?”
“Believe me, you’ll be okay with this one.” He pauses. “You have to take Jackson’s old bedroom.”
“Why? The spare bedroom is still filled with my furniture from when I lived there.”
“Because honestly, I can’t stay in a room and sleep in a bed that I know Nate was fucking my sister in.”
For reasons I don’t understand, I’m turned-on by the word fucking coming out of his mouth.
It’s the way his teeth press into his lip before the word rolls off his tongue and the slow way he enunciates it.
It’s actually a sensual word to watch someone say—not that I’ve noticed before now.
But once again my eyes are glued to his lips, and when his tongue darts out to wet them, I feel the familiar pull of attraction right between my legs.
I need to get out of here, away from him.
“Fine,” I say as I push my barstool back and stand. I should have thought about the close proximity that’d put us in before I did it though, because suddenly his face and mine are only inches apart and I’m standing between his legs. “I’ll take Jackson’s old room.”
I grab my drink off the bar and turn, pushing past his knee in my rush to get away. And as I walk back toward Jackson and Petra, I’m trying to figure out if the sound I hear is him laughing at me, or if it’s all in my imagination.