But she wasn’t supposed to be noticing that. Or his wet hair dripping down his neck. The scruff on his jaw. The helpless glance he shot her way.
“We’ve heard so much about you,” Rose said.
“And I picked up fresh donuts, so there’s plenty of food,” Amanda added.
“I don’t want to intrude…” he said cautiously. But they were so insistent, and Jessie would look like a jerk if she kicked him out. Or like she had something to hide. There was nothing Shawn could do but thank them for making a bestie exception.
“Sorry,” she mouthed to him behind her friends’ backs as they walked in.
He made a point of rolling his eyes at her. She wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue.
“How is it always so clean in here?” Rose exclaimed, turning around, and Jessie jammed her tongue back in her mouth. Where it belonged.
“Don’t tell us,” Amanda said, putting the box of donuts on the table. “You were stressed out from work, so you stayed up all night cleaning to relax.” She checked Jessie on the hip to show she was joking. Sort of.
“You caught me,” Jessie mumbled, careful not to look at Shawn. She didn’t know what she’d do if he made eye contact with him right now. Probably combust.
“Champagne flutes?” Rose called from the kitchen, where Jessie could hear her opening and closing cabinets.
“We don’t have any,” Jessie called back, feeling herself redden a little. Talia’s mom had gotten them stemless wineglasses when they moved in. They’d decided not to splurge on extra glasses—not when they needed every penny.
“Now that Rose has moved in with Mr. Fancypants, she forgets that not everybody has an entire cabinet dedicated to appropriate glassware,” Amanda stage-whispered to Jessie and Shawn.
“I heard that!” Rose called.
“Who’s Mr. Fancypants?” Shawn stage-whispered back.
“Rose’s boyfriend,” Jessie said.
“He’s very fancy,” Amanda added.
“He’s the best!” Rose called from the kitchen.
Shawn laughed. “Congratulations on moving in together, he sounds like a catch.”
“Don’t worry, the rest of us are still perpetually single until we die,” Amanda said.
Rose came back with the glasses and poured everyone mimosas, insisting she was giving Jessie “just a splash,” even though Jessie had never seen a splash that huge.
Shawn clinked glasses with Amanda. “Being single’s not so bad,” he said. “It leaves room for new experiences.”
Jessie nearly choked on her drink then tried to compose herself. “Frittata’s coming out of the oven, coffee’s made, and I’ll get a plate for these donuts. Someone want to call Talia on my laptop?”
She handed the computer to Amanda to keep her busy, then oh-so-politely asked Shawn to come help her serve the eggs and coffee.
In the kitchen, she whirled on him. “New experiences?” she asked, eyes flashing. “That’s what I am?”
He shushed her quickly, pushing her away from the door. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Sure sounded like it,” she said, grabbing mugs from the cabinet and slamming them down in front of the coffeemaker.
“I was trying to play up the totally single, not seeing anyone, didn’t sleep with anyone in this apartment last night angle,” he said defensively.
She glared at him. “Or showing my friend—who’s also Talia’s friend, by the way—how totally single and available you are, since she’s single and available, too.”
“Oh my God.” He stared at her, and she thought he was going to be mad that she’d brought up the Ellen-Steph fiasco. But then his face broke into a grin. “Are you jealous, Ms. Santana? From what I just heard, you don’t even like me.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Careful there, sweetheart,” he said, tucking a strand of loose hair behind her ear. He leaned in close and whispered, “That looks way too intimate.”
She grabbed his shirt. She meant to shove him away—but she pulled him closer for just a second before she did it.
“You guys got everything okay?” a voice asked.
Jessie whirled around. Rose was standing in the doorway. Crap. What had she seen?
“We got it!” Jessie said brightly.
“Want to help carry coffee out?” Shawn asked.
They pulled away from each other as quickly as possible and focused on setting the table with slices of spinach and mushroom frittata, huge donuts with flavors like lavender and dulce de leche, plus coffee, mimosas, and juice.
“This looks amazing,” Shawn said, surveying the spread. “Remind me to get myself invited over more often.”
“You’ll have to become a bestie,” Amanda teased. “Even Fancypants has never been allowed to come.”
“Well, I’m honored,” Shawn said, pressing a hand to his heart with a mock bow.
A squeal came from the computer. “You guys!” Talia cried as the pixels of the video resolved on the screen and her face appeared.
She clutched her hand to her heart and everybody burst out laughing.
“What?” Talia asked in alarm. “Do I have marmite all over my face?”
“No,” Amanda said, laughing hysterically. “It’s just that you and Shawn are so much alike!”
“You just did the exact same gesture,” Rose explained.
“He’s there?” Talia asked in surprise.
“How could we let your brother starve?” Amanda asked, biting into one of the donuts.
If Talia had a reaction, Jessie didn’t see it. She was too busy pretending that piling food onto her plate was the most important thing in the world.
She really didn’t want to think about how she’d fucked her best friend’s look-alike. It was just too weird.
“Where’s my favorite roommate?” Talia asked, as though she could hear Jessie thinking.
“I’m here.” Jessie leaned in front of the camera and waved.
“How’s my asshole brother treating you?” Talia asked. “You two haven’t killed each other yet, have you?”
“My murderous impulses are so far in check,” Shawn promised.
Jessie forced a laugh. “We’re on totally opposite schedules.”
“Jessie’s got to be the easiest roommate ever,” Amanda said. “I should know, I’ve lived with every jerk on Craigslist.”
“You’ve had the worst luck,” Talia agreed. “But seriously, you guys should at least hang out some time. You’re two of my favorite people.”
“We will,” Jessie said. “Just, you know, when there’s time.”
She risked a glance at Shawn, then bit her lip and looked away.
“At least I don’t have to worry about Shawn bringing every girl in Brooklyn home while he’s living with you—especially not anyone we know. I made him promise not to be that guy.”
It felt impossible that Jessie could make herself laugh along with the rest of them. But somehow, she did.
“I’ve been busy at Thunder,” Shawn said. “Like, a totally crazy week.”
This time, Jessie knew she couldn’t look at him. She didn’t know whether it felt better, or worse, to realize that the thought of the two of them sleeping together was completely out of the realm of possibility in Talia’s mind. Talia asked her about her new job, and they all talked about work, Rose’s boyfriend, the new video game Amanda was developing at work, and everything amazing that Talia was seeing in London.
But when they asked if Amanda had finally asked out the coworker she’d been crushing on, or if Talia had met any hot Brits, or if Shawn was macking on every girl who came into the bar, nobody asked if Jessie was seeing anyone. It was like they just assumed the answer was no.
And it is, she reminded herself. She was not seeing anyone. What happened with Shawn was a one-time deal. She should be relieved that no one would ever know.
But she was more relieved when besties brunch was over, Talia logged off to go to rehearsal, and everyone went home,
leaving a few leftover slices of frittata, an empty champagne bottle, and the last of the donut crumbs.
Pretending was exhausting. It was enough incentive to never sleep with Shawn again, if only so she never had to lie about it for another second of her life.
Chapter Thirteen
It was officially the most awkward brunch of Shawn’s life, and he knew something about awkward brunches. Hangover brunches, breakup brunches, brunches with exes, brunches trying to remember the name of the woman he’d gone home with, brunches running into a former flame with a new woman on his arm… Every city was a small town when he came barreling through.
No wonder Talia was always making fun of him, and his friends never bothered to say much more than “Hey” to anyone he was going out with—since they’d just have to learn a new name two weeks later. He hated to admit it, but maybe his parents did have a point. Was he ever going to meet someone he’d stick around for? What about someone who wanted to stick around for him, too?
At least Talia wasn’t going to tease him for this one, since she was never going to know about it. Jessie was right, they couldn’t say a word. For a one-night stand they both agreed was a mistake, it was better to shut their mouths and move on.
But man, it was awkward to sit there with a group of women and pretend he hadn’t looked down at one of them with his dick in her mouth and felt an electric current zapping from his toes to his balls, straight up through his chest until he felt like every part of him was going to explode.
They’d barely been able to look at each other through the whole meal. He’d been afraid that if he so much as caught Jessie’s eye, it would be written all over their faces. He didn’t think she’d blurt it out—she was way too careful for that. She was too good a friend to Talia to intentionally hurt her.
But everyone would have noticed, nonetheless.
Thankfully, Talia had been too excited talking about London to ask too many questions about how living together was going. And since she never expected a Shawn and Jessie matchup, it wasn’t like she’d probed to find out if, hey, did they by any chance fuck on her couch last night, the very couch he was sure she could see through the computer with the way the camera was angled?
No, it was obvious that Rose, Amanda, and Talia would have been beyond shocked to hear that Jessie had spent her night fucking anyone, let alone Shawn. They saw Jessie as the workaholic, the driven one, the smart girl who was bound to succeed. That Jessie could be smart, focused, organized, and throw her legs back over her head and moan with total abandon had clearly never crossed anyone’s mind.
He knew, though. Now that her secret was out, it was impossible to think about anything else.
He stirred uncomfortably on the couch, where he was flopped with his laptop on his stomach, trying to read up on the different kinds of hops Thunder was using. But his mind kept wandering. He was not allowed to get hard from thinking about Jessie…so he’d better stop stealing glances at her from over his computer. The sight of her so focused in concentration made him want to distract her again and make that other, wild side of her come out. He knew it was there. She just had to give herself permission to put her brain on hold and allow her body to take over.
He clicked on another website, this one on different strains of barley. He had to stop thinking like that.
Last night was one slip up. It was a slide backward into old Shawn territory. Not just back to the guy who’d wrecked things for his sister in high school, but the one who, even after those years, still kept going around doing whatever he wanted, whoever he wanted, without a second thought.
But now that he’d regained his composure, he was going to make sure it didn’t happen again. People were allowed to make mistakes. But make the same mistake twice in a row, and it started to become a pattern.
He knew all about that. Skipping one class and then, because it was so easy, skipping another. Quitting one job and then, when the world didn’t end, quitting the second one the minute things got hard and he didn’t like it anymore.
The next thing he knew, his GPA had tanked, his resume was shit, and he hadn’t had anything that resembled a “relationship” in years because he was just as thoughtless about women as he was about everything else. The whole point of being here was to stop living so carelessly, stop moving from one thing to the next as though none of it mattered.
This thing with Jessie was one late night with too much music, too much booze, and too much pent-up need. He should take a page out of her book and focus on his job instead of on his dick. That was what she was doing, sitting at the table hunched over her laptop with a perpetual frown and typing madly. She didn’t look like she couldn’t concentrate on a thing except what they had done last night.
But he was exhausted, and the extra champagne hadn’t done any favors for his headache—no matter how much coffee he’d added to the mix. He closed the laptop and headed for the kitchen, hunting around for a snack.
The next thing he knew, Jessie was shouting “Argh!” from the living room. He popped his head out of the kitchen in time to see her throw her pen across the room.
“What did that poor pen ever do to you?” he asked, crossing the living room to retrieve it from where it had fallen below the windowsill.
“I can’t believe how stupid I am,” she said, and buried her face in her hands.
“Oh my God.” He brought the pen over and, standing behind her, stuck it through the messy half knot she’d made in her hair. “If you’re stupid, then the rest of us are basically the walking dead.”
That got a reluctant giggle out of her. He leaned over her shoulder to look at the computer screen. “What are you working on?”
“These line edits for Marlene.”
“I don’t know what that means.” All he saw was a Word document with a million colorful highlights and comments in the margins, each with a different name attached to it—Marlene Chen, Jessica Santana, and Augusta DuPrey, a name he recognized from a stack of hardcover books in the living room.
“Augusta writes the book, Marlene does a round of developmental edits on it—that’s focused on big picture stuff in the story—and then I’m supposed to look at the sentence level stuff. I always thought Augusta was this incredible writer but I’m telling you, Shawn. Some of these sentences don’t make any sense—no wonder Marlene doesn’t have time to clean up every single word.”
“Sounds like she needs you,” Shawn said.
“But I’m not a writer. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“That’s different from being stupid.”
“I’m sure Marlene will appreciate the distinction when she’s giving me a dressing down in her office because Augusta’s writing is just as crappy as before I touched it.” She buried her head in her hands again.
“Doesn’t that make Augusta the stupid one?” he asked, confused. “I mean, as long as we’re handing out titles.”
Jessie barked out a laugh. “Augusta DuPrey, like, revolutionized fantasy literature. She may not realize she’s used the word scabbard eight times on one page, but she’s definitely not stupid.”
“Maybe today isn’t the best day for getting anything done,” he suggested. “If your headache is anything like mine.”
She slumped down lower in her chair. “Those mimosas really didn’t help.”
“But I didn’t exactly feel like I could refuse it.”
“Can you imagine having to explain that we were both sticking with OJ?” She groaned.
“You could have gotten away with it, since you really are doing work. Me? They hadn’t even met me, and they already knew I wouldn’t be working on a Sunday. I couldn’t even think up a decent excuse for why I couldn’t stay for brunch.”
She swiveled around to look up at him. “But weren’t you just studying over there?”
He shrugged. “They don’t know that. And anyway, it’s not like I could concentrate.”
“Too much champagne,” she grumbled.
Too much time looking a
t you.
“Take the rest of the day off,” he said.
“I have to finish the manuscript this week. I should have been working on it last night.” She pushed the laptop back and slumped over the table, resting her head on her forearms.
Shawn pulled her hair over one shoulder, exposing a smooth, curved line of bare skin. He put his hand on her shoulders, gently massaging the base of her neck. She groaned. “You’re too tense,” he said. “You need to learn to relax.”
“I have work to do,” she murmured into her forearms.
“Yeah, you’ve mentioned that. But not every day has to be the most productive day of your life. It’s called the weekend. You’re allowed to enjoy one sometimes.”
“I’ll lose my job.”
“If you take a day off?”
“If I don’t finish everything to Marlene’s satisfaction.”
“She hired you because she knew you could do it.” He dug his fingers harder into the tight knots of her upper back.
“And she can just as easily fire me if I can’t. Besides, I was her second choice.”
Shawn worked his way down to her shoulder blades.
“Ohh,” she groaned. “Keep doing that.”
He grinned, even though she couldn’t see his face. Yeah, he loved to hear her say that.
“Were you literally the only other applicant in the entire country that she could have hired when she didn’t get her first choice?”
Jessie didn’t answer.
“Well?” he asked.
“No,” she finally said, her voice sounding small. “I guess not.”
“Because it’s competitive, right? So she picked you because she wanted you. Your posture is terrible,” he added. “I was looking at how slouched you are when you’re at the computer. Do you sit like that all day?” He worked his way up the sides of her neck, drawing his fingers down the base of her head, lengthening the muscles that had cramped from how she was sitting.
“What are you, a budding brewer-slash-massage-therapist?” she asked.
Wrong Bed, Right Roommate (Accidental Love) Page 9