by Noelle Adams
He scowled at the television as he swallowed down the last of his beer.
It was after ten now. Jill and that guy had had more than enough time for drinks and dinner and dessert.
What the hell were they doing?
Lucas was pretty sure he didn’t want to know.
He sat with his empty bottle of beer for a few minutes until he heard a key turn in the lock.
Every nerve in his body stiffened to alert as the front door opened and Jill stepped inside.
For a moment he hoped she’d gotten rid of the guy, but she hadn’t. He followed her in.
She blinked when she saw him sitting there, and Lucas wondered if she’d expected him to clear out.
He wasn’t going to clear out. He lived here. He was allowed to sit on the couch on a Friday evening even if Jill brought home a date.
“Hey,” she said, her voice a little fluttery. Not her normal tone. “Hal, this is my roommate, Lucas.” She gestured to Lucas. “And this is Hal.”
“Hey, Lucas,” the guy said. Hal. His name was actually Hal. “Nice to meet you.”
“Yeah. You too.”
Jill looked between Lucas and Hal and seemed frozen for a moment. She was absolutely gorgeous in an odd little dress made of lace and corduroy with those tall boots on and those same high socks on she’d worn when they had sex.
Lucas loved those socks. They made his body clench with lust.
Why the hell was Jill wearing them for some other guy?
Finally she turned to Hal with a trembly smile that wasn’t really like her. “Do you want something to drink?”
“Sure. Thanks.” Hal definitely looked like he was eager to stay. He was probably hoping to have Jill and all her blond hair and big eyes and lush curves and gorgeous legs surrounding him in bed.
With a huff, Lucas hauled himself to his feet, fighting a simmering resentment.
And jealousy.
Definitely jealousy.
He carried his empty bottle of beer to the kitchen, dropped it into the recycling, and then opened the refrigerator for another.
He was there just in time to get in Jill’s way.
He hadn’t planned it, but he wasn’t disappointed about it either.
She gave him a covert glare behind the cover of the refrigerator door. He knew how to interpret it. She wanted him to get out of here. She wanted him to leave her alone.
He plopped himself down on a stool at the island with his cold beer and grinned at Hal. “So how was dinner?”
Hal looked slightly taken aback by his overly friendly tone. “Oh. It was fine. What did you think, Jill?”
She offered Hal a beer and then poured a glass of wine for herself. “It was good.” She slanted Lucas another look, but he wasn’t planning to budge. “We went to an Italian place. They make their own homemade pasta.”
“Sounds good.” Lucas swallowed down a gulp of beer. “So what do you do, Hal?”
The conversation went on in a similar manner for fifteen minutes, with Lucas asking a lot of questions, Hal trying to answer them, and Jill shooting Lucas increasingly annoyed looks.
Finally Hal finished his beer and cleared his throat. “Well, I guess I better get going.”
Lucas couldn’t help but feel a surge of satisfaction.
Then he wondered if he was an asshole at heart for being happy about getting rid of the guy when Jill might have liked him.
The thought dampened his pleasure just a little.
Jill walked Hal to the door, and they said a quiet goodbye. Lucas managed not to peer around the corner to see if the guy was kissing her.
When the door finally closed and Jill returned to the kitchen, Lucas let out a breath in relief.
Thank God that guy was gone.
And Jill hadn’t gone to bed with him.
“Asshole,” Jill hissed, slamming down her wineglass on the counter so hard the liquid slopped out over the rim.
“What did I do?”
“You know exactly what you did.” Her cheeks were flushed, and her hair was slightly tousled, and she was wearing those high socks that ended on her gorgeous thighs.
Lucas was hit with a wave of lust so strong it almost knocked him out.
Jill wasn’t distracted by any such thing at the moment. She was practically snapping her teeth at him. “You did it on purpose!”
“What did I do?” Lucas knew what he’d done, of course, but he was convinced he had a pretty good case in his defense.
“Oh, stop acting all innocent. You got in the way of my date on purpose.”
“What are you talking about? I live here, don’t I? Aren’t I allowed to watch TV and get a drink from the kitchen?”
“Yes, you’re allowed. But you were getting in the way on purpose. Intimidating him with all your fake friendliness and your… your…”
Genuinely curious now, Lucas raised his eyebrows. “My what?”
“All your shoulders and biceps and everything.”
Lucas glanced down at himself in surprise. He was wearing a T-shirt that fitted normally. Nothing about his arms or shoulders was unusual or inappropriate. “I’m wearing a shirt.”
“I’m not talking about your shirt. I’m talking about…” She waved her hand toward the general vicinity of his torso. “Your shoulders and everything. You’re intimidating to a normal guy.”
“I am?”
“Oh, stop looking smug. It’s just because you don’t have anything to do during the day but work out. But you were sitting there with all your man-ness, and you scared him away. You knew what you were doing.”
Lucas tried not to smile because she was sincerely angry with him, but he couldn’t help but like the way she’d described him.
Man-ness.
“Asshole,” she hissed again.
He clearly hadn’t hidden his expression very well.
“Stop smirking,” she snapped. “I’m serious. You can’t do that. If we’re going to be roommates, you can’t do that again. I’m going to have dates, you know. I’m allowed to bring men home without you hovering around like some sort of alpha-male caveman.”
He sobered at the thought of her bringing a lot more men home. And then he was annoyed by the fact that it bothered him so much.
He was supposed to do nothing but casual relationships.
He wasn’t sure why nothing felt casual with Jill.
“I wasn’t acting like a caveman,” he said. “I was perfectly nice to the guy. It’s not my fault he’s such a wimp that he got scared off by a guy who works out.”
Jill made a frustrated sound in her throat. “He’s not a wimp.”
“Then why did he cut and run over nothing? If he was really into you, he would have stayed.”
“He was into me!”
“Clearly not enough to put up with me hanging around.”
“Oh, you… you… asshole!”
“You said that before. I get it. You think I’m an asshole. But that doesn’t change the fact that I was sitting in a room that I’m allowed to sit in, and Hal’s the guy who ran like a rabbit instead of spending the night with you.”
She was almost shaking now with anger. She opened her mouth to snap back a response but then closed it suddenly. She turned her back to him, took a few deep breaths, and then walked out of the room.
Lucas didn’t like that.
They were in the middle of a perfectly good argument, and she’d just left him hanging.
He followed her to her room, but she closed the door on his face.
“Jill,” he said through the door.
“Go away. If I talk to you anymore, I’m going to bite your head off.”
Ridiculously, that kind of turned him on.
“Jill,” he said again through the closed door.
“I can’t talk to you right now. I’m too mad. We can talk in the morning if you can manage to stop being an asshole.”
Lucas started to object, but he didn’t.
He walked down the hall to his room.
/> He was all wound up.
All. Wound. Up.
Frustrated and annoyed and turned on and strangely excited.
But there was nothing in the world he could do with the feelings since Jill obviously wasn’t going to let him haul her over his shoulder and carry her to bed.
So he went to take a shower instead.
THE NEXT MORNING, LUCAS got up around eight to discover that Michelle and Steve were still in bed, but Jill was already up, drinking coffee in the kitchen and looking at her phone.
They stared at each other over the kitchen island.
“I’m sorry,” he said immediately. He wasn’t all wound up anymore. He’d stayed awake for half the night, thinking about what had happened and what it meant. He could see very clearly he had indeed been an asshole. “You were right. I was a jerk.”
Her face had been slightly defensive, but it softened at that. “Yeah. You kind of were. I… I know you live here. And you’re allowed to be around and do what you want. I know I can’t expect you to just disappear because… because I might feel uncomfortable when you’re around. But maybe…”
“I won’t get in the way on purpose,” he said, hating the fact that he was saying it, that he meant it, that it would oblige him to behave better in the future even if that meant he’d have to let some other guy go to bed with Jill.
She let out a breath, looking sleepy and ridiculously pretty in her fuzzy pajamas and messy hair. “Thank you. You’re… you’re allowed to bring girls home too. If you want.”
He wondered if she wanted him to. “I know.”
“I’d feel weird about it if you do. I know I would. I’d be kind of… jealous, I think. I’m not trying to be a hypocrite or something. But… but I wouldn’t do anything. If you do.”
“I know you wouldn’t.”
She was a better person than him.
No question about it.
He wondered how she would act if he brought home a woman to have sex with.
He wondered if she would feel as outraged and bristly and mind-numbingly jealous as he had.
He hoped so.
But he wasn’t likely to test it out anytime soon.
He was sure it would change in the future, but for the moment he had no interest in going to bed with anyone but Jill.
THAT NIGHT, LUCAS WOKE up in a cold sweat.
He lay in his dark room, breathing raggedly, his eyes wide open as he stared up at the ceiling.
He was wide awake and terrified.
He hadn’t had a dream or a nightmare. Not really. At least not that he could remember. He was just suddenly awake, suddenly in a panic, like two years hadn’t passed since his life had been ripped apart.
When he was capable of moving, he got up and went to the bathroom across the hall. He splashed a lot of cold water on his face. Then he peed and splashed more water on his face.
He didn’t have PTSD. At least he’d never been diagnosed as having it. Two years ago, he’d had six months of physical therapy and counseling until all the doctors had declared he was fully recovered.
He was recovered.
He just didn’t always feel that way.
His family didn’t understand why he’d left his old life behind completely after he was declared well again. No one really understood.
Life didn’t feel the same to him as it had felt before.
He couldn’t take it seriously. He couldn’t take anything seriously.
If nothing mattered that much, then everything was easier. Nothing was painfully bad.
And he wouldn’t have to be terrified like this again.
He left the bathroom and stood in the hall, wearing nothing but his underwear. He stared at Jill’s door, fighting the urge to knock on it, to wake her up, to talk to her.
She would help.
She would make him feel better.
He knew she would.
His heart was still racing, and he was cold deep down. But he would feel better if he could talk to Jill.
But that would mean telling her everything.
She wouldn’t understand either.
She would think he was overreacting. She’d blown up his bam in her mind to such an extent that she would be shocked to hear what it really was.
She thought he’d been a victim of a crime or another similar circumstance. She thought his bam was something horrifying like that.
It wasn’t.
It was just one of those things. Something that could have happened to anyone, anywhere.
That made it worse to Lucas. Not better. But no one would really understand that either.
He had no idea how long he stood in the hall, trying to catch his breath, staring at the closed door to Jill’s bedroom.
Finally he turned around and went back into his room.
He got back into bed, but it was a long time before he was able to go back to sleep.
JILL WENT OUT WITH Hal a couple more times in the next few weeks, but she wasn’t as excited about him as she should be.
She didn’t even get excited about kissing him.
She wasn’t anywhere close to wanting to sleep with him.
And she couldn’t help but blame Lucas.
A little.
If he wasn’t so ridiculously hot, she wouldn’t be always comparing other guys to him.
And if he wasn’t so good at sex, she wouldn’t be afraid that no other man would ever measure up.
And if he wasn’t so clever and funny and thoughtful and (sometimes) considerate, she wouldn’t like to hang around him as much as she did.
If he wasn’t her roommate, he wouldn’t be around all the time.
But after three weeks, Hal stopped calling her, and she wasn’t even that disappointed.
For a week after her last date with him, she tried to focus on work—since the big stressful project she’d been working on was finally wrapping up—and not stew too much about Lucas or how he’d hindered her romantic prospects simply by existing.
On the Friday she handed over the project at last, she was relieved and exhausted, and she planned to have a leisurely evening at home. She got takeout from a Chinese restaurant—enough to share if anyone else was around—and bought a good bottle of wine. She even stopped at Tea for Two and bought a box of Carol’s cookies.
She was in a pretty good mood as she entered the apartment.
Only to discover that Michelle and Steve were shouting at each other at the top of their lungs.
Jill wasn’t big on conflict. She liked things cozy. She liked people to get along.
And she certainly wasn’t prepared to be met with a screaming fight as soon as she walked in the door.
She had no idea what the fight was about. They were long past the substance of the argument and were into general denunciations of the other’s wickedness.
They paused briefly when they saw her, and Michelle whispered, “Sorry,” as Jill went into the kitchen to put down her stuff.
But as soon as Jill made it to the hallway, Michelle and Steve were shouting again.
She had no idea where they got the energy.
Her one somewhat passionate argument with Lucas had lasted about two minutes, and she’d had to flee to her room immediately so he wouldn’t see her burst into tears.
When she reached her doorway, Lucas’s door swung open and he looked at her across the threshold.
“You want to get out of here?” he murmured.
“Yes,” she said, her voice breaking in relief at the idea of doing something other than staying here and listening to her friends fight. “Please.”
She ran to use the bathroom quickly, but she didn’t bother to change clothes. So in two minutes she and Lucas were leaving, and Jill let out a breath when she could no longer hear the fight.
“You want some dinner?” Lucas asked, peering at her face.
She felt unreasonably shaky, but she tried to smile. “I guess. I’d brought home Chinese, but…”
“The Chinese will save for tomorrow
. I’m hungry. Let’s go ahead and eat.”
She nodded, and after a brief discussion, they walked about a mile to a fairly new shopping center where there was a restaurant that made really good pizza.
They got a table, and Lucas ordered a bottle of wine, and Jill slumped back in her chair.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
“Yeah.” She smiled at him again, feeling better, partly because he was being so nice. “I’m just not really used to loud conflict like that. My mom and I never fought. We occasionally snipped at each other but nothing more than that. And I’m worried about Michelle not being happy. And I’m kind of upset about Steve having to move out eventually. And I’m…”
To her embarrassment, a single tear slid down her cheek.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, swiping it away. “I’m just not good with conflict. And I’m so, so tired.”
“Did you get your big project all finished up today like you planned?”
“Yeah. All done. And I met the important deadline, so Patrick was happy. He said I did a good job.”
“Of course you did.”
“And he even apologized for being too grumpy.”
Lucas gave a huff of amusement. “Did he?”
“Yeah. I think Emma, his sister, made him. But still… I feel better about everything. And thank God that project is done.”
The server came with the wine, so they paused for a minute to get their glasses filled and then give their order. Jill couldn’t decide between two different kinds, so Lucas ordered both.
The wine was good. Really good. Her eyebrows arched as she tasted it. “How expensive is this stuff?” she asked.
“Eh. Not too bad. I do like it though.”
“Me too. Are you sure it’s not too expensive? You don’t have a job, you know.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m fine. It’s not too expensive. And you deserve a little celebration after getting through that project.”
She smiled at him.
She must be really tired because the wine was already going to her head.
She drank some more.
And she kept smiling.
TWO AND A HALF HOURS later, they were on their way back to the apartment.
They’d finished their bottle of wine, and then Lucas had bought another one. Jill had drunk way too much. She’d also eaten a lot, and Lucas had topped it all off with ordering a chocolate brownie dessert.