“I’m late on everything but definitely catching up. I was paid my first paycheck a week ago. Things are getting better.”
“I have a proposition for you, Bird, and it’s not because of what I’ve just learned today but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.”
“What is it?”
“I’m away for half of the season playing games in other cities, and I pay a service to manage this house. They make sure that the utilities are paid and that the landscapers and cleaning service comes once a week to do their jobs. They even make sure the fridge is stocked with my favorite foods a day or two before I’m due to arrive home and that someone comes in to feed the fish. They make sure that this place runs like a well-oiled machine, and I pay them a lot of money to keep it that way.”
“I don’t get where you’re going with this.”
“I think you should do it instead and you live here while you do it. Keep an eye on the place and run the house for me.”
“I realize you were hit in the face with a football today, but I think it knocked all the common sense out of you. Are you crazy?”
“What’s crazy about it?” he asks with a dead serious look on his face.
“I have a job.”
“I wouldn’t pay you. It would be a barter situation. Room and board in exchange for your services.”
“I don’t need a house. I have a place to live.”
He holds the phone up high again.
“Clearly not for much longer, and even if I paid the rent for you, I don’t want you living in a building where the elevators work fifty percent of the time.”
“Rush, this is insane.”
“If we had been regular college students, and I didn’t go play with the Nighthawks straight out of school, it could have been a real possibility that we would have been roommates, anyway.”
“But that’s not our reality.”
“Let’s be real about this. It’s either that we go with my brilliant idea or I give you a loan to move out of the apartment, move into a new place, and catch up on all of your bills. And let me tell you what I know for sure. I know how high rentals in this area can be because of our close proximity to New York City. I know you don’t make enough money to pay your current bills and catch up on the old ones. I know you send Mandy money every month to pay her bills. I know that what I’m proposing could give you a minute to catch your fucking breath, and then I could stop worrying about your ass all the damn time.”
“I’m not your responsibility. I never told you to worry.”
“You sound incredibly naïve and selfish right now. Of course I worry. You think it’s easy for me to have so much money at my disposal, and the person I most care about in this world won’t let me use it to help her?”
I’m the person he cares aboutmostin this world? While I’m happy to hear him say the words, the significance of that statement weighs heavily on my heart. I need to do the right thing here for the both of us because I’m afraid that making a mistake would crush us both.
My feelings for Rush are changing while his are sure and steady. I’m attracted to him in a way that I thought I’d never be. In a way, that’s very dangerous. The whole time we were practicing yoga today, I prayed that his hand didn’t slip anywhere between my legs because then he’d know. He’d know that my body is betraying me in the rudest way possible.
Nipples hard.
Clit pulsing.
Panties wet.
I’m doing my best to keep my urges at bay because I refuse to sabotage our friendship. It’s literally the only relationship I can depend on. So, no, this plan of his doesn’t sound like a good idea.
I’m not going to lose the only friend I’ve got in this world.
No matter what.
“Our lives are already entangled because of work, but we’ve barely told anyone there that we’re friends. How will we tell them we’re roommates?”
“We don’t have to tell them anything that you don’t want to tell them. We have different schedules, two cars, and our own lives. Your paycheck is direct deposited, not sent in the mail. No one has to know, especially because it would be a temporary situation, and frankly because it’s nobody’s business.”
I’m starting to waver.
