“Mac, what’s this?” He charged into the living room and held up the empty roll.
“The toilet paper thing.”
“Where’s the toilet paper?”
“There’s a new roll on top of the toilet.” Mac remained glued to the TV.
“This isn’t an outhouse or a barn. Here, when the toilet paper dispenser is empty, we put on a new roll. Like civilized human beings!” Gideon crumpled the cardboard roll in his fist and slammed his bedroom door. One more week, and then he could show Mac and his broad chest the door.
Gideon lay in bed, trying to fall asleep. His eyes were closed, but his brain continued to chug along without stopping. Thoughts of Noah and his mom and the freaking toilet paper roll fluttered through his head. There was always something with Noah. Now Gideon had to worry about him running off with this Christina girl? He felt like his family was always two seconds from completely unraveling, were it not for him.
Sometimes, when things got really stressful, he would shut his eyes and imagine the kiss with Mac freshman year, before he pushed him off. It was an out-of-body experience, the most non-Gideon thing that’d ever happened to Gideon. It gave him a few seconds where his body hummed rather than screeched like rusty gears. But now the freaking guy was living with him and walking around shirtless and that was a whole new layer of stress he didn’t need.
He glanced at his phone. It was eleven-thirty, and he was no closer to falling asleep. Gideon left his bedroom to get a drink of water. Mac remained on the couch, watching TV. Gideon’s TV.
“Can’t sleep?” Mac asked him.
“I just needed to get a glass of water.” Gideon walked into the kitchen.
“I couldn’t sleep either.” He heard Mac say from the living room. “If you’re wondering, I’m not a couch potato like this. I just couldn’t sleep. I thought this would help.”
Gideon drank his water and stayed by the door. “I have aspirin if you need it.”
Mac studied him. He wasn’t being checked out. Something much more invasive. “You sure you’re okay? You seem stressed.”
“There’s a mountain of junk in my apartment. Of course, I’m stressed.”
“I don’t think that’s it.” Mac was still studying.
“Good night. And turn the volume down.” Gideon glanced back at the kitchen. There were no dishes in the sink.
He opened the dishwasher. It was loaded. Not well, but loaded. Loaded! It was a sight for sore eyes.
“You did this,” Gideon said. He nearly had damn tears in his eyes.
“I told you I’d try harder.” Mac looked so comfortable on the couch. Bits of his short brown hair stuck up in the back. It was the littlest things that made his day.
“Do you want some mac ‘n cheese?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Mac
Mac and Gideon sat on the couch actually eating mac n’ cheese. Not store bought. Gideon made it from scratch with spaghetti and shredded cheese. It tasted far superior to the Kraft stuff. He couldn’t get over that a guy named Mac never ate mac n’ cheese.
Gideon curled up into the corner, up against a mound of pillows, while Mac had taken the edge of the chaise. Despite sitting on the same piece of furniture, they couldn’t have been further apart. Gideon probably liked it that way.
“Eighteen years is a big age difference.” Mac drank from his beer bottle. “She could’ve given birth to Noah and voted for president on the same day.”
“It’s not just that. Noah always does this. It’s like he gets some secret thrill from making my mom’s life hell. He was nearly expelled from Hebrew school. He crashed his car through a Dairy Queen, when he was on who-knows-what. And I won’t get into how he dropped out of law school to become a professional gambler.”
“He sounds cool.”
Gideon shot him a glare that warned him to get that thought out of his head. “Our mom is a widow. Can’t he go easy on her?”
“Maybe he’s not doing this to her. Maybe he’s doing this because he genuinely wants to. It’s his life. If he loves this woman, then he loves her.”
“That’s not how it works.”
