Levi groaned. “You’re really going to make me say it, aren’t you?”
Haddie shrugged, then closed the distance between them, picking up the laptop that was paused on Coach Lasso in the locker room with his players, probably in the middle of an epic pep talk about being a goldfish or believing in themselves as a team. She glanced from Levi to the laptop and then back at Levi again.
“You don’t know a thing about soccer. Do you?” she asked.
He pulled his arms tighter, his biceps clearly straining against the sleeve of his T-shirt. A muscle pulsed in his jaw as his eyes met hers, and his lips—lips that had kissed hers and lit a fire within—forced themselves into a pained smile. “Not one goddamn thing,” he admitted.
Chapter 4
Levi surveyed the myriad nuts, bolts, and screws, the various Allenwrenches and other parts and pieces that lay scattered across Haddie’s bedroom floor after they’d finished putting her bed together.
“This can’t be right,” he mumbled, more to himself than as a conversation starter.
Haddie leaned back against the estate-sale dresser she, Emma, and Matteo had snagged on their day-long furniture quest. “But we followed the directions, didn’t we?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied with a groan. “My Swedish is a little rusty. I was just going by the diagram.”
Haddie winced. “And I was just going by you going by the diagram.” Then she paused for a beat. “Is the bed going to collapse in the middle of the night, fall through the floor, and send me plummeting into Crawford’s Hardware store and to my imminent demise?”
Levi rolled his eyes. “No one’s plummeting to their demise.”
“Says the man who can’t read Swedish. It might say right there on that paper”—she pointed to the one page of directions like it was sitting on a witness stand, perjuring itself in a court of law—“thatif parts remain after assembly is complete, those parts indicate a clear sign that the sleeper will meet her demise in the middle of her slumber.”
Levi shrugged. “And it might say ‘I don’t like pancakes.’ But I guess we’ll never know.”
Haddie’s mouth fell open. “That was just a random example, right? You don’t reallynotlike pancakes.”
He blinked. “I don’t…what?” He couldn’t keep up. She was making him dizzy. But the good news was that since they’d embarked upon the Swedish furniture project, they’d been so zeroed in on the work that Haddie hadn’t once asked him about theTed Lassodebacle since she’d caught him red-handed earlier that day.
“That pancake thing. With the directions,” she reminded him. “You were just using that as an example of what the directions might say because they could say anything. But you, Levi Rourke, do not have it in for pancakes… Do you? And before you answer, you should know that Emma’s cat who loves me dearly—and the affection is mutual—is named Pancake.”
Levi opened his mouth to respond, then closed it and paused for a beat. “Can I not like pancakes without it also implying that I don’t like a cat I’ve never met?”
Haddie crossed her arms. “How can you not like pancakes? Or Pancake? What did a delicious breakfast treat or a sweet little tabby ever do to you?”
He held up his hands. “Nothing!” he replied with a laugh. “I have nothing against Emma’s cat, and as for your delicious breakfast treat?” He shrugged. “It doesn’t do anything for me.” He laughedagain, something about this ridiculous conversation lifting a weight off his chest. They could do this, the whole being roommates thing. They could build furniture together, and she could tease him and make him laugh.
“There’s a why,” she replied.
“Awhy?” he countered.
“A why,” Haddie repeated. “And I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
He scoffed. “Can’t a guy simplynotlike pancakes?”
“No.” she answered.
“No?”
“No.”
Levi looked at his watch. “It’s late.” And he had his first preseason practice in the morning, which meant he had more studying to do that night. “You want to test it out and make sure you’re not going to plunge to imminent death?”
Haddie sighed. “Fine. But I’m not done figuring you out.”
Levi climbed to his feet and then held a hand out for his roommate. When she took it, he ignored the pulse of electricity that passed from her hand to his. It was nothing more than muscle memory following two strangers meeting in a hotel bar. Nothing more. Because they weren’t really strangers anymore, and the hotel bar? If they both wanted to succeed in the new positions they hadn’t officially started yet, it might as well have never existed.
“Thanks…roomie,” she said, a little breathless as he pulled her up from the floor. Then she cleared her throat. “There’s a storybehind the pancakes,” she added. “Isn’t there?”
