I’m going to kill Grace.
No, I won’t kill her. Instead I’ll go through her bookshelf and tear every sex scene out of her romance novels. I’ll mix her setting spray with blue food coloring. I’ll replace all her bras with identical ones a size too small so she has to dig underwire out of her tits all day but can’t figure out why.
And why would I do this to my best friend in the whole wide world, whom I’ve known since the day we were born?
Because thanks to her, the hottest man I’ve ever seen is standing in my living room, and I can’t stop word-vomiting at him.
“Sorry for the weird mishmash of décor,” I say, trying to make eye contact with the silent, hulking Dan McBride. Unfortunately, as soon as my eyes meet those blue-gray stunners, I feel a hot, patchy flush start to creep up my neck, and I immediately look away. “My parents gave me this house after they won the lottery and moved to Boca Raton to live near my aunt Frida, and I know it’s been, like, six months, but exorcising the Midwest nineties décor hell that lives in every corner of every room has been a real journey. I mean, do you know how hard it is to get wallpaper borders off the wall? I did not! I spent a solid month picking atthem while watching three seasons ofLaw & Order, and there’sstillresidue.” I point up near the ceiling, where a white film stuck to the burgundy paint job still haunts me.
I make another attempt to look at Dan, who is standing stock-still on the old beige carpet, his duffel slung over his shoulder. He’s infuriatingly quiet, and as a kindergarten teacher, I’m used to trying to draw people out. With him, that usually involves way too much talking, but maybe I should try the sock puppet that worked so well on Jaxon Holmes last year.
Oh crap, I’ve been quiet too long. I’ve made things weird.
Dan flexes his jaw, which does hot, molten things to my insides, and I send my gaze back to the last vestiges of the wallpaper border.
Thisis why I’m going to kill Grace. Because I cannot be normal around Dan McBride, who is now my temporary roommate. He makes me nervous, with all that height and that jawline and those smoldering eyes that seem to see beneath the layers of me to some kind of truth even I don’t know. He is absolutely the most beautiful human I’ve ever seen in real life, a real solid hunk of a man whose sculpted muscles are apparent even in a white dress shirt, untucked over a pair of khaki shorts with an inseam so short it borders on slutty. My eyes drop down to his tanned, muscular legs.
White tennis shoes with no socks?
Definitelyslutty.
Whenever Dan is around, I have exactly two modes: panicked silence and panicked word vomit. There is no in-between. I simply cannot be normal around him.
And today, apparently, my nervous word vomit setting is turned up to eleven.
Fabulous.
“I’m really trying to make the house my own, but I don’t want to make any rash decisions and wind up regretting them. I mean, it feels like minimalism was the thing three minutes ago, and now it’s cottagecore cozy maximalism. And I want the place to feel likemine, you know? Not some Pinterest board come to life. Anyway, I’m working on it. But you probably don’t care that the couch is mint green gingham and you can still see the stain from where I threw up white chocolate–covered Oreos on the middle cushion when I was nine. I was watching the Hannah Montana movie at the time, and I still feel nauseated when I hear ‘The Climb.’”
My whole body cringes at the confession. Any attempt to keep my embarrassment from turning me the color of a summer strawberry is now completely futile. I would burn this whole house down around me if it meant I could escape this moment.
But all I get from Dan is a minuscule quirk of his left eyebrow.
Jesus Christ, tighten it up, Carson.
I squeeze my fists until I’m sure my nails have permanently branded little crescent moons into my palms, and then I try to smile.
“I’ll show you to your room,” I say, hoping I look pleasant and not, you know, feral.
I lead him down the little hallway past the kitchen, toward the three small bedrooms in the cramped house. At least now that I’m walking, my body seems too occupied to offer up any conversational embellishments.
Oh, wait, no. I feel more words coming a split second before they spill from my mouth.
“I’m actually on my way out, so you can get settled in peace. I have a date. With this guy I matched with on Hinge? We’re going roller skating, which was his idea, and I’m taking that as a good sign, because I cannot meet one more man at one more brewery and drink one more extra-hoppy IPA. I don’t evenlikebeer, much less level-ten beer,” I say as I lead him past my bedroom door, which I thankfully remembered to close. Not only does the room feature all the furniture I’ve had since I was nine—twin bed and teal chevron comforter included—but the entire contents of my closet is spread across the floor after trying to pick an outfit for said date.
I stop at the second door, the guest room that doubled as mymother’s sewing room before she relocated to Florida. I step aside and let him step in.
“Feel free to make yourself at home. Move anything around, whatever. There’s a closet and a dresser, and in the hall linen closet you’ll find extra blankets and bath towels. The bathroom is across the hall. We’ll share it.”
And then I nearly fall over as a cascade of realizations hits me. Like that I’m going to get naked in the exact same shower where he’s going to get naked—not at the same time, of course, but that doesn’t mean the images that spring to mind are less vivid. Images of hot water sluicing over what I imagine to be an incredibly cut body.
Am I sweating? I think I might be sweating. I worry I’m about to start audibly sizzling when the honk of a car horn saves me.
“That’s him!” I cry, my voice cracking. I swallow hard. Clear my throat. “My date,” I croak.
For the first time, Dan’s face betrays an actual emotion. Which one it is, I’m not sure. But his eyebrow is quirkedhigh.
“He’s picking you up?” he asks. It may be the longest string of words I’ve ever heard him say.
