“Well, I should probably let you sleep,” I say, backing toward my room. “Hero work takes it out of you.”
“Or,” he says, pushing the blanket off his lap, “you could come with me to get ice cream.”
I blink. “Now?”
“Yeah. Scoop Dogg’s still open for another thirty minutes. You in?”
“I…” The word trails off as he stands, reaching for his glasses on the coffee table. The movement is unhurried, easy, but when he slides them on, the small adjustment of his hand at the bridge of his nose draws my eyes before I can stop them. There’s something about the half-sleep softness of him, rumpled shirt, messy hair, that grin starting at one corner, that knocks my thoughts slightly off balance.
“Come on, Liv,” he says, voice low, teasing. “You can’t end a date without ice cream. It’s against the law.”
“Right, except you weren’t my date. Do the same rules apply?”
He stands, stretching, revealing a sliver of skin and dark hair that trails lower beneath the band of his sweats, and I’m completely unable to look away. It isn’t until he steps closer that my eyes trail up the hard planes of his chest until they settle on his lips that I realize he’s grinning at me.
“I might not have taken you on the date, but I’m the one you came home to. I can still be the one to end your night right.”
There’s a promise hidden in his words, and the room shrinks to mold around him. My heart does that annoying stutter thing, and suddenly it’s too warm in here. I open my mouth, then close it again, because nothing I could say would sound casual. His gaze flicks over my face, lazily, not rushing me to say yes to going with him.
The silence stretches. My pulse trips over itself, quick and uneven, and I’m sure he can see it thrumming in my neck.
“You make it hard to think,” I say quietly, more to myself than to him.
His mouth curves, not quite a smile. “Good.” He steps closer, close enough that I catch the warmth off him as he holds out his hoodie. I take it without thinking, fingers brushing his for half a second too long. “Rest that beautiful brain of yours,” he says, voice low, “and let’s eat ice cream.” He moves past me toward the door, pulling it open with one hand, the other sliding into the pocket of his sweats. “Mint choc chip fixes almost everything.”
I’m starting to think having Jay Oliviera as a roommate can fix almost anything at this point.
Chapter eleven
Jay
Liv
I’ve got a surprise for you when you get home x
A surprise. I gnaw at the inside of my lip.
With Liv, that could mean anything. I’m quickly learning that she’s spontaneous and also regularly needs my help in situations. She’s almost a carbon copy of Hudson in that sense, but thankfully, she’s much prettier to look at.
Jay
No date tonight?
Liv
Tonight is all about you, roomie x
That sentence should be illegal. Then again, I doubt that notion would stop Liv from using it anyway.
By the time I reach the apartment, the smell of smoke—not food—hits me first as I push open the door.
“Liv?” I call out, trying not to sound alarmed.
“In here!” she singsongs.
I step into the kitchen and stop dead. The counter looks like a food bomb went off—onions, sauce, and something that might once have been garlic bread now resembling charcoal. There’s a pot boiling over on the stove, steam fogging up the windows to the left, and she’s standing in the middle of it all, barefoot, hair in a messy knot, a wooden spoon in one hand and absolute fear on her face.
“W-what happened?”
