For a moment it could have been that night all over again, with the way he charged over to the door and stuck his head inside.
“You’d really still want to live with me?” he asked, sneaking a look at me from the corner of his eye. “You’re not kidding?”
“Why would I joke?”
Snorting, he moved over an inch so we could both fit in the doorway. “Yes, why indeed.” Without warning, Quinn slung his arm over my shoulders and crushed me closer to his side. “So, roomies then? You going to be good with that?”
“If you cut down on the deodorant,” I said, prying myself free, “we’ll be great.”
Quinn laughed. “Can I get a glass of water? I’m still parched from class.”
“Class?” I asked as I headed for the kitchen. “On Saturday?”
“Shannon and I run self-defense classes at the rec center.”
I perked up at that. Since my unanticipated meeting with Freddy, I’d been thinking that maybe I should learn some self-defense. “Might be a good idea to take one of them,” I said, pulling out a fresh glass from the cupboard.
Quinn leaned against the opposite side of the kitchen island and flicked through the pile of party flyers I had collected over the weeks. “You should come along to one, then.”
“I’ll check my schedule, but yes, that would be good.”
As I turned on the tap and filled Quinn’s glass, he blurted, “You don’t mind I’m gay?”
I glanced at him over my shoulder and turned off the tap. Facing him, I leaned back against the sink. “Why should I?”
He looked at me, the frown on his brow slow to disappear. “Allright. Just don’t want you freaking out when you see a guy leave from my room, that’s all.”
I swapped the hand holding his glass and wiped my wet palm over the leg of my pants. “If I were to ‘freak out’ as you call it, I’d probably be doing that while he’sinthe room. The walls are thin. But, rest assured, Quinn Sullivan, I’m too busy to care about your shenanigans. As long as the wall stays up, you’re all good.”
“All good, huh?” For the confident guy he was, he sounded quite relieved. “How much do you want for the room?”
I lifted the glass and drank. By the time I remembered it was meant to be his, I’d already finished it, a few drops of water beading at the corners of my mouth.
Giving him a sheepish smile over the edge of the rim, I put the glass in the sink and filled up a fresh one. “Sorry. You’ll probably have to get used to that. I get sidetracked with a thought and, yes, well... I’m also a little on the clumsy side.”
“Yeah, you don’t say.”
A bizarre and irrational urge to poke my tongue out at him came over me, but I managed to keep my decorum. “I don’t pay rent on the place, so I don’t expect you to either.”
“No rent?” he asked.
The surprised look on his face startled me into a jerky movement, and I splashed water down Quinn’s front, soaking him. I must have handed him the glass a little faster than I should have. He yelped and plucked his T-shirt away from his stomach as the cold liquid soaked to his skin.
“Sorry,” I said. “Misjudged that one completely.”
“Just a little.” Quinn reached over his shoulder and pulled off the shirt. He balled it up and rested it on the counter, then walked slowly toward the bag he’d dumped at the entrance. “Good thing I have my sports stuff here.”
“Sports stuff?” I hummed.
Without the loose T-shirt, Quinn looked like a superhero. Histoned stomach tapered gently to his hips, and he had a lot more hair on his chest than I had.
I pushed my glasses up.
Fascinating how the slight chill in the air pebbled goosebumps all down his stomach, disappearing at the waistband of his jeans.
Similar to my irrational tingling whenever the wordexaminationwas mentioned, I got goosebumps just looking at Quinn.
He shifted into a crouch, laughing softly as he unzipped his bag. “Like what you see?”
