Quinn waited until I started my laptop before he resumed his reading. True to his word, he did his best not to distract me. His toes sometimes wiggled and slid against my thigh, but other than that, there was just the sound of my fingers clacking over the keyboard, hischi-lipsound as he turned a page, and our quiet breathing.
For half an hour, Quinn said nothing, and I barely made a dent in my essay.
Ten minutes later, I gave up, closing my laptop and laying it onthe glass coffee table in front of the couch. Elbows on my knees, I scrubbed my face as I thought of something to say. We were roommates after all, yet I didn’t know much about him.
I sneaked a peek at him from the corner of my eye and jumped when I found him looking at me.
“Gah!”
He shoved a bookmark into his book, shut it, and laid it next to my laptop. “What’s up, Liam?” he asked, tucking his arms behind his head.
Obviously I hadn’t adjusted the temperature low enough. The air in the room was positively smothering. Or maybe trying to make friends did that to someone.
My glasses were slipping with the sweat beading out of me. I pushed them up. It was a simple question, so it shouldn’t have been a bother. And yet, somehow this time was much harder than any other time. “Do you want to play cards?”
I carefully watched every nuance of Quinn’s reaction, the bobbling of his Adam’s apple, the quiver of his lips, the slight angling of his head in my direction, the jiggle of his foot at my side.
Without realizing it, I’d held my breath, which was now very noticeable as I expelled it and gasped for more.
Quinn unlocked his hands from behind his head and pushed himself into a sitting position, pulling his feet nearer to him. “No,” he said slowly. “I’d rather not lose again.”
“Oh. Okay.” Suddenly my bedroom seemed to be calling me. It promised that the air was cooler and I wouldn’t have any problems concentrating on work. And work was better than cards, anyway.
I sprang off the couch.
But I didn’t make it a step before Quinn grabbed my hips and tackled me onto the couch. To be more accurate, he landed on the couch, and I landed in his lap. His arms tightened around mywaist. “Why on earth are you running away?” he growled into my ear.
“You didn’t want to play cards!” I replied, twisting for freedom to no avail.
“No, I don’t. One, because you’d just win again. And two, I just want an opportunity to chat. Shoot the shit. Share a little.” He released his grip just enough to smooth his hands over my T-shirt and shift me to the couch cushion next to him. Quinn rubbed his forehead with the knuckle of his thumb. “You’re not easy, Liam. You’re always so serious. Blunt. Busy. Unaffected—except, strangely not just now.Nowyou actually felt something, didn’t you?”
I swallowed a thick lump in my throat and kept my gaze on my arms, prickling with goosebumps. Jill was spot-on. I couldn’t make a friend if my life depended on it. “I... yes. I felt something, okay? It was disappointment.”
“Good,” Quinn said, and the couch dipped as he swiveled more in my direction. “I like when you show your feelings. Otherwise, you’re too much of a puzzle for me. We’re... roommates. I want to understand what makes you tick.”
He shrugged. “And, maybe you want to know a little more about me too?” He gestured to his textbook. “Like the fact I’m studying to be a physiotherapist. That I scrape by as a C student. That I absolutely hate onions.” He squished up his nose and ran his hands over the edge of the couch. “That I think you have the most comfortable couch ever. That I can be quite a sarcastic son-of-a-bitch. That I still jerk off to the thought of my ex even though he cheated on me. That I love Shannon, but never in the way I know she really wishes I would. That I hate seeing Hunter, because every time I do, I want to fucking cry.”
That was more information than roommates usually shared, wasn’t it? I tried to formulate an appropriate answer.
As a reporter, I’d learned to tamper down my feelings so Icould focus on delivering facts. And I was good at it, because emotion didn’t come easily to me.
I lowered my gaze from his, concentrating on his chin and firm lips instead. “I already knew you could be a sarcastic son-of-a-bitch.”
Quinn leaned against the back of the couch, and when he turned his head toward me, his breath tickled against my temple. “And what about you? Do you ever relax? Jerk off? Because I just can’t in my life imagine you doing that.”
I pushed up my glasses again. “Of course I do. I schedule that in at shower time.”
Quinn paused for a moment, his green eyes clouding in confusion. He bit his lip to smother a smile. His voice lowered. “Schedule?” He hummed. “That sounds far too practical to be any fun.”
“It works for me.”
“And do you have a girlfriend that you think about—”
“You know by now I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Fine. Favorite model? Actress?”
“You are extremely curious about this.”
