He stops abruptly, and I bounce off his broad back. Slowly, he turns to face me.
He arches a brow. “Excuse me?”
“I mean, I just figured since you’ve given me two very nice although odd compliments, I should probably return the favor.”
“Ah.” He seems to consider it. “… thank you.”
Smiling up at him, I squeeze past him and up the stairs. As I lead the way up the narrow staircase, I look back at him over my shoulder and say, “Unfortunately, you snore.” and I race up the stairs as he laughs and gives chase.
Flint putsthe grocery bags in the kitchen whilst I get started on sorting and putting things away. Funny — I don’t remember buying a bag of slutty smut books or a bag of baked goods.
“Where’d you…”
“Betsy.” we say together. I don’t even bother unpacking the books, instead deciding to see what treats she’s sent home with Flint. The woman is convinced I’ll either light the apartment on fire trying to cook or that I’ll just starve to death with my tendency to forget to eat. Unlike a lot of the older women, however, she doesn’t skinny shame me, which I appreciate. I hardly do it on purpose — I just don’t always realize that I’m hungry until I’m hangry and then I can be everyone’s problem.
While I’m searching for a fresh bagel (my current fixation food), Flint rummages through the bag of books. “Are you going to write?” he asks, studying a particularly thick romance book with mostly naked people on the cover. “Are books like this popular? Sex books, I mean.”
“Yes. I mean — yes, I’m going to write, but also yes, ‘sex books’ are pretty popular. There are a lot of different tiny categories under the banner of ‘sex books’, though. More tiny categories within those categories.”
“Really?” He doesn’t seem convinced. “How many ways can there be to write sex?”
I’m just going to choose what to answer and hope he doesn’t notice.
“Really. There’s monster romance, hockey romance, why choose adventures, single dads, billionaires, sapphic, sentient objects, mafia, cowboy. The list goes on and on. And withinthosecategories, there are even more: fake marriage, one bed, forced proximity, friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, age gap. That doesn’t even touch on the trigger warnings.”
He finally focuses on me instead of the smut he’s holding. He has great hands. Wide palms, long fingers. Calluses run along the top of his palm, a testament to the time he has spent swinging a sword and working out doors. No soft, pampered hands here.
“What?” I ask. I completely missed what he said. I was too busy fantasizing about his hands and how they felt on my face. Wondering how they’d feel in other locations.
“I asked, what’s a trigger warning?”
Nope. I’m not going there. I can’t even imagine trying to explain something like ‘praise kink’ to this man. No thanks.
“We’ll save trigger warnings for another time.” Gods that sounds dirty and slightly ominous.
“If you say so. If you’re going to write, can I borrow one of these?”
I try not to wince. Do I want to be responsible foranswering any questions that these book recommendations of Betsy’s may bring up? Not particularly, but maybe if he’s engaged in reading something, he won’t be as much of a distraction while I’m trying to puzzle this stupid story together. I guess I can always make him ask Betsy since sending these books with him was her fault in the first place.
“Sure,” I take a bite of my bagel and talk around it. “Help yourself to the books, the shower — I can show you how it works — to any of the food in the kitchen. I wasn’t sure what you or Calida would want, so I guessed. If you hate it all, we can go back to the store. Where is she, anyway?”
“Last I checked, she was making friends with Betsy and being doted on. Don’t worry, she knows her way back here. As for the food, I’m sure it’s fine. She eats rats and I’m not picky.”
Right. Betsy. Who I purposefully avoided today so I wouldn’t have to discuss Calida or Flint or this weird situation we’ve all found ourselves in. Oddly, “random roommates” was not on this year’s bingo card.
“Great,” I say, skirting around him and heading for my writing desk. “Then just let me know if you need anything.”
As my laptop boots up, I watch out of the corner of my eye as he finishes his perusal of the books and chooses one. Unfortunately, due to the angle and his massive hands, I can’t tell what he picked. I hope it’s a historical fiction novel about, I don’t know, something un-sexy, like the Civil War or putting up preserves. But Betsy put that bag together so I know with zero doubt it absolutely fucking isn’t.
He sits to remove his boots and with a happy sigh, lays down with his head propped on a throw pillow, to begin his book.
Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I focus on the screen in front of me and try to lose myself in Goira.
The smell of smoke brings me back. My eyes are watering and who knows how long that’s been happening? On auto-pilot, I save my work and back it up before shoving away to see what the fuck is burning. Did I leave a candle unattended?
No. It’s Flint. In the kitchen.Mykitchen. And smoke is billowing from the oven.
Running the few feet between, I jerk Flint away, slam the oven door closed and turn it off. I hurry to open all of the windows.
