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“Ellis, seriously.”
“I’m not going to be mad. Why would I be mad?”
She took a deep breath. “Kieran is going through a rough time.”
When she hesitated to say more, I filled in the blank. “So he’s coming over tomorrow night for you to cheer him up?”
“You could say that.”
Something occurred to me abruptly. “You did not set us up on a date.”
“No! Of course not.”
“Then what is it?”
“I invited him to move in,” she said in a rush.
“You what?”
She covered her face with her hands. “I knew you’d be mad.”
“I’m not… I’m not mad. Start from the beginning. What’s happening?”
Lena removed her hands from her face. “He’s having a hard time. He just took a leave of absence from his job, and he needs to get out of town for a while. I told him he could come here and relax for a month.”
“A month?”
“Or two,” she squeaked.
“Lena.”
“What? He needs the support!”
“There’s no room in this house for a third adult. Where is he going to sleep?”
She grimaced. “The couch.”
“This just keeps getting better and better.”
“Look,” she said. “All you have to do is stay out of each other’s way. I’m not expecting you to be best buds. Just cordial.” She hesitated for a moment. “Well, cordial enough. Do not, under any circumstances, let this be another—”
I held up my hand to cut her off. “If you’re going to say not to let this be another incident like with Jade, you don’t have to worry. I learned my lesson about sleeping with your friends.”
Jade had been Lena’s best friend in high school. I’d hooked up with her once when I was home from college—she was eighteen, I was twenty-one—and it had blown up in my face when I found out she thought it meant a lot more than I did. Ever since then, Lena loved to remind me that her friends were off-limits when it came to my sex life.
“So we’re good?” she asked.
I sighed and rubbed my hand over my face. “Fine. When does he arrive?”
Lena squealed and threw her arms around me in a tight hug.
Chapter Three
Kieran
“Kier!” Lena came bursting out of her front door, a mile-wide smile on her face as she ran out to greet me.
I’d just put the car in park and opened my door when she came rushing out and when she screamed my name, something inside of me settled. I was home. Being around Lena always felt that way, like I didn’t have to pretend or put on a show. I could just be myself.
