Return of the Jerk (Sweet Life in Seattle, Book 2) (10 page)

A shudder of wanting runs through her. Her desire for Road is so deep and familiar, it’s like an old friend returning, her shadow companion for years.

She picks up her beer and takes a sip. “So, when did you learn how to cook?”

“Couple years ago. Friends taught me.”

Blair is silent.
Women friends, no doubt.

“Do you want to grab some plates, babe?”

She opens the cabinet and gets them down, then pulls out silverware for both of them. Despite her anger, she figures they might as well eat. Road takes each plate and dishes out rice from another pot she hadn’t even noticed he was using. He loads up both plates with the stir fry.

They take their food and beer bottles over to her small dining room table, where they sit in silence for a while as they devour the meal.

“This is good,” Blair admits. She’s hungry, but it’s still probably the best stir fry she’s ever had. “Did you put curry in it?”

“Thanks. And yeah, I did.”

“I take it one of your girlfriends taught you how to cook.”

He shakes his head. “Shared a flat with a husband and wife in Budapest and they taught me.”

Blair raises her eyebrows in surprise.

“We took turns cooking,” Road explains. “Only, I burned everything. Finally, they got so tired of my charcoal dinners they took it upon themselves to teach me how to cook.”

Blair can’t help her laughter. “They did a good job. From what I remember, all you could make were peanut butter sandwiches.”

“Yeah, that was my repertoire, all right.” Road grins. “Only, you can’t find peanut butter in Hungary or if you do, it’s too expensive.”

“How long did you live there?”

“About six months. Right before I moved to London.”

“You’ve been leading an adventurous life.”

Road shrugs. “Some might say that.”

Blair thinks about how Lori once told her how he got his nickname—why they started calling him Road instead of Nathan. She said he kept trying to run away when he was a toddler, that even then he had a hankering for the open road.

There’s a mewing sound and Blair looks down to see Mr. Maurice twining around her ankles. He lets her pet him a little, but then quickly goes over to Road and jumps on his lap.

“Hey, buddy.”

“I swear you’ve hypnotized my cat.”

Road scratches under Mr. Maurice’s chin. “He’s got good taste, is all.”

Blair is watching the two of them when she hears her phone playing “If I Knew You Were Coming I’d’ve Baked a Cake” from inside her purse. She gets up to answer it and sees on the display it’s Graham.

“Hi.” Her eyes flash over to Road, who is still petting Mr. Maurice but watching her with interest. “Let me go find someplace private to talk,” she says pointedly.

Road raises an eyebrow.

“I haven’t heard from you in a while,” Graham says in a friendly voice. “Just thought I’d check and see if you want to get together for a movie or something?”

“Uh, sure.” She heads toward the deck, but then suddenly remembers her purse. Isadora’s keys are inside. She makes her way back over. Road is still watching her as she grabs her purse off the chair, his eyes calculating. “A movie sounds great,” she tells Graham.

Blair goes out onto her deck and closes the sliding glass door. She can still see Road inside. He’s petting Mr. Maurice, but then he gets up and starts clearing the table.

Graham is telling her a funny story about someone he works with and she laughs at all the appropriate places, but she can’t take her eyes off Road. He’s putting the food away now. It surprises her. She can’t remember him ever clearing a dish in his life. He’s always been a terrible slob. And even though she wants Road to leave, there’s this odd pang of longing in her chest as she sees him standing in her kitchen. Ironically, despite their ‘marriage,’ this is the most domestic they’ve ever been with each other.

When Graham is done with his funny story, Blair invites him to her mom’s gallery event. He tells her he might be in Bellingham for work, but he’ll try to make it.

They hang up and when Blair goes back inside, she doesn’t see Road anywhere.

Unfortunately, she already knows where he is.

Sure enough, she finds him in her bedroom, though unlike the last two nights, he isn’t asleep but sitting in bed reading from a Kindle.

“Who was that you were talking to?” he asks when she comes into the room.

“You’re not seriously staying the night here again.”

“Answer my question.”

Blair goes over to stand by the end of the bed. Road is wearing a white T-shirt, but the rest of his body is under the duvet. He definitely looks like he’s planning to stay. “This is crazy. You can’t just move in here.”

“Was that your boyfriend?”

“Would you at least sleep on the couch? Could you do that much for me?”

Road goes back to his Kindle. She notices Mr. Maurice curled up beside him, her traitorous cat. Quite the cozy pair. “Can’t sleep on the couch, babe. It’ll kill my back.”

Blair scoffs. “Since when do you have a back problem?”

“It’s a recent thing.”

“I don’t believe that. You’re making it up.”

“Believe whatever you like.” He’s still looking at his Kindle, but she can see the little smirk on his face.

Blair gives up and goes into the bathroom to change into the oversized shirt and boxer shorts she wears to bed. She brushes her teeth. When that’s done, she checks to make sure her front door is locked and everything is turned off. She tries to do it consciously, so she can visit the memory, instead of checking the door over and over. It’s a trick she learned in counseling to help with her compulsions, though it doesn’t always work.

Finally, she heads into the bedroom again.
Another sleepless night next to Road.
Great.

Road is still reading, and he watches her when she comes into the room. His eyes roam over her, and she tries not to show her discomfort at his perusal. She senses his laser focus is on.

“Is that what you always sleep in?” he asks, still studying her boxer shorts as she climbs into bed.

“Yes.”

She tries to imagine what all his Skank Factor X girlfriends wear to bed. Garter belts and push-up bras, no doubt.

“Don’t you have a little nightie or something?”

Blare rolls her eyes.

He grins. “A classy babe like you? I’ll bet you got a whole drawer full of them.”

In truth, she does have a few nighties, though they’re not in a drawer but hanging in her closet. “I’m not wearing them for
you.
”

Road chuckles at that, but then his laughter quiets. “Who are you wearing them for—your boyfriend?”

Blair gives a haughty sniff as she pulls the covers over herself. She makes a point not to check and see what Road has on, though she’s pretty sure it’s a pair of boxer briefs. “That’s right, I wear my nighties for him all the time.”

Road takes this in then shakes his head. “Don’t think so.”

“It’s true.”

“That dude who called you earlier?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, that dude who called is my boyfriend.”

“No way he’s your boyfriend.”

“You’re wrong. He
is
my boyfriend.”

“Nope. And I can you tell this much, too. You’re definitely not sleeping with him.”

“What makes you so sure of that?”

He puts his Kindle down and rolls over so he’s on his side, facing her. “Because if you were, princess, you’d be in bed with him right now instead of me.”

Blair goes still at this. She’s lying on her back, while Road is propped up on one elbow, the room bathed in a soft glow from her lamp.

She meets his eyes. Swallows. Remembers how it felt like he was going to kiss her last night. It feels that way again, but this time, she knows it’s all in her mind. He’s already slept in the same bed with her two nights in a row, and it’s clear he doesn’t want her. Because if he
did
want her, by now he would have done something about it.

“You’re only here because I’m stuck with you,” she tells him.

“We can end this anytime.”

She closes her eyes. “Just turn the light off. I need to get some sleep.”

He rolls away from her and reaches for the bedside lamp. But then he stops. “Tell me something first. The truth. Are you sleeping with that guy?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Tell me.”

“Why do you care, Road?”

“Tell me,” he insists.

Blair blows out a sigh. “No. You’re right. We’re not sleeping together.”

The light goes out and she can feel Road lie down, settling in. She rolls on her side, facing away from him. As always, his scent is everywhere. The smoky hint of autumn. She wishes he was one of those guys who wore cologne or something. Smelling him is like taking a hit off an opium pipe.

He’s right about Graham, too. They keep trying to date, but there aren’t many sparks flying. The few times they kissed, it felt more like she was kissing her brother.

Blair’s eyes close as she waits for the sound of Road’s deep, even breathing. The torment of it every night. She doesn’t understand why he’s being so stubborn about Isadora, either. Why does he suddenly want that car so bad? Maybe he plans to sell her. The thought makes Blair grit her teeth.
After all the energy I’ve poured into her?

She lies there, trying to let her mind drift off to sleep, and starts to wonder if maybe she should just move to the couch herself. At least she’d finally get some rest.
No way is he chasing me out of my own bed, though.

“Blair, you awake?” Road asks softly.

It actually startles her, Road’s voice. She freezes, and for a second can’t decide whether she should answer or not. After all, she’s been fake-sleeping the past two nights, but then realizes he doesn’t know that.

“Yes,” she says. “I’m awake.”

She feels him shift in bed. “What you said at Tori’s yesterday surprised me. I never knew you were bothered about me leaving.”

Blair is silent, taking this in.

“Always figured you’d want to make a clean start of it. That’s why I never contacted you.”

“You put a note on my pillow that said ‘see you later.’ How could that not bother me?”

“I know that was shitty, but I didn’t have a lot of options.”

“You could have told me to my face that you were leaving.”

“You wouldn’t let me.”

Blair sighs. “Give me a break, that’s the best you can do?”

“I tried to talk to you, but every time, you shut me down. Went all weepy.”

Blair closes her eyes and thinks back to that unhappy time, the most unhappy time of her life. She was weepy a lot. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

Road exhales. She thinks he’s going to say more, and she waits for it. But he doesn’t and is quiet instead. And eventually, she hears it.

The deep, even breathing of Road’s sleep.

“YOU HAVE TO
talk some sense into him,” Blair tells Tori. “He’s your brother. I think he’ll listen to you.”

Tori shakes her head. “No way, José. I love you both, and I’m not getting in the middle of this. I’m Switzerland.”

Blair is at Tori’s house. She came over during her lunch break, hoping maybe Tori could figure out a way to convince Road to leave. “I don’t want him staying with me, but he kept my house key and it’s like he’s moved in or something.”

She thinks back to how she left Road sleeping in her bed this morning with Mr. Maurice. She was tempted to wake him, force him to keep baker’s hours. But as she watched Road’s face so peaceful in sleep, she didn’t have the heart.

Instead, she stood there, gazing her fill. It was a rare opportunity to be allowed to look at Road as much as she wanted, and she’s embarrassed to admit she took it. Even when they were living together years ago, she didn’t have the chance because they slept in separate bedrooms. Watching him this morning, she was tempted to pull the duvet down a little, see even more of him, but that might have woken him up. Plus, she worried she was crossing a line already and getting all stalkerish.

If only he would leave and end this torment!
Then I can have my life back. The one that doesn’t include Road.

“Why don’t you just give him Isadora? That’s all he wants, and then he’ll go.” Tori is shaking out some treats for her cats. They’re mewing and rubbing against her. The boys are waiting patiently, too, since they know they’re next.