The Grumpy Roommate Gamble (Heroes of Huckleberry Creek #1)

4. Felicity

FOUR

FELICITY

“Wait, wait. Let me get this straight.” My best friend Austen leaned over the front counter at Bloomsday, her eyes wide. “Gabe Bishop, the object of your long-time crush, showed up last night and caught you in a towel? ”

For approximately 3.9 seconds, I thought of that slow scan he’d made of my body. He hadn’t looked disgusted. In fact, he’d looked a little like a starving man standing before a feast…

No. Nope. Not gonna go there. That’s not what this is about. You’re imagining things. You couldn’t see that clearly.

“He had no idea I’ve been staying at his place. His grandmother didn’t tell him anything. We about gave each other heart attacks.”

“I’m still stuck on the towel. I mean, this is a classic micro-trope for a reason.” Austen owned Plot Twist, our local bookstore, so she was constantly framing life in story structure—something I found far more amusing when it wasn’t my life she was analyzing.

I snapped my fingers in front of her face. “Focus! My life is not a rom com! I have an actual serious situation here.”

She pouted a little, then sobered. “He must have come home early. The rest of the unit is getting home this afternoon on the bus. My parents and I are headed out to meet Rhett, and we’ve got a cookout planned later to welcome him and the other guys home. You should come.”

I envied Austen’s tight-knit family. She actually liked her brother most of the time. “I can’t think about celebrating right now, Austen. I have to figure out what to do. Gabe does not want me as a squatter in his house.”

“Did he say that?”

“No, but it is absolutely unreasonable to expect him to let me stay when he wasn’t asked for permission in the first place.”

“Okay, let’s think our way through what could possibly happen here. There are really only a couple of options. One, he kicks you out of his house, which would make him a jerk and get you over this thirteen-year crush. Or two, he doesn’t, and you get to stay there until your house is fixed, which gives you a chance to get to know him better and maybe actually do something about that crush. Because forced proximity is a hella popular trope for a reason.”

Mortified, I could only stare at her. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not? It’s the twenty-first century. Women can totally make the first move.”

“First off, I would never make a move on him if he let me stay because he’d sort of be my landlord. He’d be doing me a favor. If I made a move, and he rejected me, that would be horrible. And then I’d be stuck in a house with him and the monster-sized awkward until my house is fixed or I leave everything and move to Bora Bora.”

With a put-upon sigh, Austen crossed her arms. “Fine. We’ll set aside the idea of an intervention for your love life and focus on the practical of what happens if you need a place to go.”

“I don’t have one. That’s how I ended up staying in his house to begin with. ”

“Well, you can always stay with me until you find something.”

I absolutely appreciated the sentiment behind her offer, but Austen’s apartment above the bookstore had only one bedroom, which meant I’d be sleeping on the sofa, which had a less-than-zero chance of Cliffhanger, Austen’s cat, deciding to make a bed of my head. That scenario was obviously better than living in a cardboard box on the street, but I didn’t see it as being a practical solution.

“That’s very kind of you, but I couldn’t impose.”

“Felicity-speak for ‘Not a chance in hell.’ It’s fine. I love you anyway.”

“It’s nothing personal, and I love you, too.”

“We’ll keep thinking. There’s bound to be an option you haven’t considered yet. And either way, you don’t even know that it’s a problem. Last night you took him by surprise. But you literally left him talking to his grandma about it this morning. Dorothy isn’t going to let him kick you out.”

I bit my lip as I considered. I mean, I knew Dorothy would insist I get to stay, and Gabe adored his grandmother. It was one of the things I liked about him. Something I’d always believed showed good character. But even if he got railroaded into keeping me as a roommate, if he didn’t want me there, I’d never be comfortable in the house again.

I didn’t bring that point up to Austen. She was a terminal optimist and a romantic to boot, and she just didn’t quite get the situation.

“Anyway, I’ve got to get back to the store. That five-minute window of my ‘Be back in…’ sign is basically up.”

“Thanks for coming. I needed to have my freakout before I opened.”

“Anytime, baby cakes. Let me know how it turns out.” With a wave, she ducked out the door and flounced across the street to her own shop.

I wandered into the back of mine and took a critical look at my workroom. Maybe I could wedge a cot in here somewhere.

The bell over the front door jangled again, and I pasted on my customer smile as I stepped behind the counter. “Welcome to Bloomsday. How can I… help you?”

Gabe stood on the other side, looking bigger than life and entirely out of place. My breath all but wheezed out. He’d looked incredible this morning in freaking gray sweatpants and a T-shirt that had looked so soft, I’d wanted to rub my head against his chest like a cat. But he looked even better now in well-worn jeans and a flannel shirt rolled up to his elbows to reveal some really impressive forearm porn.

“Hey, I came to get your keys.”

Well, that deflated the insta-lust. My heart sank. He wasn’t even waiting for me to pack my stuff before taking my keys away. Trying to hold on to my control, I flashed an apologetic smile. “I mean, I’m still going to need them to pack up my stuff.”

His mouth tipped further down, and his dark brows drew together in confusion. “No, not to my house. To your house, so I can go assess the damage and start repairing it.”

I blinked at him. “You’re going to fix my house?”

“Well, that’s my job. I’m sorry it wasn’t taken care of before. The person I thought I could trust to handle things in my absence apparently… couldn’t.”

I was too stuck on the implications of the rest of what he’d said. I needed absolute certainty. “You’re not kicking me out?”

That usually gruff face softened, just a little. “No. I’m not kicking you out. I wouldn’t do that.”

I was so stupidly relieved I felt tears pricking my eyes. To cover, I ducked into the back. “I’ll just get that key for you.”

Once out of sight, I pressed a hand to my heart and uttered a silent prayer of thanks. Knuckling away the couple of tears that dared escape, I grabbed the key from my purse and took it back out to him. “Here.”

Our fingers brushed as he took the key, and for a moment we both froze, staring at each other. Then he dropped his hand and took a hasty step back.

“I’ll head over there now and see what’s what. I’ll probably get started today.”

I wasn’t sure if that was because, despite not being the kind of guy who’d kick a woman out in the cold, he didn’t want me in his space any longer than necessary, or if it was because he was eager to get back to work and make things right. Either way, I was ecstatic to have somewhere to stay and didn’t have to worry about becoming homeless. I made a mental note to do whatever I could to minimize my presence in the house so as not to inadvertently step on his toes.

“Thank you, Gabe. For everything.”

He jerked a nod and strode out the door.

My fingers still tingled from the brush of his callused ones, and I was back to actually pondering Austen’s absurd suggestion of what I should do with this period of cohabitation. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to get to know him better. I always had. I didn’t think I could bring myself to actually make a move, but maybe Austen was right and forced proximity would work some kind of magic.