The Temporary Roomie: Extended Edition (It Happened in Nashville #2)

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Drew

“Can you help me find a woman to take to a medical fundraiser gala in a few weeks who will be cool with pretending she’s my girlfriend in front of my colleagues?” I ask Lucy as she puts two pizzas in the oven.

“Sure.”

My eyebrows fly up. “Really? I thought you’d say no, or at least have to think about it for a minute.”

She closes the oven door and stands back up—and now I can see her devious smile. “I don’t have to think about it at all. I know the perfect person.”

My own smile drops. “No.”

She rolls her blue eyes, which are only a slightly lighter shade than mine. “Ugh. Why are you two always saying that word? Jessie would be perfect!”

I cross my arms and lean back against the counter. “I think you’re confusing the word perfect with horrible, dislikable, rude, obnoxious, irritating . . . I could go on if you want.”

Lucy does not look amused. “Jessie is none of those things.”

“She hit me in the face with a pack of diapers.”

Lucy pauses and scrunches her face. “Okay, yeah, admittedly that wasn’t her finest moment, but she did it because you were being a childish ass toward me and Cooper. She’s very sweet most of the time.”

Not buying it. “I’ve never seen any evidence.”

“Well, you not showing up to help her that day her grandaddy was coming into town definitely didn’t help things.”

“Exactly! So what makes you think she’d even be interested in helping me enact the same ruse? More than likely she’ll wrap me up in chains and toss me off a bridge, toasting my lifeless body with champagne as it sinks to the bottom of a river.”

Lucy’s mouth is slightly open, and she shakes her head. “You two have disturbing perceptions of each other, and they’re wildly inaccurate. By the way, would you ever wear a white linen suit?”

“Hell no.”

She gives me a sassy duck lip expression and says, “See?”

My sister has lost it. She has a horrendous witch for a best friend who has singlehandedly ruined her sanity. I get it—Jessie ruins my sanity too.

“No, I don’t. But even if I did ask her—which I won’t—what makes you think she would do it?”

“Because you both have something the other needs, and you could very easily make a trade.”

I want to ask what she’s talking about, but in the next moment Cooper comes through the door that connects the garage to the kitchen and makes a beeline for Lucy.

“Hi,” he says in a sappy, soft voice as he gathers her up in his arms and clasps his hands behind her lower back. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic was really bad today.”

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t still a little weird for me to see my best friend and sister like this, all affectionate and married. I’m getting used to it, but some days, when the loneliness feels too heavy, I have a hard time looking at them.

“That’s okay,” Lucy says, taking on a dreamy look while angling her face up to him. She taps her index finger to her lips, and Cooper takes the overt hint by bending down and kissing her on the mouth.

Annnnd gross. Two seconds in and Cooper is already kissing Lucy way deeper than any brother should ever have to witness his sister getting kissed. I gouge out my eyes real quick and then turn away, too scared to look back until I’m sure they are done exchanging saliva. I thought getting married would help them both cool off in the PDA department. Nope. It’s been over a month and it seems to only be getting worse.

After what feels like a hundred years, I hear the disgusting sound of lips de-suctioning from each other. I’m honestly kind of annoyed at them. Before Cooper met my sister, life was good. I didn’t feel like anything was missing. I worked hard, and occasionally I played hard. I dated a sufficient amount, but nothing ever got serious, and everything felt comfortable that way. And then . . . Lucy came along and stole my best friend. But that’s not why I’m mad. I’m upset because now I see them together—a family—and I want what they have. I want to love someone like Cooper loves Lucy, and I want someone to love me like Lucy loves Cooper.

The uncomfortable truth is, I don’t get many second dates. In the past, I’d tell a woman I’m a doctor and she’d be all in. But then by the end of the date I’d break the news that I’m a gynecologist, and when I blinked, all that would be left is a trail of smoke from how quickly she ran away. Apparently it’s going to take a very specific type of woman to feel comfortable having a committed relationship with a man in my profession. And I honestly get it.

I hear Lucy whisper to Cooper that I’m in the room, and he laughs. “Dude, sorry. I didn’t realize you were standing back there.”

“You should be. That was horrifying to witness. As payment for seeing and hearing way too many things, you have to help me talk Lucy into setting me up with a woman for a night.”

Cooper’s eyebrows shoot up, and clearly his mind has gone somewhere less G-rated.

I grimace. “Let me rephrase that: I need a fake girlfriend to go with me to a fundraiser so I don’t have to date my colleague.”

His face clears, and he looks relieved that I’m not asking Lucy to find me a hookup. Apparently these two have really high opinions of me these days.

“Didn’t you just ditch Jessie for something similar to this?”

I throw my hands up. “I didn’t ditch her. I was sleep-deprived and forgot. There is a difference. But even if I did do it on purpose, could you really blame me? Who in their right mind would help someone so rude and abrasive?”

“Well, you’re not exactly daisies and roses yourself there, Dr. Stuck-up. ” Jessie suddenly appears from around the corner like an evil genie I accidentally summoned. My skin prickles at the sight of her sharp green eyes. They are blazing. Strangling. Smothering. One dark-blond eyebrow is cocked up, her arms crossed over the yellow T-shirt pulling tight against her chest and small baby bump. The corner of her mouth is tilted. She looks like venom wrapped up in sunshine.

“Jessica,” I say, giving her a short nod like we’re in a saloon in the Wild West. If I had a cowboy hat on, I’d tip it down, so it covered just one of my eyes. I need a piece of wheat.

Jessie’s gaze falls down the length of my body, tripping like a rock skipping across a pond. Face. Shoulders. Biceps. Torso. Thighs. Feet. At first, I think she’s checking me out, until her head tilts and she smirks. “Your fly is down.”

I chuckle once. “Nice try. Did you steal that shirt from a toddler?”

“Nope. From your mom.”

Somewhere in a schoolyard, a group of teenage boys all crow with laughter.

“You two aren’t very nice,” my sister mumbles quietly from the sideline. Poor Luce. She’s still hoping Jessie and I will kiss and make up, and no doubt that’s what she was imagining would happen if Jessie moved in with me. Over my dead body.

Jessie and I lock eyes, and both of our smiles fade. Blue rams into green, tension racing between us like a current. It’s not the good kind, though. It’s that special brand that has turned friends into foes, made business partnerships crumble, and sent countries to war. It’s not a delicate string tying us together. It’s quicksand, gripping our ankles and pulling us both down inch by inch until we’re smothered. It’s loaded and charged, and—

Lucy’s loud clap zings around us. “Okayyyyy! Who’s hungry? The pizza will be coming out of the oven any minute, so everyone grab a plate.”

Jessie walks up and stops right in front of me. I know I’m partially blocking the cabinet that holds the plates, but I’m a mean bully now and make no attempt to move out of the way. She, of course, won’t back down either. She’ll drill a hole right through my body to get to the dishes if she has to. Inching up closer, she stands directly beside me, and her arm presses against mine as she reaches partially around me into the cabinet.

In the second before she pulls away, she leans close to my ear. “I’d watch your back if I were you, Dr. Stuck-up. I’m not good at forgiving and I definitely never forget, but I’m excellent at getting even.”

I tilt my head just enough to look her right in the eyes. “Looking forward to it, Oscar.”

Oscar is the nickname I christened her with the day she started calling me that awful Dr. Stuck-up, and she still has no idea what it means. When she’s not calling me by that little gem, she calls me by my first name, Andrew . . . which I might hate even more. Every single thing between us is an equal back-and-forth, so if she calls me Dr. Stuck-up, I call her Oscar. She calls me Andrew; I call her Jessica. It’s how things are done around here.

Her full mouth blooms into a wicked smile before she pulls back with her plate and walks away, promises of future torture hanging in the air.

That’s when I look down at my jeans. “Dammit,” I mumble, and then I zip up my fly.