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

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Jessie

Dinner was a tense affair, as it usually is when Drew and I are forced to breathe the same oxygen. I feel bad that we’re both so disagreeable around Lucy, who is just a sweet little sprite, an angel-fairy sent to the world to bestow goodness and happy vibes on all of us. But it’s Drew’s fault. He had a chance to mend the strife between us, and instead he threw new logs on the fire. It burns before my eyes.

Drew’s not in the room right now. He walked down the hall again to make a secretive phone call to his doctor, saying the meds still aren’t working and the butt rash is getting worse. At least that’s what I’m assuming the calls are about. So I’m on the floor with Lucy’s little boy, Levi, and we’re putting together a puzzle while Lucy and Cooper snuggle on the couch. Basically, our nightly routine.

I’m trying to focus, but this twenty-piece dinosaur puzzle just isn’t holding my attention. My eyes keep sliding down the dark hallway in the direction of where Drew disappeared. I have no idea why, but I’m curious about who he’s talking to back there. It’s definitely not because I wonder if he has a girlfriend or anything. I mean, he may be attractive from an objective point of view—like, classically speaking, I suppose his broad shoulders and muscled frame might be considered paintable— but his personality is garbage. How he could get any woman to date him with his macho, man-in-charge demeanor is beyond me. I don’t even know how he’s managed to have any patients at his practice. I would never want to see a stuck-up, know-it-all mansplainer like him.

“Uh—I’ll be right back. I need to go to the bathroom.” I state this out loud like I have never before done in the history of my existence. I look suspicious as I stand up and walk like a nutcracker toward the hallway. Right leg, left arm. Left leg, right arm. Or should it be the opposite? How do I normally walk?

“Why are you walking like that?” Lucy asks.

So not like this, apparently.

“Trying not to pee myself,” I say, because that’s an excellent excuse for every abnormality when you’re in your third trimester. Then I scurry down the hall. A couple of feet into the dark, I hear Drew’s voice coming from a cracked door at the end of the hallway. Levi’s room.

I inch forward, my back pressed against the wall like Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible until I can hear him.

“. . . no, no, I promise you’re not bothering me at all. It’s okay to be nervous—this is your first baby. It’s perfectly normal and expected.”

He’s on a call with a patient? I guess that makes sense. He is a doctor, though I have trouble actually picturing it. Also, I know I should turn and walk away to give him privacy while he’s on a medical call, but anyone who would think I’m capable of turning and walking away right now is clearly unacquainted with me. I’m getting a glimpse of Drew in the wild, and I fully intend to put on my safari hat and pull out my binoculars.

I step forward an inch more and peek through the crack. There he is, phone to his ear, profile to me. He’s starting to get the slightest five-o’clock shadow, and his mussed brown hair looks as rebellious as his attitude. I’m not afforded many moments like this where he looks away, giving me enough time to examine him without repercussions, so I seize the opportunity to catalogue each of his features. His soft blue cotton T-shirt pulls, hugs, and kisses his upper body like it wants to have his babies. His facial features are symmetrical and sharp, perfection chiseled out of a rare, smooth stone, contrasted beautifully by his full, soft lips. But it’s his dark-blue eyes that are the real killers. They’ll pull you in and knock you out in a flash if you’re not careful.

But I hate him, so it’s fine, and I barely even notice his attractiveness.

“You did great just now. How was your pain during that contraction on a scale of one to ten?” There’s a brief pause while he listens to whoever is on the other end of the line. “Okay. Well, I tell you what. I’m going to hang out on the phone with you until the next one starts so we can time it together, and then if—” Another pause. “No, don’t apologize. It’s okay to cry. You went into labor with your first child while your husband is out of town. That’s a lot to deal with, and if I were in your position, I would have already gone through a whole Kleenex box.” He chuckles, and for some reason I find myself smiling too. I almost don’t recognize this side of Drew. He’s . . . tender.

Suddenly, I can’t stand here and listen any longer. I need to get far away from this version of him. I skip the bathroom and go right back to my place on the floor beside Levi, absentmindedly picking up a dinosaur tail and trying to shove it into the spot where its head should go. Levi notices and silently takes the puzzle piece out of my hand, then replaces it with the right one. What a kid. I think this is his way of apologizing for waking me up at the butt crack of dawn every day.

After a minute, Drew comes back into the living room. I peek at him from the corner of my eye and watch him stuff his phone in the back pocket of his dark jeans.

“Everything okay?” Lucy asks him.

He nods and lets out a deep breath. “Yeah. I just might have to go into the hospital later tonight depending on how one of my patients progresses over the next hour.” Drew’s eyes lock with mine, and I hate that I’ve heard how tender he can be. I suddenly blush under his attention, which is so ridiculous I want to kick myself.

Drew crosses the room and sits down in the armchair directly behind me. He does it on purpose; I know it. There are plenty of other seating options in the room, but he chose the one hovering over my shoulder so he could breathe down my neck and rattle me.

Well, no rattling here, buddy. I’m easy as Sunday morning.

“Get your knee away from my back!” I snap over my shoulder. Okay, maybe not so much Sunday morning as Monday evening, stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

“Why? Is it bothering you, Jessica?” He doesn’t move his knee. He presses it more firmly against my shoulder blade. Not painfully, just with the purpose of reminding me that he’s there. And just like that, the familiar Drew is back, and I hate him all over again.

“I mean it. Stop touching me.” My words are sharp little razors.

“I’m not touching you. You’re touching me. I’d appreciate it if you’d remove your back from my knee.”

I whip my head around to pierce him with my eyes. “I was here first!”

He shrugs. “Well, I’m here now.”

“Children, please,” Cooper says, interjecting with a smile and a hand gesture toward Levi. “If you want to stay with us grown-ups, you’ll have to behave.”

“I have no problems with that,” I say, scratching the back of my head with my middle finger.

Drew leans closer, and his breath tickles my ear. “Real mature.”

“Get a mint.” For the record, though, he doesn’t need one. I think he must have chewed gum after dinner. Spearmint. I bite my lip, because it’s not fair. I know my breath smells like garlic-pizza-death while he’s a walking Winterfresh commercial. If he smiles and exhales, I’m sure a blast of icy-cool air will rush out in a puff. I want to drag it all into my lungs, but I force myself to take shallow, barely-life-sustaining breaths instead.

“I’m going to have to separate you two, aren’t I?” Lucy is giving us both the mom eyes. Will they teach me that look in the hospital once I deliver?

Drew sits back in his seat, and neither of us says a thing. We’re both being so immature, but I don’t care. Drew makes me do irrational things, and apparently I have the same effect on him.

Our war of silence (less impressively known as quiet mouse ) begins as Cooper tells Levi it’s time for bed and to give us all hugs. There’s a brief reprieve in hostility as the pudgy little dumpling wraps his arms around my neck and sparks my growing motherly instinct to cherish this hug forever. He then moves toward Drew, who reaches out quick as a snake and drags Levi up into his lap to tickle his nephew into oblivion. Levi squeals with laughter and Drew’s ferocious smile splinters my heart into pieces for two unbearable seconds. Then Cooper and Levi disappear down the hallway, and it’s just me, Drew, and Lucy again—immersed in stone-cold silence. I swivel around so I’m sitting adjacent to Drew and he can’t touch me anymore.

Lucy’s tender heart can’t stand this, so she groans loudly and sits forward on the couch. “Good grief. You two need to get over all this animosity. You’re both adults acting like two-year-olds. Does that not bother you guys at all?”

I don’t know, does it, Andrew? I blink, suck my cheeks in, and keep my laser beams focused on him. His blue eyes sparkle as he tips an eyebrow that says, You wanna answer that, Jessica?

So neither of us speak, and Lucy pulls out the big guns. “Fine. Then, Drew, maybe Jessie would like to know all about how you need a fake—”

“Don’t!” Drew breaks first, jutting his finger out to point at his sister.

I shift my shoulders so I’m sitting up nice and tall now while aiming a delighted smile at Drew. “What is this interesting news you’re keeping from me, Andy ?” Oooh, he must really hate that name because his jaw flexes. I file that away under IMPORTANT .

“It’s nothing.” His voice is hard as granite.

Lucy shifts a little more toward the edge of her seat with a sigh. “And maybe you, Jessie, would like to tell Drew that you’re miserable here and would like to stay in his—”

“LA LA LA—nothing! Jessie would like nothing,” I say quickly, and Drew smirks.

Lucy throws up her hands and stands. “You two are unbearable to be around. I’m going to pour a glass of wine—don’t kill each other while I’m gone.”

“No promises,” Drew and I both say in non-adorable unison.

Lucy disappears into the kitchen but then promptly sticks her head back around the corner and, giving her best impression of an auctioneer, says in a fantastic rush of words, “Drew told his colleague he has a girlfriend even though he doesn’t, and now he needs a date to a gala!”

Drew’s eyes widen, and his cheeks burn red. I want to drink that blush up through a straw and savor it for the rest of my life. I bust up in an obnoxious laugh, pointing at him like I’m the sort of person who delights in giving wedgies.

“And Jessie wants to stay in your guest bedroom because she’s miserable here but is too prideful to admit it!”

I gasp and clutch my heart. The knife hurts so bad. Drew takes his turn laughing while Lucy runs away like a coward. Yeah, you better run!

I turn my angry gaze to Drew and let Lucy’s revelation roll over me like a tidal wave of sweet, sweet revenge. “So . . . got yourself caught in a bit of a lie, did you, Dr. Stuck-up? Better hope whoever you choose doesn’t stand you up!” I add extra emphasis on the p sound.

“If you hadn’t blocked my number, maybe you would have heard me say I didn’t stand you up.” He pauses and then amends his statement. “Well, not on purpose at least. I had a—”

“Yeah, yeah, Lucy told me. You were sooooo tired that it just slipped your mind that you had agreed to come to my house mere hours before. Sorry, I’m not buying it.” Honestly, when Lucy called me back and told me what happened with Drew, I couldn’t decide which explanation made me feel worse—that he stood me up out of vengeance, or that he completely forgot about me because I’m that unimportant. Not true—I can decide. Being put aside and forgotten hurts the most. And yet, you’d think after having it happen to me repeatedly, it wouldn’t sting so much.

Drew sneers and rolls his eyes, his large hand gripping the side of the armchair like it wronged him.

“You’re impossible.” Drew is looking away and out the window, but finally his eyes slowly magnetize to mine. “What is it you want to hear? An apology? Because I already tried that, and any chance of that happening again flew out the window when you called me a scumbag and then blocked me.”

“I do not want an apology or anything from you. Not now, not ever. Hence the blocking.”

“Great. Well then, I guess Lucy was wrong and you really don’t need a nice, quiet, restful place to stay for the next few weeks. And I mean it’s too bad really. My house is spacious, and you’d practically have it all to yourself since I’m never home.” He’s gloating now, a self-satisfied smile on his mouth as he leans forward to rest his forearms on his knees. “And I bet you love sleeping on that little twin bed in Lucy’s spare room.” It’s horrible, squeaking every time I turn over, and the room is so small it would never fit my queen bed even if I wanted to move it. “Yeah, I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t want to stay at my house that has a large empty bedroom perfect for moving your own stuff into, complete with an en suite bathroom and soaker bathtub.”

I dig my nails into the carpet, because dammit that does sound amazing. I want to cry at the beautiful picture he just painted. I want my privacy back. I want to sleep until eight A.M. , and I don’t want to share a wall with Lucy and Cooper anymore.

“Why are you taunting me?” I ask with narrowed eyes.

He tilts forward, getting a little closer. His eyes are such a deep blue. “Because it’s fun.”

I want to smack him. My fingers are all begging me to do it. I bet I could reach.

But then Drew’s eyebrows pull together, and his eyes soften to something more tender and compassionate. If only for a fraction of a moment, I get a glimpse of what other people must see when they look at Drew. Reliable. Safe. A man who would move heaven and earth for someone he loves. But then his gaze clouds over, and he’s once again indifferent, because I am not someone he loves, as I’ve taken great care to ensure.

“And I don’t know . . . maybe I see some merit in Lucy’s suggestion,” he mutters.

“What suggestion?”

“That we help each other. You act like my girlfriend for one night, and I let you stay in my house rent-free.”

I sputter a sharp laugh. “You’re joking! I would never act like your girlfriend after all that’s happened.”

He holds his hands out in front of him. “Hey, I wasn’t the one to suggest it. I know it’s a bad idea, I just . . .” He’s quiet for another moment, claiming control of the conversation and forcing me to wait in anticipation of his impending words. “I think it could actually work.”

I don’t know why, but that statement makes my stomach tumble off the edge of a cliff.

“How do you figure?”

He shrugs, and I don’t notice the way his cotton tee pulls against his muscular chest. Not at all. “As long as we both know upfront what we’re getting into and agree that it will be torture for us both, I think we could make it work. I’ll stay out of your hair, and you stay out of mine.”

My mouth is opening to tell Drew to go lick rust, but my mind clasps a hand over my mouth. Now, now, darling, let’s not be so hasty. There’s no doubting that Drew dangled a lovely carrot in front of my face with all that sexy talk about having a house all to myself. I’m already dreaming of what it would be like to lie in my own bed again.

And then it hits me.

Oh, the revenge I can get on him is too good. Too easy. Too simple. I’m almost afraid my battle plans are projecting above me because they are that obvious. And yet, as I stare into Drew’s blue eyes, I don’t think he sees it. I think he’s underestimating me—and for that, he will pay.

And it will all go down at his gala, in front of everyone.

“I think you’re right, Andrew. I think we could make a deal.”