Page 13 of Something Forever

He stares at me, unblinking.

“So… okay. I feel worse,” I say.

He still doesn’t respond.

“Well, maybe you’d like to discuss which shelf in the fridge you’d like to be yours? I prefer the top, but if you want the top, I can be middle and we can split the bottom.”

“Sure,” he replies, looking bored.

God, would it kill the guy to smile?

“Listen, buddy. I don’t know what your last roommate dealt with, but I won’t take your bad attitude all the time. The least you can do is try to be nice, or just tell me if you’re in a bad mood.”

Without warning, his bored expression turns harsh — livid. His jaw locks, and he stares down at me, his chest rising and falling. Inexplicably, my gaze is drawn to the deep green shade of his eyes, speckled with hazel in the morning light.

“I don’t care, princess. I’ll pay you rent on time, and you’ll hardly know I’m here. Now fuck off and let me be.” He barks the words out, and before I can respond, he sweeps past me and stomps down the hall, slamming his door behind him.

I’m left gaping, standing in the living room like an idiot.

He is… the worst!

I can’t believe he just told me to fuck off to my face.

I don’t know if anyone has ever said that to me before. Actually, I know nobody has ever said that to me before, because most of the people I associate with are civilized, kind individuals who use their words to communicate. I have half a mind to call housing authority and get him forcibly removed from the premises. Do the police do that? Who do you call to get your stranger-turned-roommate to get out?

Whatever. Forget him.

It’s time to focus on the important stuff. The salon. The husband hunt.

Is it too soon to start shopping for giant scissors?

5

LIAM

Even when things are looking up for me, I still act like an arsehole.

I mean, for Christ’s sake, this beautiful bombshell of a woman is helping me out by letting me stay with her, and what do I do?

I tell her to fuck off.

When I first saw her in the middle of the night, I thought I must be dreaming. I dragged myself to the kitchen half-asleep, only to find a gorgeous woman standing there in nothing but an oversized t-shirt and panties. The soft whites of her thighs sticking out from the hem of her shirt, her sleepy brown eyes drooping in the low light, her messy blonde hair cutting off to reveal the nape of her neck…

It wasn’t just a dream: it was a wet dream.

Then she opened her mouth and all that flew right out the window. At first, I thought she seemed like a ray of sunshine, but her words struck me like lightning.

“I don’t know what your last roommate dealt with.”

My fist clenches involuntarily at the anger her words stir up within me. I know she didn’t mean anything by them. It’s not like she’d have any way of knowing how that exact phrase would hit me in my most vulnerable spot.

My weakest point.

The thing is… she’s right. Luke did have to deal with my crap when we lived together. He was always the one cleaning up after me, picking up after my shit both literally and metaphorically.

At least I have the rest of the night to think about what a dick I was. It’s early evening on a Sunday, so the bar is pretty quiet, with Darius and me behind the bar. We’ve only been working together for a short time, but he’s easy to talk to, and he always knows how to get me laughing, even when I’m in a mood. Which is quite often.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asks from beside me. “You’re grumbling like someone pissed in your cereal.”

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