Page 8 of The Temporary Roomie: Extended Edition

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’mexcellentat 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 awfulDr. 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 hateeven 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.

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 hallagainto 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 fromMission Impossibleuntil 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 manymoments 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.

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