Page 31 of Insta-Love

It’s laced with pain and so damn familiar that the thought is out of my head before I can filter it.

“You two could come be my housemates.”

Her eyes go wide, as do mine hearing the damn words I spoke. Where the fuck did that come from?

“I… I wasn’t insinuating …”

“I didn’t take it as you were.” Run with it, boy. “But I have two spare rooms—one for each of you—and I hate living alone. Fixes everyone’s problem.” I pull out the seat next to hers, and sit.

“I can’t afford to pay rent, even half.”

“So don’t.”

She frowns, hands cradling her mug. “What are you proposing, Bowen?”

“I need help managing everything I do. I know what I’m doing when it comes to using social media, marketing myself, but I’m not that shit hot at the paperwork side of things.” I twitch a smile. “I wasn’t real good at school, so numbers and stats do my head in. If I can input the figures into an app and let it do it for me, like my nutrition and that, then I’m fine. But my accounts?” I shrug. “I don’t know if what I spend is good, bad, or otherwise. I trust an accountant to deal with everything, but what if he’s ripping me off? I wouldn’t know. I need help making sure I’m not bleeding money in places I don’t need to.”

She sips her coffee while I talk, listening closely to all that I say. I’ve never told anyone that before; that I’m more or less thick as a brick with math. I’ve slowly taught myself to read better, to write with better grammar over the years out of necessity. But math? Waste of goddamn time.

“You need an assistant?” She can’t fight the smile.

“What?” Damn thing is infectious.

“Its just … never mind.” Ava waves a hand between us, lifting the lucky mug to her lips again.

“No. Tell me. What’s so funny about the idea?”

She gives me a full megawatt smile. “Can you imagine me telling people what I do? Explaining this to my parents? ‘What’s your day job, then?’” she mimics in a put on voice. “‘I’m assistant to an Instagram model.’” She snorts a laugh, eyes on the mug before her. “It does sound funny, don’t you think?”

She has a point.

“Then don’t tell anyone what you do. Just move in.”

Her smile fades, replaced with a hard brow as she studies me. “You’re really serious, huh?”

I shrug. “Why not? I think you proved you can put up with me long enough not to kill me.”

“Likewise,” she murmurs against the mug.

“What’s holding you back, then?”

“It’s a big decision to make after knowing you for one day.”

“We’ve lived next to each other for close to four months now,” I point out.

“And had a handful of heated arguments in that space of time.” She lifts an eyebrow.

Just accept already. I hang my head, making a show of my frustration. “What the hell do I have to do to get you to say yes, you stubborn fucking woman?”

“Promise me one thing.” She lifts her chin. “I’m not going to have a parade of booty models around the place giving Lily false ideals of what she needs to be.”

“Booty models?” I snort.

“Yeah. You know the kind. The one’s who snap like seventy different angles of their arse a day.”

Exactly why I moved here. “Nope. You won’t see many of them around here, if any.”

She narrows her eyes, finger tapping the side of the mug. “I don’t believe it.”

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