Page 10 of The Love Losers

She gave him something too. She made him feel special and important.Motivated. Because from the look on his face, this stoner is going to be holding a ladies’ night within the week, come hell or high water, if only to impress her.

“Thank you,” Dom says. “Thank you.” Turning to me, he shakes his head, bemused, and says, “You’re one lucky man, brother.”

I nearly snort. “One lucky slumlord.”

His gaze shifts to me, and he opens his mouth to say something, but Rosie, who has the instincts of a cat, reachesacross the bar and gives him an honest-to-God hug. He hugs her back a little too tightly, and I find myself fisting my hands.

Dom must notice, because he pulls back so abruptly he nearly staggers into the shelves behind the bar.

“Sorry, sorry. I’m just so excited. This is going to be…this is going to be the bomb. This town won’t know what hit it.”

“That’s the spirit,” Rosie says encouragingly. She pulls out a package of strawberry gum and offers it to both of us before taking a piece herself and tucking it away.

All I can do is gape at her.

Dom gapes at her through two pieces of strawberry gum.

Five minutes later, Rosie and I are sliding into an old car that smells like locker room shoes but has battery-powered Christmas lights stapled above the windows as an unwelcome reminder that the holidays are marching ever closer. She’s clutching a sack full of Dom’s nuts.

Rosie gives me a victorious look as the driver, a man who looks like he last showered in May, takes off from the curb. My nose twitches from the stench, and her expression turns even more self-satisfied.

“What’s that look for?” I ask as the car glides through the streets. “Because you got Dom to give you the nuts for free? I’ll admit to being mildly impressed. I wish I were half as good at working people. Things would go more easily for me at the office.”

She reaches over and pokes my chest, her finger lingering for a second longer than it needs to, a look cresting in her eyes before disappearing. “Hey, I didn’t ‘work’ anything. IlikeDom, and he really does have a shitty job.” She arches her eyebrows. “And a shitty landlord.”

“So you picked up on that…” I say with a snort. “I’ll have you know I’m a very responsive landlord. The last I checked it’s not my duty to clean the floors for them.”

She laughs, her eyes bright with it, even in the near dark of the interior of the uber as it navigates the dim streets of Asheville. “Is it weird that I like the thought of you scrubbing floors?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t savor the thought ofyoudoing menial tasks. But I can assure you that I have scrubbed floors before. It was my mother’s favorite punishment.”

She shakes her head in amusement. “What’d you do? Break a priceless dish? Get a B-?”

A smile slips through, and I shake my head right back at her. “If you grew up in a house like that, wouldn’tyoutry to throw a few inadvisable parties?”

She grins. “Hell, yeah. Give it to me up here.”

She lifts her hand for a high five, and I laugh. “I’mnotgiving you a high five. We’re not thirteen-year-olds.”

She blows a strawberry bubble and pops it. “Speak for yourself. And don’t leave me hanging. It’s rude to leave people hanging.”

Her eyes are sparkling, her lips parted slightly, and again, something stirs in the numbness inside of me. I want to please her. I want to see her smile again. So I lift my hand and slap it against hers, feeling a surprising burst of sensation.

She curls her fingers around mine before letting go, her grin wide and blinding—almost so bright that I have to look away.

“I knew you had it in you,” she says.

“I didn’t know I had it in me,” I mutter.

“Anyway. I feel compelled to point out that I really wasn’t working Dom. People need to vent. They deserve to have someone listen to them.”

My mouth quivers with a withheld smile. “If you like him so much, I should ask him to be your date when you lose our wager.”

She beams. “Look at you, being saucy. Maybe I’ll ask him to beyourdate when you lose.”

“Alas, he’s not my type.”

“Whatisyour type?” She leans in closer to keep our conversation semi-private. Her leg presses against mine for just a second—a hot, searing second that has blood rushing to places it definitely doesn’t belong. But I’m tipsy, heading toward drunk, and a gorgeous woman is sitting in the backseat of an Uber with me, asking aboutmy type. That’s all this is. I’m not interested in her. I haven’t been interested in anyone or anything, not really, in longer than I can remember. There’ve been glimmers of it—especially when I first bought this building, with its colorful graffiti and vast interior, but those feelings of inspiration, of future joy, always seem to dance out of reach.

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