Page 9 of Mr. Wrong Number

“Offering.” He made a face like he knew he deserved that and said, “We’ve got a beer fridge in the laundry room.”

“Um.” I tucked my hair behind my ears and said, “Yeah. Thanks.”

He walked over to the door next to the bathroom, and when he went inside, I adjusted my hoodie so my bralessness was less apparent. I assumed he’d bring out a beer, but instead he yelled, “You should probably pick your poison. Your brother likes a lot of weird shit.”

“Oh.” I walked over to the tiny laundry room, where he was leaning down into the fridge and presenting me with—wow—just the finest ass. I mean, his posterior looked as if he was forever doing squats and lunges; perhaps that was his sole method of mobility. Maybe Colin lunged everywhere he went.

He glanced over his shoulder. “See anything you like?”

Good God. I cleared my throat, pointed, and managed, “Is that a Vanilla Bean Blonde over by the Mich Ultra?”

“Yep.” He straightened, gave me the blonde, and grabbed a Boulevard for himself. I exited the laundry room with him following behind me, and I wandered toward the kitchen, where I knew the bottle opener lived. “Thanks for the beer.”

“Sure.” He went around to the other side of the breakfast bar, opened a drawer, and pulled out the opener. Colin held it out to me and said, “By the way, I owe you an apology.”

That captured my attention. I grabbed the opener and asked, “For what?”

His eyes were serious when he said, “For what I said about the fire this morning. I was an asshole about it, and it’s really none of my business.”

I popped the top and lifted the bottle toward my mouth. “And...?”

A flash of irritation crossed his face before he said, “What does ‘and’ mean? You don’t accept my apology?”

“I just don’t get it.” I noticed his hands were nice—Stop it, Liv—as he opened his beer. I watched his throat move around a swallow, and I said, “You’re actually apologizing to me?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

“Well, yeah, but you’ve always been a jerk to me and you’ve never apologized.” I finally took a sip of my beer then, looking at his slightly confused expression over the bottle.

He sounded outraged as he said, “I’ve apologized.”

“Nope.”

“Well, if I haven’t, it’s because it’s always been in good fun.” His eyes moved over my face, like he was trying to reconcile the whole of our lives together. “We’ve always messed with each other. That’s kind of our thing, right?”

Did he actually think that? That his Liv-is-a-moron attitude was just our friendly wordplay? For some reason that irritated me, the fact that he didn’t even know that I didn’t like him; I mean, shouldn’t heknow?

I decided to let it go, though, because we were roommates for the next month. It would run a lot smoother if I played nice.And for me, nice meant avoidance. Steering clear of Colin was the only way to ensure a peaceful, rent-free month.

“Sure.” I got off the stool and pushed it in. “Thanks again for the beer. I’ve got a million things to do tomorrow, so I should probably start settling in, even though I’m totally wide-awake. It’s weird how when you decimate your life, you get wicked insomnia.”

He smirked and his eyes were actually smiling. “I bet.”

I shrugged. “I’m sure I’ll start sleeping like a baby soon, once the smell of soot finally leaves my body.”

He actually coughed out a little laugh. “One can only hope.”

I started to walk away when he said, “Hey, can I quickly use the printer before you go to bed? I just need to print a three-page doc—”

“No!” I turned around and cursed myself for sounding so panicked. “I mean, can you maybe just use it tomorrow? I’m really, really tired.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “You just said that you have insomnia.”

I bit my bottom lip and said, “I just have a lot of stuff in the office, all over the place, and I—”

“What happened?” He sounded like a detective who knew I was guilty as he crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.

I reached up and pulled my ponytail tighter. “Nothing happened. Um, I just don’t want—”

---