Page 72 of Tapped By My Roommate
“He makes lists for everything. His research for the day, his chores around the house, shopping. It’s how he makes order where the world is chaotic, you know? Ethan is a creature of habit. But what he did with you? That was new and scary. He needed a familiar framework.”
That sort of made sense, but…
“That doesn’t explain all the rules. He set the terms of how our hookups would operate, and I let him because…”
Because I’d wanted him too much to risk scaring him off. I’d wanted him—within any limits he wanted to set. I’d accepted them, and it really wasn’t fair of me to resist them now. I’d happily agreed to abide by them.
It wasn’t Ethan’s fault that my feelings had changed.
“You look at those rules and you see them as Ethan trying to set limits for you. But I think he was really trying to set limits for himself.” She waited a beat, but I just shook my head, unsure what she wanted me to conclude. She huffed. “He was afraid of getting too emotionally attached to you. Can’t you see why he might worry? After what happened with his ex?”
“Yeah, of course.” I’d had similar thoughts. That no matter what happened between us, I didn’t want that kind of animosity with Ethan. “I’d never put him in that position.”
“I believe you,” Linh said. “I just want you both to be happy. I think you’re good together. But I know you think I’m interfering too much, so I’ll shut up and skedaddle.”
“Wait,” I said as she headed for the door. “Aren’t you interested in Ethan? You two seem close.”
She looked at me a beat, then snorted out a laugh. “Oh man, you boys are so dumb. No, Rhett. No, I don’t want to steal your boyfriend.”
“Oh, but he’s not—”
She shut the door in my face. Okay, fair enough.
Despite the awkward conversation, I felt a bit lighter as I showered and dressed for class. I had a date to hang out and do graphics with Ethan, and Linh wasn’t going to whisk him away before I figured out how to move forward. And maybe…maybe she had a point about Ethan. Maybe he wasn’t just content to check me off his list and move on.
Maybe we could figure out how to push past our limits together.
* * *
ETHAN
Rhett clicked buttons on his laptop, fingers moving too quickly for me to track. On the screen, the poster Rhett was making zoomed in, zoomed out, and the sizes and colors of things changed—all as quickly as I could blink.
“I’m trying to decide between orange and black, very tiger-chic and eye-catching, or something trendier like shades of blue.” Rhett turned to me, bringing our faces closer together than they’d been in nearly a week. “What do you think?”
“Um.”What did I think?“Your eyes aren’t brown.”
What I’d taken for brown was actually hazel, with flecks of green and gold and brown in dozens of shades. Only when I looked this closely could I see the striations of color.
The corners of Rhett’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. “They’re not. Just noticing that now? I’m not sure whether to be offended. All those times…”
He trailed off.
“All those times?” I asked.
“Nothing. Rule Five.”
My face went hot. Oh. Yeah. I probablyshouldhave noticed his eyes when we were intimate. My senses had been overwhelmed by so many other things, like his mouth and his hands and his… But I couldn’t think about that. Not here, next to him, with his body heat warming my side.
Did it make me shallow not to have noticed his eye color? Did he feel as if I’d used him for his body?
“I noticed your smile,” I said. “Even before—” I stopped and cleared my throat. “And your laugh. You’ve got a great laugh. It wasn’t just…” I waved a hand to encompass his body.
His smile widened a fraction at my words. He had such nice lips too. They’d felt so good on mine. He was such a good kisser.
“It’s okay,” he said.
I jerked my gaze back up to his eyes. Now that I’d seen they were hazel, I couldn’t understand how I’d never noticed.
