Page 82 of The Roommate

Clara propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. “No surprise there.”

“One night when I was seven, my cousin Fred had taken the blame for something I did, maybe melting a Tonka truck, I can’t remember. Anyways, in retaliation he waited until I went to sleep, filled both of my palms with ketchup, and then tickled me with a feather until I had rubbed it all over my face.”

“That’s it?”

She didn’t grasp the severity of the situation. He’d made his dad burn his favorite superhero pajamas. “I woke up in the dark with globs of the stuff dripping into my eyes. The vinegar burns like you wouldn’t believe.” His throat clenched as the memory of the overwhelming odor threatened to suffocate him. “I was scared shitless. I thought my face was peeling off.”

Clara hid the ketchup bottle behind two stacks of jelly and the small pitcher of syrup. “That sounds traumatic.”

A sound suspiciously close to a giggle escaped her mouth before she brought her forearm up and smothered it.

Josh smiled self-deprecatingly. “I told you it was dumb.”

“You were not kidding.” Clara’s smile was so bright, he expected all the fuses in the kitchen to blow at any moment. His chest tightened.

Talking to women had always been easy before. He liked them. They liked him. The math was simple.

Until now. There was nothing simple about Clara.

“You better take that story to your grave. No one outside my family knows, and they’re all gagged by extensive threats of blackmail.”

“You can trust me.”

With startling clarity, Josh realized that he could. This woman who never should have given him the time of day had arrived on his doorstep. His heart climbed into his throat.

“I scared you again,” Clara said. “I have to admit, if I had to guess which of us would go skittish after sex, I never would have picked you.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this.” Josh’s shoulder drooped. He had a reputation as a respectful bedfellow, sure. His partners counted on him to deliver a good time and a few laughs, but even with Naomi, no one expected any more of him.

“Tonight feels important.” He shook his head. “That sounded weird.” Any second she’d go running.

“No. I know what you mean.” She smiled shyly. “It felt like we caused some kind of cosmic shift by acting out of character.” Clara exhaled and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Let’s put these crayons to good use, shall we? Whoever draws the best caricature of the pair of us gets to assign the other the chore of their choice.”

“How loosely are we defining chore?” Lurid visions of Clara folding laundry in lingerie entered his mind.

Clara picked up the crayon closest to her and began to draw. “Use your imagination.”

Josh scooted farther under the table to hide his body’s reaction to the promise in her tone. His imagination was wicked.

Ten minutes later he dropped his own drawing implement. “Okay. Moment of truth.”

Clara added a final flourish and then came to sit beside him. “Which one is me?”

He quickly added green boobs to Clara’s stick figure.

She laughed and her arm brushed against his. Josh’s mouth went dry.

“I see you’ve gone for anatomical accuracy.”

He pointed to some key details in the illustration. “We’re on an adventure. You’ve got a telescope and a map. I have a sword because you’re the brains of the operation and we can’t afford to lose you to bandits.”

She bent closer to the table covering and her hair brushed along his forearm. “It looks like you’ve got two swords.”

“No. The one in my left hand is a baguette. In case we need a snack.”

“I have never met a man who loves baked goods as much as you do.”

Josh tapped his chin with his index finger. “And yet you still gave my body a ten out of ten.”

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