Page 24 of Wishing for Love
Looked like things just got even more complicated in his life when he didn’t think that was possible.
9
TOOK PRIDE IN IT
“It smells good in here,” Phoenix said the following week on Thanksgiving morning.
“Thank you,” she said. “Can I confess I’ve never made a turkey breast before?”
“Neither have I, but everything else you’ve made has been great so I’m not worried.”
Crystal liked hearing she was doing a good job at something that was so new to her. She was trying harder than ever before in a job, but this just came so naturally to her.
It was almost like being a housewife or mother and she never thought in a million years that was what she’d want to do. Not after listening to her mother bitch about it her entire life.
No way she was risking this job for anything and made sure she took pride in it.
In the past, she might have half-assed herself through things that were new or didn’t interest her all that much. It was more to just get by.
But she wanted this more than she wanted anything and realized that sometimes things do fall into your lap.
“It’s good to hear,” she said. “I’m trying. I know this whole setup is new for both of us. You’re not used to having another adult in the house with you, right?”
“Nope,” he said. “Maryn is the only person I lived with in an apartment. No one in this house. Not to say that I haven’t had an overnight guest now and again.”
She knew he might have thrown that out there so she didn’t think he was a loser that never dated. It seemed to her he was kind of flirting, then embarrassed over it each time something slipped.
Just like now when his face flushed adorably.
“We’ve all had overnight guests a time or two,” she said. “And when you share an apartment with people, you find out that is more than you bargained for.”
“Did you have any bad experiences?” he asked. He moved over to make another cup of coffee. Seemed to her he drank a lot of it. Probably to fuel him through his work that he did nonstop.
“Not personally. I mean no one gave me a hard time in terms of a strange guy in the place that wasn’t with me. But it’s not comfortable to walk out of your room barely dressed and come face to face with someone who wasn’t sharing your bed with you.”
She was grinning when she said it. Sometimes they played this little game with each other. It was kind of like what happened last week in the kitchen with them, but she wasn’t uncomfortable with that encounter and didn’t think he was either.
Like his eyes on her when she came down half dressed. She wouldn’t do that again. Well, she’d go to the kitchen if she needed something, but she’d at least put a pair of shorts on with her T-shirt.
Just like he’d most likely put more clothing on when he came out of his room that night.
She hoped he didn’t put a shirt on again. Damn, he had a better body on him than she thought he would. Last week when she’d walked by his room on her way to do laundry, she couldn’t resist the urge and opened his bedroom door and just peeked her head in there. Probably wrong on her part, but it’s not like she went in or touched anything.
She saw a large room with a treadmill in the corner and then some handheld weights and a mat rolled up.
The shape of the weights let her know what those marks were on the carpet upstairs. She’d noticed that the couch had been moved by the leg marks too and then she realized that he must have covered where his treadmill was where he watched TV.
He gave up his workout space for Elsie.
“I can see where that would be a problem for some,” he said.
“I normally just turned around and went back to my room,” she said. “But the last place I was, the person who had the apartment…she did it a lot. She lost a lot of roommates over it. One of them was accused of flirting with the guy, which I don’t believe happened. It was most likely the other way around, but it was too much drama.”
“I’d think you’d be the one they’d flirt with,” he said, smirking.
“They tried, but as I said, I’d just turn around and shut my door. I never wanted to worry about having to leave and have nowhere to go.”
He frowned. “You could never go back home?” he asked. “You don’t talk about your family much.”