Page 38

He dug a little too hard into my foot, causing me to yelp. “No, Wilder. He was checking out the competition. He was sweating like crazy and looked like he was about to pass out from lack of oxygen.”
“But you’re not the competition.”
“He doesn’t know that. Or if he does, he still needs to make sure I’m a good guy.”
“But why? He’s not even interested!”
He thought about it, then shook his head. “Either he’s sending the wrong signals or…”
“Or what?”
“I have no fucking clue. But I can tell you this, no guy reacts the way he did over a woman he doesn’t like.”
“Then there’s gotta be something else going on. I’m telling you, he put up a wall last night and I wasn’t allowed to cross it.”
A smirk tipped his lips. “Unless that barrier was to stop him from mauling you in your sleep.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m serious. Now that I think about it, if I was in his position and staying with a beautiful woman, I might respond the same way if I thought there wasn’t a shot I’d get her.”
“And that’s actually happened to you?” I said, laughing at the thought.
“Well, no. I only go after women I can have. Speaking of, I met this really hot chick at the airport. I think there was something there.”
“Yeah, planes,” I retorted.
“No, really. I think she was the one.”
“You say that about a woman every time you come home.”
“I do not!”
“Yes, you do!” I laughed. “You’re going to call her, fall in love with her, and then get bored when you’ve fed that sexual appetite. And then she’ll call you every day, crying about how you were the one and she can’t live without you. You’ll come to me, like you always do, and you’ll beg me to never let you do something like that again. Which you inevitably do no matter how much I tell you to slow down.”
He looked like he wanted to argue with me, but instead, pushed my foot off his lap. “I don’t want to massage your feet anymore.”
“Hey! I still have one foot that’s feeling left out!”
He got up, stomping away from me. “Then why don’t you call up your new boyfriend and ask him to do it.”
“I would if I had a boyfriend. Which I don’t because he doesn’t like me that way!” I shouted, but he didn’t respond.
Sighing, I snuggled into the couch, grumbling to myself. “I bet it’s because he saw me naked. He was intimidated by my body.” Yeah, that sounded right. “He took one look at my boobs and thought,there is no way in hell I can get a woman like her.”
“Are you talking to yourself again?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin at Lee’s voice. Twisting to look over my shoulder, I glared at my roommate. “Would you stop sneaking up on me?”
“I didn’t sneak up on you. I’ve been standing here for like three minutes.” She sighed, flopping down on the chair across from me. “I guess that says more about me than you. Maybe one day they’ll write a book on me, how people could literally see right through me when I was in the same room with them.”
“That’ll never happen because no one can literally look through you.”
“It sounds better than saying figuratively. I once went to dinnerwith a guy who stared right through me at his girlfriend who was on a date with another man. I ate breadsticks for two hours.”
“Why didn’t you order dinner?”
“Because they were those crunchy breadsticks. I thought if I chewed loud enough, he’d notice me.”