Page 67 of Boyfriend of the Hour

“What, do you think I’m just giving it up for room and board now?”

I didn’t mention the fact that I had already imagined it more than once. Nathan was very clean, and it was hard not to imagine him in the shower running on the other side of the bedroom wall when I was trying to go to sleep. More than once, I’d let my hand drift down under the covers, and my brain meander where it wanted, which was imagining what the water looked like running over that big body.

Then, last night, I’d come out to get myself some tea and ran smack into him when he was coming out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel. Drops of water were still clinging to his shoulders and the solid patch of hair over his chest.

Turns out the muscles in those grab-a-girl shoulders extended right down his torso like a stepladder and disappeared beneath his towel in that strong, extremely lickable V-shape. Mother,may I.

I’d just stared, unable to pull my jaw off the ground. Nathan, unfortunately, had done the same thing, and so we’d just looked at each other like a couple of idiots, mouths hanging open while water drops fell to the ground from his wet hair, for at least a minute until someone’s phone buzzed. I think it was mine. Maybe it was his. By the time I’d scurried back to my room, I’d been too distracted to check.

But my dreams had beenverygood.

“I know you,” Marie persisted. “You like to be admired. I also know that when you feel down on yourself, you go looking for strangers to make you feel better. Or even worse, Shawn.”

“Yeah, well, it’s better than sitting in my room waiting for someone who doesn’t know who I am.”

I waited for another comeback, but none came. Well, that was a change. Six months ago, Marie would have cut right back at me. Now, she didn’t even seem interested in the fight, even with a blow like that.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “That was low.”

“It’s also probably true,” she said with a sigh. “But you’re also worth more.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t think Nathan is interested in me that way.”

Nathan noticed me. He definitely thought I was attractive. I knewthat. I knew it because he couldn’t quite stop his gaze from traveling up and down my legs when I wore my admittedly small pajama shorts. And once, when I’d dropped a bunch of dried macaroni on the floor of the kitchen and had to pick it up, I’d looked up to find him staring down my oversized tank top and licking his lips. Only for a second. But it had still happened.

Yet whereas, every other red-blooded, hetero-leaning man in New York would have made a move by now,especiallyafter we already made out once before, Nathan had been a perfect gentleman since I’d moved in.

It was as if the kiss in Tom’s office had never happened, replaced with a deal that was saving my life. Now, I was just trying to keep my end of the bargain. For the first time in my life, I wanted to carry my weight as best I could.

Tonight, that meant dinner. And doing my best not to imagine my roommate naked.

I needed my sister to temper those urges. No one else shut down my crazy side better than she did.

“I miss you,” I admitted.

“You do?” Marie looked legitimately surprised. Well, why wouldn’t she? I had never been particularly nice to her.

But things were different now. Somehow, she’d stopped being my annoyingly shy older sister. Maybe I could be more than the family brat, too.

“Yeah,” I said. “I miss my sister. You’re the only one who tells me like it is but doesn’t treat me like I’m stupid.”

“I don’t know about that. I’ve called you an idiot more than once.”

“Yeah, but you never meant it, any more than when I make fun of you for being a virgin. It was just what we did. Lea…she means it. And Kate too. Matthew, Frankie, Nonna. They all do. To them, I’m just poor, dumb Joni, who can’t get her shit together.”

Marie sighed. “They don’t think you’re dumb, Jo.”

“They do,” I said bitterly. “And maybe they’re right. But I don’t want to be like that anymore.”

Marie tipped her face on the screen. She didn’t wear the same doubtful expression our other family members always had. It was something more like curiosity. As if she was waiting for me to figure out the last piece of a puzzle.

I wished she could tell me what it was.

“Well,” she said. “If I can move all the way to Paris without knowing a soul, you can probably stand on your own two feet too.”

I smiled. “You think so?”

“Of course. Out of all of us, you’ve always been the most fearless. It’s annoying, really. Like there’s nothing you can’t actually do if you try.”