Page 71 of Boyfriend of the Hour

“Can I ask you something?” I asked.

“Sure.” Nathan looked up as he put a bite of meatball into his mouth.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

He looked like he was about to choke. I wasn’t sure if it was the meatball or my question. It did look a little dry. “I—no. I do not.”

I pulled one knee up to my chest while I sat. It was something that always drove Nonna crazy, but sitting at a table like a normal person drovemecrazy. “I didn’t think so. You haven’t called or mentioned anyone since I moved in. Plus, a lot of chicks wouldn’t be too keen on a female roommate.”

Nathan was suddenly very focused on twisting some spaghetti around on his fork, blackened basil and all. “I—no. They probably wouldn’t.”

“Why don’t you have one?” I wondered.

He paused just before he took a bite, then dropped the full fork to his plate. “A girlfriend?”

“No, an Academy Award. Of course, a girlfriend.” I waved my hand at him, gesturing at, well, all he had to offer. Which was considerable. The bod. The job. The chiseled face and the charmingly rumpled hair. “You’re a good-looking guy. Better than good-looking, if I’m being honest.”

Understatement of the century, ladies and gentlemen.

Nathan, however, looked down at himself as if I’d told him his skin had just turned lime green. “I…” He looked back at me and picked up his fork again. “I tend to be very particular.”

He then took a bite as if to punctuate the fact.

“Picky, yeah. I get that,” I said as I started to twirl my own pasta around my fork. “My sister Marie is the same way. Twenty-five, never been laid, all because she’s lusting after her boss, and no one can compare.” Then something occurred to me in the middle of my rambling. “Holy crap, you’re not a virgin, are you?”

As soon as it was out there, I regretted saying it.

“What?” Nathan mumbled through a mouth full of pasta.

My entire face heated like the sun. “Not that there would be anything wrong with that. I mean, it would be a little odd, a thirty-something guy with no experience. But I’m sure there are some out there, especially if you’re super picky. Oh my God, are you saving yourself? Are you super religious, and I didn’t know? Am I going to corrupt you living here?”

Oh, God, the babbling. I couldn’t freaking stop myself. It was like I was a faucet that just. Kept. Running.

Until he set his hand atop mine, and the warm weight of it turned the faucet off.

We both stared at our hands, at the way his paw pinned my smaller one to the table. Then, gradually, Nathan pulled his back and went back to his pasta as if nothing had happened.

“For the record,” he said. “I’m thirty-four, and I’ve had seven sexual partners. According to a 2019 NIH study, that puts me firmly within the average range for men my age.”

I hadn’t heard anything after the word “seven.” Because at that point, women popped up in my brain like mushrooms. Seven stunningly beautiful, stupendously sexy, stupidly intelligent mushrooms.

Alongside my veritable forest.

I cringed.

What kind of women did Nathan Hunt go for? Were they blonde and curvy like Marilyn Monroe? Or was he more of a model aficionado who chased after the Bella Hadid lookalikes who roamed New York City like beautiful giraffes? Maybe he had a thing for female equivalents of himself: smart, brainy doctors who also happened to look like movie stars.

Whoever they were, they were probably nothing like me.

Not that it should have mattered.

It didn’t. Itdidn’t.

“Let me guess. High school girlfriend, college girlfriend, med school girlfriend, after med school girlfriend, plus a trio of regular booty calls or one-night stands?” I cocked my head as I counted my list with my fingers. “How did those go for you?”

“No one-night stands,” Nathan replied calmly. Too calmly. “One college girlfriend, yes. We were engaged briefly, but it didn’t work out. After that, the others lasted maybe a month or two during medical school, residency, fellowship. I didn’t have much time for relationships.”

I nodded. It made sense, I guessed. I didn’t really know anything about doctors other than the ones onGrey’s Anatomy, and they never seemed to leave the hospital. They were also horny as fuck and had sex in every available corner.