Page 72 of Boyfriend of the Hour

And now I was imagining Nathan running around in scrubs doing hot doctors in the break room. Great.

“Anyway,” Nathan continued after he’d swallowed another bite. “Most of the women I’ve dated tend to treat me differently once they get to know me.”

“How so?”

He busied himself with his pasta, taking his time with his words. “I’ve been told I can be…cold. Unfeeling.” He grimaced, like the next one was going to hurt. “It’s been suggested that I don’t have the capacity to love.”

I blinked. “Well, that’s fucked up. And obviously bullshit.”

One brow lifted. “You think so?”

I nodded. “I do. Look at me. You took me in out of the goodness of your heart, and I’m practically a stranger. What kind of person can’t do that if they don’t have the ability to love? I think you just haven’t met the right girl yet.”

Nathan pushed his glasses up his nose and studied me for a long time. I sat up straight and looked right back. While I didn’tlovethe idea of him being with other women for reasons I wasn’t going to explore right now, I stood by my words.

“There are a lot of kinds of love,” he said finally. “Not everyone is capable of all of them.”

Well, he had me there.

“And then there is the matter of who my family is and what I do,” he said as he went back to twirling another bite of pasta.

“I can’t imagine that’s an issue. You’re hot enough that I bet plenty of women would jump you in a heartbeat. ’Specially if it meant they could bag themselves a rich doctor in the process.”

Jesus. Had I really just said that? Of course I had. I barely had a filter, and it seemed to disappear when I felt awkward. Like right now.

“Is that what you would do?”

My head jerked up. Had he really just asked me that?

Based on the pinking in his cheeks, it seemed that way.

Something like shame flooded my system. Which was very confusing because he wasn’t completely wrong. Had my sisters said something? Had one of them mentioned the fact that some version of that idea had been at least insinuated too many times to count?

Did he know that every time I had flunked out of school, my grandmother had sighed and said, “Well, at least you’re pretty” as she patted my cheek?

“I may be a lot of things,” I managed as I blinked back threatening tears. “But I’m not a gold digger.”

Nathan sat back like I’d stabbed him. “Joni, I?—”

“It’s been suggested a few times,” I admitted, feeling more idiotic by the second. This was supposed to be a friendly dinner. “Like that’s what I should be doing to find success. Because, as you’ve probably realized by now, I’m too dumb to do it on my own.”

Nathan put down his fork again. “Why do you keep saying things like that about your intellect? Your family made comments like that too when they brought your things. It was demeaning.”

I shrugged and shoved a hand under one eye to push the tears away. “My family loves me, but…yeah. They know I’m not that smart.”

“You seem intelligent to me.”

I shook my head. “Trust me, I’m definitely not.”

Nathan crossed his arms. “Explain.”

I huffed. “Dude, you’ve lived with me for two weeks now—you must see I’m kind of a disaster. Yesterday, in the shower, I couldn’t remember if I’d washed my hair, so I did it again. And then I got distracted by a song in my head, so I washed my hair three times.”

Nathan’s mouth quirked. “That just seems like excessive cleanliness. At worst, you might have some split ends.”

“Yeah, well, it’s like that with everything. I’m either so obsessed with my thoughts that I literally don’t register anything else, or the world is so overwhelming I can’t manage anything at all. I can’t keep to a schedule, have to write things down at least five times to remember anything, and leave a trail of my crap wherever I go. You saw the kitchen.” I waved in that general direction. “And that’s mybestbehavior.”

Nathan peered at me. “What does that have to do with your intelligence? Einstein had terrible hygiene. Plenty of bright people struggle with executive function.”