Page 77 of Boyfriend of the Hour

I grinned as if this small victory were as much mine as his. “Ten out of ten! And yes, sir, I would. Now, I’ll pretend this glass of water is actually a drink on a date. See, it’s that easy.”

Nathan held up the glass of scotch he had, per usual, barely touched. “Cheers.”

“Cin cin.” I touched my glass to his, smiled again at the clink, and enjoyed the dimple that appeared in his left cheek when he pretended to drink as well. “Now, you sit here and pretend your date is leaning over the bar to give you a peek at her cleavage while, in reality, I will serve the sorority girls down there another round of cosmos. Back in a flash.”

Nathan’s eyes followed me across the bar while I made a few more drinks and grabbed a few more empty glasses to put in the sanitizer. I didn’t look back.

It wasn’t because he was attracted to me. I knew that now. When I’d first moved in, I had thought that maybe there was something there, but I hadn’t gotten one iota of that since.

Something else I was learning about Nathan Hunt: he liked to understand things. And he was a very quick study.

So that stare wasn’t attraction. Nathan was just trying to figure me out.

“Notice anything good?” I asked when I returned to Nathan’s end of the bar.

He tilted his head in acknowledgment of the question. “I’m curious why you called those women sorority girls. It didn’t sound like a compliment.”

I snorted. “It wasn’t.”

“Aren’t you close to their age? What’s the difference?”

I went back to chopping lemons. “There’s a type. Girls who come to the city for school, usually because they have watchedSex and the CityandFriendsway too many times. They’re not from New York, and they imagine their lives are going to be just like Carrie Bradshaw’s. Hence the cosmos. And the dumb giggles.”

As if on cue, the girls broke into a round of laughter. Nathan didn’t even hide the fact that he was watching them while I spoke, and at least two of them were openly noticing him back.

One smiled at him and batted her eyes. She might as well have pulled up her skirt.

“Why don’t you go down there? Try out your moves?” I suggested, though I couldn’t bring myself to look at him while I said it. “College girls are smart. Right up your alley.”

My throat felt tight while I said it. The idea of any one of those girls even touching my kind, brainy roommate made me want to do way more with this knife than chop lemons.

Nathan turned back to me. “I’m fine here with you.”

The flood of relief tasted as sweet as chocolate milk.

God, I was an idiot. I had no right to feel this way.

“Can I ask you something?”

Nathan blinked. “Of course.”

“Why scrubs tonight? Did something happen?”

Nathan glanced down at his surgical wear and made a face—well, as close to making a face as he ever got. “Surgicalattendings typically wear scrubs in the ER, and I usually change when I leave. Tonight, I didn’t.”

“But why?” I pressed. “You’ve been coming here after your night shift for the last two months, but you’re almost always dressed in work clothes or street clothes. See, I notice things too, Dr. Hunt.”

He looked at me for a long time. Long enough that I felt frozen in place.

“I suppose I just wanted to get here first,” he said when I was about to turn away.

It doesn’t have anything to do with you, I told myself. Stop horning out over your stupid hot roommate. He was crunched for time. He’s trying to learn how to be less awkward.

It’s not because he actually likes you.

“Maybe we should do things differently,” Nathan interrupted my cycle of neurosis.

I had never been so grateful. “How’s that?”