Page 79 of Fun and Games

"Well…" I drawled, tapping a finger to my chin.

A lascivious smile crossed Mason's face as I pretended to consider it.

"No," I stated firmly.

He let his face fall comically, exaggerating his disappointment.

"Do you want us to get thrown out for indecent exposure?" I asked. "I might actually want to come back here and buy some furniture, you know."

"Didn't the place you rent come with furniture already?" he asked.

"Yeah, but I might—"

I bit my tongue for the second time.

The bosses at my temp job were still talking about offering me a permanent position. I couldn't stay at my sublet forever. If I was going to consider taking them up on their offer… If I was going to consider finding a new place to live… If things kept going well between me and Mason…

Maybe it was time to start thinking about settling down.

If I said that out loud, would that scare him?

Or would he be delighted?

It all came down to The Talk we had yet to have. Maybe it was time to bring it up with him. Maybe it was time to finally have that conversation.

What exactly were the two of us? Were we still just friends with benefits? Had we graduated into casually dating?

Or had we become something more?

"I was thinking about getting a new lamp or something," I replied vaguely.

Even if I wanted to have that conversation, I wasn't going to have it in the middle of an IKEA store.

"Personally, I like looking at all the fancy kitchen appliances," he said. "I like to imagine all the meals I'm going to cook in my state of the art kitchen."

"Says the man who wanted to serve me burnt toast for breakfast," I ribbed.

"I didn't say the meals I made would actually be good," he replied. "What's your favorite section?"

"I like going to the office area and sitting in all those high-backed leather chairs in front of huge, solid wood desks," I said. "Makes me feel like some kind of important CEO."

"Admins are just as important as CEOs," he pointed out. "Sometimes even more so. They've got their fingers in every pie when it comes to office politics, and they know everyone's secrets. They have the power to totally screw you over if you get on their bad side."

"I know," I smirked.

"Have you been abusing your admin powers?" Mason asked.

"Even if I have, you'll never prove it," I said.

Mason and I wandered through the store, trying out every chair, lying down on every bed and putting our feet up on every footrest.

"Whoever designs these showrooms has a gift," Mason said. "My apartment looks like mismatched trash compared to these."

"Your apartment looks like any bachelor's apartment," I said. "Except you seem to keep it tidier than I expect most other guys your age."

"You haven't seen the closet where I shove all my shit into," he said.

"Is it like one of those cartoons where you open the door and a mountain of stuff falls out?" I asked.