Page 10 of The No Touch Roommate Rule (That Steamy Hockey Romance #2)

Chapter

Six

PARKER

Five Days Later…

N othing is under control.

Which is normal for a night out at The Brass Monkey, but this isn’t the fun kind of out of control. This is the “the sexual tension in my house is about to drive me fully insane” kind.

It’s Friday, nearly a full week since Makena became my roomie, and I’m sitting in a cracked booth by the karaoke stage at my favorite dive bar, nursing my second Trash Panda.

I should be feeling no pain—aside from the occasional throb in my bum knee.

But thanks to a round of steroid shots, regular icing, and the genetic gift of speedy healing, my MCL isn’t bothering me all that much.

No, what’s bothering me is the woman murdering “Hungry Like the Wolf” up there in the hot pink stage lights.

The woman in ripped jeans and a tiny black tank top that keeps riding up as she wails into the mic like a tone-deaf gerbil, because an anonymous donor promised five hundred dollars to flood relief for every person who sings tonight.

Makena couldn’t carry a tune in a wheelbarrow with four friends along to help her push. And she does ever-so-slightly resemble a gerbil when she first gets up in the morning and her face is still puffy.

And yet, these facts only make me want to ravish her on the closest horizontal surface even more.

Nix was right.

I’m fucked.

At this rate, it’s a matter of days—hours, even—until I cross a line, I promised myself I wouldn’t cross.

I’ve already gotten way too close for comfort.

Like this morning, when Makena was up at the crack of dawn, making coffee in a t-shirt that barely covered her ass, and I crutched my way into the kitchen to grab a juice before starting my “arms only” cardio routine.

She reached up to grab a mug off the shelf.

I caught a flash of lacy white panties, proceeded to pitch a tent in my gym shorts, and had to turn tail and hobble back to my room before I embarrassed myself, like some prepubescent horndog.

I am not prepubescent, but I am a horndog.

A horndog, who hasn’t fucked anyone in nearly a year , a tragic personal worst. At first, I was on that “start the season off strong” grind, then I was on the “if I can’t fuck my sexy former babysitter, I don’t want to fuck anyone” Stubborn Train to No Pussyville.

Currently, I’m in a borderline abusive relationship with my own hand every time I catch Makena in downward dog on her yoga mat or wiggling her ass to whatever’s on her headphones as she harvests herbs in my garden to whip into something incredible for dinner.

I want her to harvest my herbs.

Or, even better, whip me up for dinner.

I want it so bad, even her ear-scarring karaoke stylings make me a little thicker.

“Wow, she’s really going for it, isn’t she?” Nix observes, wincing as Mack hits a note that probably has dogs howling for mercy in the neighborhood behind the strip mall.

“That’s my girl,” I say, lifting my glass in a silent toast as she reaches the chorus and her hips really get in on the action.

She may be tone-deaf, but holy hell, can she dance.

She dances as if she’s possessed by the music, like her blood burns with the need to move.

Every hip swivel is an act of defiance, celebration, seduction, and liberation, all tangled together, and I am positive she would ride my cock with the same magnificent abandon.

Positive.

And it haunts me.

So bad…

“She’s glorious,” I murmur.

Blue, massive and silent beside me, just nods. He gets it. With all the meditating he does, he’s practically a Zen master by now, and Zen masters know something divine when they see it.

She is divine, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t the tiniest bit relieved when she’s finished murdering Duran Duran’s legacy and shouts, rock-star style, “Thank you, Metairie! You’ll be glad to hear that I will not be up here again tonight!”

“Thank God!” an old man nursing a Gecko Glitter Bomb shouts from the bar.

“I think that gave me a fresh case of PTSD,” another old-timer in a POW hat heckles from the line to donate blood.

“And a concussion!” someone else hollers.

“Be nice or I’ll put my name in for ‘Eye of the Tiger,’ you filthy animals,” Makena says, flipping the peanut gallery the bird.

The crowd erupts in laughter and drunken applause.

She takes an exaggerated bow and hops off stage with more grace than someone who’s had two Trash Pandas and a sip of Blue’s Angry Goose should possess.

“Well, that was fun,” she says breathlessly as she slides into the booth beside me. “I mean, for me. Sorry the rest of you had to hear that.”

“It was brave all right,” Nix says, toasting her with his stank ass drink.

It wafts too close to my nose, and I fight the urge to gag.

I hold up my hand, shooing him away. “Fuck, man, keep that shit to yourself. What were you thinking, ordering that?”

“That Pepé Le Pew Pew was a funny-sounding drink,” he says, taking a sip of the black poison still lightly smoking in his goblet, thanks to whatever dark magic Cobb worked on it behind the bar.

“Pepé Le Pew was a skunk,” I remind him. “You didn’t stop to think your drink might end up stinking up the joint?”

Nix shakes his head pleasantly. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t think even a weird dive bar would serve you something this foul. But it’s not nearly as awful as it smells. It’s actually pretty tasty. The more I drink it, the more I like it.”

Makena grins. “Classic Brass Monkey. Cobb makes the drinks so strong, you have no choice but to fall in love. Even with the disgusting ones.”

“Yeah,” Nix agrees, nodding as he takes another sip. “Though I kind of wish I knew what was in it. Like…just to be sure I’m not ingesting actual poison.”

“Charcoal vodka, black currant liqueur, a drop of roasted garlic oil, maple syrup, and something brined at the bottom,” Makena rattles off, making all our brows shoot up.

“What?” I ask, playing up my horror. “I thought you were a Trash Panda girl.”

“I am,” she says, snagging the last Slim Jim garnish from her glass with a grin. “But I’m also a chef, and a game of ‘guess the ingredients’ is too much fun to resist.”

She glances over her shoulder to the bar, where Cobb and his husband are slinging drinks as fast as their muscled arms can mix, stir, and shake.

“But I’m worried about Cobb. It’s legitimately illegal not to list the ingredients on your menu.

And yeah, he always asks people about life-threatening allergies, just in case, but sooner or later, a health inspector is going to find their way out here, and he’ll get a nasty fine. ”

“Maybe he’ll get lucky and not get caught,” I say. “I once knew this woman who lived in her restaurant illegally for almost an entire year without anyone finding out about it. Slept on a shelf and everything.”

Makena’s gaze slides back to me, her eyes narrowing. “Touché, road meat.”

I arch a brow as I murmur, “I thought I wasn’t allowed to be road meat. Because I’m just a baby boy. And we’re roommates. And you’re saving yourself for the next finance bro with a mullet who brakes for you on the highway.”

Her jaw drops. “Oh my God, you stalked my ex?”

“I didn’t stalk him. I did some light internet investigation.

” I sniff as I collect my Slim Jim from my now-empty glass.

“And I barely had to exert myself at all to find half a dozen red flags on old Chuck. You really should do your research before you start dating someone, Mack. Especially a guy with a mullet.”

“It isn’t a mullet!” she insists. “It’s just the tiniest bit longer in the back.”

“And yet you knew exactly who I was talking about,” I counter, pointing my meat stick her way.

“And yet you have no shame about being a stalker who stalks,” she shoots back, meeting my challenge with an “en garde” of her own Slim Jim.

She swats my jerky with hers as she adds, “And I already told you, Chuck was a mistake. I was lonely and tired from working too hard, and my car had just died on the side of the road. He pulled over to save me and bought me donuts. What was I supposed to do? Not fuck him?”

“Yes,” I say, slapping her meat stick sharply on both sides.

“They were Voodoo Creamery Dark Chocolate Raspberry!” she cries, parrying my attack.

“Doesn’t matter,” I say, meeting her swat for swat. “If women keep rewarding men with mullets with sex, then that horrible fucking hairstyle is just going to keep coming back from the dead.”

Scrunching her nose, she swats my wrist this time before pointing a finger at my face. “Stop judging me. I told you—I was lonely and tired. I’m sure you’ve fucked less-than-ideal people in moments of weakness.”

I shake my head. “Not that I can remember, no.”

“What about that influencer with the fake boobs as big as my entire head when you were in North Carolina?” she says. “I’ve seen pictures of you two together. What were you two up to, huh? Studying the classics? Starting a murder mystery book club? I bet she didn’t even know how to read!”

“Because her boobs were so big?”

“Yes!”

“That’s disrespectful,” I say, giving her stick another sharp tap with mine. “Not to mention anti-feminist. Where’s your loyalty to the sisterhood?”

Makena wages a full-on attack as she grunts out, “I am not loyal to all sisters, only the ones who deserve it. She didn’t deserve it.

” Swat, swat, parry. “Her eyes were mean and squinty, and she wore furs that weren’t vintage and talked shit about you after you broke up.

” She hits my wrist, my cheek—making me bleat in surprise—before returning to our heated verbal battle.

“Which is bullshit, because you’re precious and no one should talk shit about you.

Especially for wanting to go to couples’ therapy, because that’s great.

And you’re great. And…I can’t do this anymore, Parker. ”

The battle ends as quickly as it began, both of us breathing fast as our eyes lock over our empty drinks.

“Can’t do what?” I whisper, really hoping she means…

Praying that she means…