Roommate Arrangement (Divorced Men's Club #1)(40)

My lips twitch. “What are you doing?”

“Just play along.”

“Okay … ah, all of my life.”

A short silence follows my words until Payne leans in and whispers, “Now you ask me.”

“Umm … How long have you lived here?”

“Only a couple of months. You know, I really could use someone to show me around. Someone who knows the area …”

I nod along to his words, showing I’m listening.

“And this is where you offer to show me around,” he says.

I hang my head. “I’m terrible at this.”

“You’re not—you’re too in your head.” He points at the wine. “Have one at dinner. Just one. It’ll help calm your nerves. Then you need to get out of your head. Some conversation topics that usually go down well are sport, any viral video clips you’ve seen, work—if you’re desperate and need to get him talking—ideal holiday destinations and places you’ve traveled to … if you get stuck, ask him about his plans for the future. That should buy you a couple of minutes.”

“Huh.” I pick at the food he’s set out. “So what are your plans for the future?”

“That was good, but you don’t need to practice that one.”

“No.” I shift. “I actually want to know.”

“Haven’t I already told you everything?”

“Uh, yeah, you’ve told me about finding a job and moving out. That can’t be all though.”

Payne considers the question. “I guess those things are the most pressing. I’m still trying to get my head to stop spinning after my life exploded around me, so I haven’t thought about it much.”

“Yeah, but even before that happened, you have to have had some ideas.”

“Honestly, before all that, I thought my life would continue exactly the way it was pretty much forever. I’m a different person now, as douchey as that sounds.”

“I don’t think it’s douchey.”

His expression softens. “I think what I really want is independence. Sure I had things, but they were only partially mine, and when you divide your life into halves, it gets very dark when you realize it doesn’t leave you with much.”

“I never thought about it like that. Whenever I picture finding someone, I dunno, the whole sharing your life seems … nice.”

“And it is. Until it isn’t.”

My teeth clench as the familiar anger at Kyle tries to hit, but I push it back. He doesn’t get to interfere with this nice thing Payne has done for me. “Well, now you get to do that. Get your independence. You’ll feel better once your place has sold.”

“I will.” He sighs. “I would have been able to treat you to something more decent than this if it already had.”

“In that case I’m glad it hasn’t, because this is perfect.”

Payne’s bashful smile fills my gut with butterflies.

I nudge the food out of the way and lie down on my side. My feet poke out of the end of the tent, but it’s … cozy. The storm above my head, Payne sitting across from me. He hesitates a second before he copies me, bending his knees slightly so they almost hit mine.

He’s maybe a foot away, the shadows making the fine lines in his face deeper, showing his crow’s feet and the lines by his mouth and between his eyebrows. His stubble looks rougher, his eyes more piercing. I lick my lips, wishing I could kiss him again. Always, always wishing for that.

“Favorite ice cream flavor,” I ask. It comes out closer to a whisper, like my voice doesn’t want to disturb the calm air between us.

“Anything that has caramel in it. You?”

“Vanilla.” I try not to think about that in relation to sex. “Anything else is too overwhelming.”

“Bor-ring.” His voice has dropped to match mine.

“Simple,” I counter. “I don’t need much to be happy.”

“What are things that make you happy, then?”

You. Fuck, don’t say that. I swallow the word and think of specifics, then find myself saying. “Paper cranes. And sword fights. Reheating meals that have been made for me, even if I couldn’t eat them right away.”

“Beau …”

“Yeah?”

Payne swallows roughly. “Those things make me happy too.”

“It’s also nice to … to have someone who …” I take a deep breath. “Who gets me. It’s nice to not feel completely hopeless some of the time.”

His eyes bore into mine. The silence is weighted between us, and when he talks, his voice is a low rasp.

“You’re not hopeless.” His fingers brush the side of my face. “Far from it.”

I shiver and shake him off. “You and Marty are probably the only people who think that. And Marty only some of the time.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Are you kidding? You saw my place before you moved in.”

Payne gives me a skeptical look. “You think not being clean makes you hopeless?”

“Well, yes, that, but also, I’m not organized. I forget about things easily. Before you moved in, I’d order takeout or heat ramen for dinner every night. Even basic things like doing the laundry or changing my clothes feel too hard sometimes. That sounds hopeless to me.”