Roommate Arrangement (Divorced Men's Club #1)(58)

“Payne.” I shake his hand.

“Oh, yeah, Marty’s brother.”

“The one and only.”

“What are you doing out here?” Beau asks.

Trent huffs. “Every month we have to come out and mow this son of a bitch, so I usually stay for the weekend and do it in parts.” He points toward where the grass is green and clear on the other side of the paddock.

“I’m surprised it hasn’t sold yet,” I say. “You’d think a developer would have jumped straight on it.”

Trent shakes his head. “That other half is protected land because of some of the species that breed in the pond, and the part up front we’ve been offered a fat sum for, but none of the family wants to let it go and see a bunch of houses or apartments go up.”

“I take it you’re not in a hurry to sell, then?”

“Yes and no. We want it off our hands, but Kilborough gets bigger every year, I swear, and we prefer knowing that this area is useful for more than just condos.”

“But if not a developer, who would want this much land?” Beau asks.

He has a point. It’s huge.

“It’s good farmland. Maybe a horse-riding school? Not sure, but there has to be someone out there with better ideas than me.”

Agreed, because like Trent, I’m not an ideas man. I’ll leave the creativity to Beau.

We stay for a while as Beau and Trent catch up and then make our way back to the car. Being out here, getting some perspective away from it all, has settled my annoyance over Kyle’s note.

The divorce is going to happen whether he wants it to or not, and it’s not as though he can force me to meet with him. I have no idea why he’d even want that, unless he’s hoping for a broken nose, because seeing his face again … there’s no telling what I’ll do.

Just the sight of his handwriting was enough to almost ruin my day, but it didn’t. Because of Beau.

When we get home and walk inside, I’m just debating the best way to grab Beau and drag him to my bedroom when he heads straight to his desk.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“I’ve had a cool idea, and I need to get it written before I forget.”

Aaand there goes my idea, then.

I watch in bemusement as Beau drops into his desk chair, wakes up his computer, and starts hammering away at the words. He loses himself in them completely, not even pausing when I move around the apartment to clean up and pull ingredients out for dinner.

It’s funny that he can go from devoting his afternoon to me one minute to completely forgetting I exist the next, and honestly … I think it’s adorable.

Which is weird, because when that fucker used to ignore me while he was playing on his phone, I’d get mad. It was rude and disrespectful and rubbed me the wrong way. I guess the joke is on me because he never had any respect for me anyway.

Whereas with Beau … I know he respects me. He’s never told me that, but he hasn’t needed to. It’s there in the way he acts, the things he does, how he doesn’t push me to talk about feelings when after last night, he’d definitely be in the right to.

It would be childish for me to think I’m not feeling something for him. Something bigger than wanting to sleep with him or flirt with him or even be friends. And if he pushed … what would I tell him? That I can easily see myself falling for him? Because fuck if that isn’t true.

I want Beau. I want to be the man he finds happiness with. But I can’t offer him happiness with this divorce hanging over my head.

It’s too distracting. All it took was one note today and I felt like my whole world was coming apart at the seams.

That’s not a healthy reaction.

I shouldn’t need Beau to fix things. To put me back together.

That sort of need is what makes me doubt my feelings for him are real and not a product of proximity and timing. I’ve never even thought about Beau in this way before—and as worried as I am about hurting him, I’m just as desperately hoping this is real. That I could be so lucky.

Beau works for hours without a break, and I have no idea how he manages it. My hands would be aching by now.

When dinner is ready, I grab Beau’s book that I’m reading and sit on the couch, not wanting to distract him by putting on the TV.

I think I’ve figured out why Beau wants to live in this world. All his characters have their eccentricities, and none of them are judged for it. They’re accepted for exactly who they are.

When I first started reading them, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, so I was relieved when he asked me not to tell him what I thought. If I hated the books and he asked me about them … well, talk about awkward.

Instead, I love them. I want to tell him how much I love Jaciel and how I think Klein is a bit of a douche, but Tombra is a badass motherfucker, and he and Jaciel should bone already. The more I read, the more I’m convinced it’s going to happen too.

I want to ask Beau about it, but I don’t want to spoil the ending, so when I reach the last pages and Tombra has just taken Klein, instead of worrying how Jaciel will get him back, all I can think is good.

But still … Beau said Jaciel had to save his love interest, which makes me think he isn’t setting up Tombra at all. I swear it’s there though. Those two have chemistry for days.