The American Roommate Experiment (Spanish Love Deception #2)(37)

It was the lonely tear falling out of the corner of her eye that propelled my legs to close the rest of the distance between us.

In two seconds flat, my arms were around her shoulders and I was bringing her into my chest. “It’s okay,” I said, moving one of my hands to the back of her head, so I could secure her against me.

“I’m not losing it,” she muffled against my sweatshirt. “I’m Rosie and I can’t lose it.”

Squeezing her a little tighter as her body shook under my arms, I let my chin rest on top of Rosie’s head. “You can lose your shit, Graham,” I told her, as I swayed us left to right. “You’re entitled to that every once in a while.”

“But I hate it when I do. I don’t want anyone seeing me like this. Especially not you.” She hiccupped again. “I’m such an ugly crier.”

“Ugly? Impossible.”

A strangled sound left her, warming the skin beneath the fabric of my sweatshirt. “Stop being so nice to me.”

“I’m just being honest,” I told her, and I meant it. And I hadn’t missed the especially not you, but it wasn’t the time to inspect that. “It’s healthy to let it all out.” I trailed my hand up and down her back. Massaging along her spine. “Especially when you are under so much pressure.”

“Maybe,” she said, still buried in my chest. “But I still don’t like it.”

Something occurred to me, something that might make those tears stop. “You met Abuela, right? At the wedding?”

Rosie nodded.

“The last time I did something like this, something like pretending nothing was wrong, that it was all… good and dandy”—I used her words—“Abuela flung a wooden spoon at me. Hit me square in the face.”

I’d expected Rosie to gasp, or laugh, but instead, she went with a thoughtful, “I love Abuela.”

“It’s hard not to love her. And let’s face it, I probably deserved it.”

She let out something that was close to a laugh. Kind of.

Good, as long as she stopped crying I could embarrass myself a little more. “The spoon had been covered in the Bolognese she’d been cooking, and I looked like I’d gotten into a brawl with a can of tomato sauce.” In Abuela’s defense, I’d deserved it. “Oh, and after hitting me, she proceeded to yell, Tontos son los que hacen tonterías. Stupid people are those that do stupid stuff.” I let my fingers reach Rosie’s hair, absentmindedly stroking the soft curls. When she didn’t flinch, I let my hand rest there. “Abuela was right, though. It’s not smart to pretend everything’s okay when it isn’t. When you bottle something up so tightly, the lid will blow up. Sooner rather than later.”

Rosie didn’t speak, and my last statement left me with a bitter taste in my mouth, so we stayed in silence after that, swaying left and right without caring to release each other.

When Rosie finally spoke again, her voice no longer quivered. “Lucas?”

Fully aware that there was no reason to have my arms around her at this point but not caring to move, I answered with a Hmm.

“What had you been bottling up? When she threw that spoon at you.”

It really shouldn’t have after my almost-confession, but her question caught me off guard. “I…” I trailed off, not following my own advice and shoving everything I’d been keeping locked in even deeper. “I’ll tell you if you stop fighting my help. And if you come back to the apartment with me. You can’t stay here.”

“Can’t you tell me now?”

“Show me that you trust me.”

Rosie extricated herself from my embrace, looking up at me.

I met her gaze. “That’s how this works, Graham. It’s a two-way road.”

She considered something for a long time, then said almost reluctantly, “Okay.” She followed that up with a loud sigh. “If that’s your way of asking me if we can be friends, then fine. I guess we can be friends.”

Something raced across my chest, one moment there and gone the next.

“Friends,” I said, finally letting my arms drop to my sides, because friends comforted each other but knew where to draw the line. “Let’s go, then. I don’t want to risk Mr. Brown flashing us his balls again.”

“Okay,” she repeated, now with more conviction. “Let’s go home, roomie.”





CHAPTER NINE


Rosie


I closed my laptop, unable to look at my manuscript for one more second.

Zero out of 2,500 words.

“God, this sucks,” I said into the silent and empty studio apartment.

Because I’d written zero and I’d had to recalculate my daily word goal. Again.

I thought back once again to yesterday’s epic meltdown. To how I’d dumped a crap-load of emotional baloney on Lucas. To how I’d then proceeded to slobber all over his sweatshirt for an indecently large amount of time. And most of all, I thought of Lucas’s calm and careful comfort. Of how he’d stepped in without me asking him to. Without me expecting him to.

And I thought of that hug. A full-body hug. Soothing, healing, intentional—because Lucas hugged like he meant it, like all his focus was on that embrace and that embrace only. A life-altering hug, if something as simple as a hug was ever meant to do that.