When in Rome(19)

I walk out of the bedroom Noah is letting me stay in for the next four days and into the living room. Noah said he has to work, but he didn’t leave immediately after we came home. Instead, he looked at the time and then sighed like he’d made a decision of some sort and set about doing random tasks in his house. He put a load of laundry in his washing machine. He started the dishwasher. He slipped in and out of his room again, cracking it open just enough to walk through. My curiosity piqued to epic proportions. What the hell is in there, and why doesn’t he want me to see it?

My imagination has been running wild. It’s a kinky sex den. He’s a Trekkie and the room is full of Star Trek memorabilia. Oh no, maybe he’s a Beanie Baby hoarder. The horrifying options are endless, and I will never know what’s on the other side of that door (probably for the best) because come Monday, I’ll be finding somewhere else to stay. Maybe by then Mabel will have changed her tune and will have pity on me.

Noah’s back stiffens ever so slightly when he hears me approach, but he doesn’t turn right away. He lingers for a moment, wiping down his kitchen counter, and then he and his broad shoulders turn to face me.

“Hellloooo,” I say with a bright smile.

“Hi,” he replies, skeptically. His eyes radiate concern like he’s waiting for me to do something terrible at any moment.

“Look, I’m not going to steal your pillows, okay?”

He frowns and shakes his head. “Didn’t think you were.”

I scoff lightly and roll my eyes. “Well, you sure seem like it from the way you’re walking around here like a caveman guarding all his precious rocks.” I stomp around and mime what I imagine a prehistoric male would look like when he’s pissy and possessive. It’s not a cute look on me.

Noah’s brows go up. Arms cross. Surly Pose. “Is that supposed to be me?”

“Obviously.”

“Huh.” A pause. “I need better posture.”

I feel my lips curl. “Is that…a joke, Noah Walker?”

“No.” He says no, but the word slides across my skin as if he were whispering yes against the back of my neck. Confusing, confusing man. Also confusing is the temperature of my body right now as he and I have a stare-off that feels like our clothes might spontaneously burst into flames. Ridiculously, the procedure I learned in kindergarten but haven’t yet found a need to use pops in my head: Stop, drop, and roll.

“Did you need something?” asks Noah, his eyes shuttering against any hints of finding me desirable a moment ago. All traces of it are gone, making me wonder if I imagined it.

“Uh…yeah. Do you have Wi-Fi?” I hold up my phone.

“Nope.” With his arms folded he leans back against the countertop and crosses a boot over the other. The pose is a spin-off of his critically acclaimed Surly Pose (trademark pending) and it’s so incredibly masculine the hairs on my arms stand. Stop, drop, and roll.

“You don’t…you don’t have internet?” Surely he’s just not understanding the question.

He gives his sandy-blond head one good shake. “No internet.”

Noah is like a piggy bank full of money. His words are coins and I have him physically flipped upside down, shaking him just to get a few cents to fall out. I almost wonder if he’s withholding words just to annoy me. Just to get under my skin. And why do I like it so much?

I have two responses warring inside me. The first is my usual fine-tuned, never-failing polite, polite, polite. The second, and the one I decide to pursue, is a new instinct full of selfish primitive desires. Play, play, play.

“And you wondered where I got the caveman comparison.” But no, he’s not a caveman, he’s…classic. Like his truck. Like his phone. Like his handwriting. Like the plaid shirt rolled up over his sturdy forearms.

“Is this your version of quiet as a mouse?” He holds his frown so well even though I can feel the amusement vibrating between us.

“Is that the longest sentence you’ve ever strung together?”

He tips one of his eyebrows. A hit. “She commandeers my guest room. Eats my food. Calls me a caveman. And insults my intelligence,” he says while shaking his head in a mock reprimand.

“And next I’ll ask if I can borrow some pj’s.” I wish I could train my face to be as frowny and stoic as his—deliver my jokes with wit so dry the single strike of a match would send it all up in flames, but I can’t. I’m a cheeseball, smiling the entire time I say it.

“Why do you need my pajamas?” Ah—He’s a starchy pa-ja-mas kind of guy instead of the cute and short pj’s I like to say. This tiny distinction sums us both up so perfectly.

I smile faintly. “Because I assume you don’t want me to walk around naked?” Play, play, play. I notice the tips of his ears turn pink, so I have mercy on him. “I forgot to pack something comfy for lounging.”

He swallows, dips his eyes once over my body—very quickly—and then nods. “I’ll be right back.”

Noah escapes toward his room like the Pillow Bandit is hot on his heels, and I use the moment of privacy to call Susan. After reading her number from her contact information and punching it into the cathartic dinosaur phone, it rings.

“Susan Malley,” she answers in her matter-of-fact tone.

“Susan! Hey, it’s—”