by Sara Whitney
“You’re willing to share?” The idea hadn’t even occurred to him.
She looked up with a frown. “Did you really think I’d let you starve?”
He shrugged and took a step back. “I didn’t want to assume, and I don’t want to impose.” Plus, six hours ago, he’d have bet all the cash in his wallet that if fierce little Finn Carey ever put food in front of him, it’d be poisoned.
She grabbed two blue bowls from the cabinet and picked up a ladle. “If I don’t feed you, you’ll die of hunger in my living room rather than of exposure in a snowbank fifteen feet from my front door. Both would be my fault, but your dying in my apartment would be way more inconvenient for me. Ergo, I’ll share.”
What a day. She’d kicked him out, rescued him, warmed him, dressed him, and now was going to feed him. “This is literally saving my life. The last thing I ate was a ham sandwich in the TA lounge yesterday afternoon.”
“Then maybe you should’ve had dinner last night instead of hitting on strange women at bars.” She shoved two full bowls into his hands harder than was strictly necessary, and despite her obvious irritation, his stomach growled loudly.
“Apparently so. That’s what we researchers call independent confirmation.” He returned to the table as she pulled sour cream and shredded cheese out of the fridge and joined him.
“Ha.” She accepted the bowl he slid across to her. “It’s not fancy, but at least it’s warm. If Josie were here…”
Her roommate’s name landed like a grenade in the space between them, and discomfort crept along Tom’s spine. He leaned forward. “Hey. About that—”
“Yeah, I don’t need an explanation.” She reached for the sour cream, her eyes locked on the container.
Tom pushed ahead because no way in hell was he letting this situation pass without her hearing his side. “Look, Josie and I ended up in the same bar at closing time, and I volunteered to make sure she got home okay. When I’m out, I try to notice if someone looks like they might run into trouble on their own.”
Finn’s shoulders were tense as she stirred her chili, and Tom sighed, not wanting to wade too close to their uncomfortable history. “Long story short, she insisted I come in because it had started snowing, and then, honestly, I passed out. I’d been up for two days straight grading papers, so those shots of whiskey did me in. It… wasn’t my proudest moment.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair in embarrassment. The previous night was one big, loud blur in his mind.
Finn cut her eyes up at him, then back down. “I told you, it doesn’t matter to me what you guys did.”
“What we didn’t do,” he said, anxious to jostle her out of that reserved politeness.
After a beat, she inclined her head in acknowledgment, the movement stiff. “Makes sense. Only someone who’d had a hell of a night wouldn’t immediately know I wasn’t Josie.”
Tom knew a trap when he saw one, so he busied himself adding cheese to his bowl. His memories of Josie from the bar on Wednesday were of a stacked redhead with a big laugh, which was certainly a contrast to the black-haired sylph sitting across from him, her pert nose, pointed chin, and graceful collarbones creating a riot of delicate angles.
He forced a lazy smile and gave an “easy come, easy go” gesture. “Eh, redheads aren’t generally my type.” He saw the question flit across her face: What is your type these days? But before she could ask it, before he was tempted to tell her that his type had only ever been petite, sharp-jawed, black-haired women, he took his first bite of chili. He didn’t have to fake the moan of appreciation he gave as the spicy-meat-and-tomato goodness exploded on his tongue.
“Oh my God.” He all but submerged his head in the bowl in his haste to inhale all its deliciousness, and Finn offered him the first full smile he’d seen from her all day.
“There’s plenty more.” She gestured to the stove, and he immediately stood to grab seconds. “You seriously didn’t sleep for two days to grade papers?”
He grimaced as he sat back down, although inside he was pleased that she was picking up the conversational ball. “I’m a TA for the Intro to Macro class, and I’d been putting off a mountain of grading, plus I have an editing deadline on my dissertation, which I’ve also been putting off. The perfect storm before the perfect storm.” He gestured to the snow that still swirled outside the windows before turning back to his bowl.
“Ah. More bad luck,” she said.
That drew another actual smile from her, and he felt a curl of pleasure unfold in his stomach. He was safe and warm and inside, his socks were dry, and Finn Carey was smiling at him like she used to. All in all, it could be a worse blizzard.
Oh, look at that. A sliver of optimism. He decided to chase that rare feeling. “So. I answered your questions. Now you need to answer one for me.”
She froze as he set his spoon down and gravely folded his hands together.
“Do you have coffee for the morning, or should I throw myself into a snowbank right now?”
Her lips twitched. “I have coffee. Fresh grind pour-over. Hope that’s okay.”
Tom picked up his bowl again to dig in. “With this kind of hospitality, Huckleberry, I may never leave.”
Five
Finn stood at the sink with her hands in soapy water, considering all the ways her day was unraveling. She’d spent the afternoon hiding in her room getting no work done and grappling with the urge to yell at Tom and to hug him and to demand that he tell her all the stories about his life that she’d missed since they’d stopped confiding everything to each other eight years ago. And then he’d sat across from her at dinner, all charming and smiley, and that impulse had grown too dangerous and far too tempting. God, he was the worst, reminding her of all the things she used to like about him. Time to hit the brakes.
“So about tonight. I assume you’re good sleeping in Josie’s room again?”
She addressed her words to the dishwater, but Tom joined her at the sink, reaching for a towel and starting to dry the dishes she’d set to the side.
“Actually, no. I feel a little weird about it.”
That made two of them. But she clamped down on a wave of irrational jealousy to point out, “You slept there last night.”
He took a bowl from her and ran the dishtowel over its clean, dripping surface. “Yeah, but last night I passed out at the foot of the bed on top of the covers, like a dog. And now I’m some random guy she only exchanged a few sentences with who’s sleeping in her sheets? It feels wrong. I was thinking I should maybe take the couch.”
Her TV-watching couch? In the middle of her living room? Nope. No way was Finn letting that happen. He couldn’t sleep out in the open. She didn’t want to see what he looked like asleep, didn’t want to know whether those full lips parted in relaxation, didn’t want to hear his deep, even breaths. Didn’t want to picture Tom at rest every time she sat on the couch’s overstuffed cushions in the future. Best to keep all that behind Josie’s bedroom door.
“Don’t be dumb,” she told him briskly. “You already slept there once, and we don’t have a ton of extra blankets to make a bed on the couch. Josie won’t care. She liked you enough to bring you home in the first place.”
Was that a blush she saw heating his skin? It was hard to tell in the low lighting.
“I told you, nothing happened. We just—”
“Oh my God, will you stop? I said I believe you,” she almost shouted.
His whole body vibrated as if someone had struck his breastbone like a gong, and for a moment he looked so stricken that she wanted to smooth a hand through his curls and tell him everything was all right. But before she could act on something so foolish, he spun and stalked to the window.
For a moment she wondered if he was thinking about their old fight, but that didn’t quite fit. It had never been a matter of truth versus lies or her believing him. It had all been about what he’d done and how much it had hurt her.
Still, he stood like a statue, silhouetted by the muted glow
of the streetlights outside, and she felt unaccountably drawn in by his solitude. Unsure if he’d welcome it, she crossed the room to stand next to him. Incredibly, fat flakes were still tumbling across their field of vision.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to leave tomorrow morning.”
“Agreed,” she said. “They were predicting another eight to ten inches by Friday morning.”
She was standing close enough to feel his body tremble, yet when she turned to face him, it wasn’t distress she saw, but suppressed laughter. “What?” He pinched his mouth shut and shook his head, so she turned her full scowl on him. “Seriously, what?”
“I’ve got your eight to ten inches right here, baby,” he blurted.
The juvenile remark after his brief melancholy startled a laugh out of her, and he shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, but you set me up.”
“I certainly did not! It was a weather report.” She tried to keep an outraged face while all her swimsuit parts woke up and cracked their knuckles in anticipation. “I swear, you men and your dick jokes.”
“We’re animals, I know.”
He was unrepentant, and she was grateful for it. He was welcome to joke about whatever he wanted as long as it chased away the strange sadness that had poured off him earlier.
He turned his back to the snowy view and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. His muscles stretched his slightly-too-small shirt, and she’d never been so grateful for Richard’s slender build. If he were any more buff, his clothes wouldn’t show off every line of Tom’s biceps and chest, and wouldn’t that have been a tragedy?
Even though she had no claim on Tom, she was immensely relieved that he and Josie hadn’t slept together and that he hadn’t even followed her gorgeous roommate home hoping for that outcome. How irrational, but there it was, humming underneath her skin.
In high school, Dylan and Tom had been a package deal. Date the quarterback, and spend acres of time with his brainy best friend. Eventually she’d discovered that she and Tom shared a love of puns and dad jokes, and while Dylan spent his time at the gym or traveling to away games with the team, Tom had been the one to listen to stories about her day or to tease her out of her bad moods when school got too overwhelming. And while Tom had turned those big amber eyes on a few of her female classmates over the years, his relationships never lasted long and he always ended up back with her and Dylan, where it felt like he belonged.
She shook her head sharply. Too many memories for one night. She walked back into the kitchen to finish cleaning up, hoping a bout of tidying would banish the restlessness she felt.
“I left an unopened toothbrush on the bathroom counter for you. Any other toiletries, you’re going to have to borrow and risk getting girl cooties.” She poured the leftover chili into a plastic container, then turned to find him watching her. Oh God, had he noticed that her agitation had ratcheted up over the past few minutes? If so, he didn’t let on.
“My needs are simple, but I appreciate the toothbrush. Thank you.” He gestured to the slow cooker. “Can I help you with that?”
“No, I got it.” She set the insert into the sink to soak, hyperaware of his eyes watching her movements. “So, I, uh, guess I’m headed to bed. Good night. If you need anything, knock.”
After one last glance around the kitchen, which was as spotless as it had been predinner, she headed toward her room.
“I will,” Tom called after her, and she couldn’t decide whether she’d be horrified or thrilled if he actually did.
Six
In the end, Tom didn’t go knocking on Finn’s door even though he did need an iPhone charger. But she’d looked so uncomfortable at the thought of sleeping with only the tiny bathroom between them that he didn’t have the heart to actually tap on that solidly shut door of hers once he realized how low his battery was.
So he’d powered down his phone and tossed and turned in Josie’s pink-striped sheets. The next morning he was up early, and the first thing he did was cross to the window to check out the snow situation.
It was still coming down. How was there enough snow in the universe that it was somehow still falling on Chicago?
“Dammit.” He rested his forehead on the cold glass. Entire days alone with Finn Carey had literally been one of his teenage wet dreams. Now, it was a grown-up kind of torture.
Finn, Dylan, and Tom. The Beauty, the Brawn, and the Brains. Of course Dylan hadn’t given a second thought to leaving Finn in the stands with Tom during football games. In what world did Beauty choose Brains when Brawn was the quarterback and the homecoming king?
But standing by the window right then, all he could hear were Finn’s words from the night before: I said I believe you. Years too late to undo the damage, and in a wholly different situation, yet it had still taken all his willpower not to demand to know why now but not then? Why hadn’t she given him the benefit of the doubt at a time when they were daily confidants, when she’d been the center of his world?
“Roads still not clear?”
Her voice made him jump, and his pulse ratcheted up when she joined him at the window. Yet again, she looked pristine and tailored in jeans and a fitted long-sleeve T-shirt, a walking advertisement for look-but-don’t-wrinkle.
“How is there that much snow in the world?” she asked.
“Literally what I was just thinking.”
She dropped the curtain and walked to the kitchen where she busied herself getting coffee ready. He joined her and opened cupboards until he found the mug stash and selected two. He needed cool-and-unbothered Tom to report for duty ASAP.
“More editing work for me. I can’t waste a Friday even if it’s a snow day.” He nodded his chin toward the laptop on the kitchen table.
She poured for both of them and added cream to her mug. “Yeah, my boss is expecting my project next week, so I may as well keep going on it.”
He declined her offer of coffee additives and leaned against the counter. “So what did our graduating class’s worst economics student end up doing with her life?”
“Not accounting, I’ll tell you that.” Her expression brightened. “I work for QR Marketing. We measure consumer opinions surrounding product launches. Right now I’m finalizing a set of focus group questions for a new fragrance line.”
Rigidly organized solicitor of opinions. It fit the Finn he remembered.
“I assume you want to know more than ‘smells good’ or ‘nah’?”
She leveled a look over the rim of her University of Illinois at Chicago mug. “If you mock my profession, I’ll douse you with the perfume while you sleep. Between you and me, it reeks.”
Tom grinned, delighted that she was teasing him. When she chose to engage, her whole demeanor changed. Her lips pressed together with humor, and her eyes crinkled at the corners. He decided to push his luck. “Want to work out here? Keep me company?”
The crinkles disappeared, replaced with apprehension. Then the line between her eyes relaxed. “Actually, yes. The desk in my room is a little cramped.”
After she fetched her work materials, they toiled side by side at the kitchen table for hours, silent but for the click of their fingers on their keyboards and the instrumental alternative Spotify station they’d agreed on. Tom would occasionally glance up to catch a glimpse of her brow furrowed in thought. She’d left her hair loose, and the dark strands fell forward when she shifted closer to her screen. As the afternoon wore on, he found himself getting distracted from his edits by the thought of pulling her close to tangle his fingers in the silky length.
He couldn’t stop looking at her, and she remained frustratingly unaware. The more things changed, and all that jazz.
The sky was dark behind the windows when Finn finally caught him staring at her. He affected a bored look, hoping it wasn’t obvious that he’d been watching her worry her lower lip with her sharp little teeth and imagining it was his lip she was nibbling on.
Her eyes widened, her cheeks pinked, and she lurched from her
chair. Not so unaware after all, apparently.
“Look at the time!” she blurted, her gaze sliding over his shoulder to the coffee-cup-shaped clock over the sink. “I’m starving. Are you starving?”
Tom blinked slowly, aware she was thinking about a different kind of hunger. “Always. I always want something to eat.” He kept his tone light so the double entendre wouldn’t be as obvious to her as it was in his suddenly pulsating brain.
“Okay. It won’t be fancy,” she warned as she turned to rummage through the freezer. “Keep working. It’ll be ready in a bit.”
Tom wrapped up the last edits on the page as she clattered around with the microwave, and when he joined her at the counter to ask if she needed any help, she waved a plate under his nose. Tom did a double take in astonishment.
“Are those… Oh my God, did you make chili dogs?”
She shrugged. “We had some Nathan’s Famous in the freezer.”
He gripped her upper arms. “You’re the perfect woman, and this is the perfect kitchen. I think I live here now.”
He could tell the compliment pleased her by the way she smiled at him without dipping her chin or sliding her eyes away.
“You’re ridiculous. Sit down.”
She was relaxing in his presence. He saw the starch leaching from her spine. Now to keep the momentum going.
“So, are you an ‘all food stays in the kitchen’ household?”
“God, no. That couch is mostly made up of Josie’s pizza stains.” She glanced toward the living room furniture.
“Don’t you think it’s a shame to let that TV stay unwatched much longer?” he wheedled.
“Well, it is Friday night. Couch, TV, and dinner is my traditional ‘unplug your brain and celebrate because it’s the end of the week’ activity.”
“Excellent. Wine?”
Another hesitation, and in the end, she shook her head no, so he snagged them each bottles of water from the fridge. She settled on the couch, and he lowered himself into the easy chair he’d occupied the day before, hooking an ankle around the ottoman to bring it close enough to prop his feet on.
