Page 83 of When Annika Met Thom

It wasn’t what Thom had expected her to say but her words made him feel warm all the same. He frowned down at the wax paper she’d used to wrap the burritos and balled it up. “We talked about our pets. She had ferrets and I didn’t know much about them.”

“Did you have Cerberus?”

He nodded. “And we talked about the challenges of finding an apartment when you have pets. She’d found one but couldn’t afford it. It wasn’t long until we came up with the idea of being roommates.”

“Uh huh,” Annika said.

“Entirely platonic,” Thom insisted.

“At first,” she guessed and he had to concede that.

“It just kind of happened. We talked a lot, mostly about her ex, and then, well, yeah. And it was okay.”

“No lightning bolts from the blue,” Annika teased.

“No kismet,” he corrected.

“That would have been impossible, since it doesn’t exist,” she countered and he smiled.

“We got on all right, though. We were about a year in and I was feeling like it could work, and then he came back.”

“Her ex?”

Thom nodded. “She used to see him at work once in a while. She worked at a pet shop, which is how she ended up with the ferrets. Rescue ferrets that the shop couldn’t rehome.”

“Seeing as they’re illegal.”

He nodded. “She thought they were cute. He made deliveries there for some company.”

“So, he wasn’t really gone even though they’d broken up.”

“I guess not. Anyway, they got together again.” He balled up the wax paper even tighter, remembering the sting of that rejection.

Annika put her hand on his. “After you fell in love.”

“She never loved me,” Thom said. “I was justconvenient. She even told me so.”

They sat in silence for a moment. “I’m sorry, Thom. That was a mean thing for her to do.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“No, but it just seems wrong.”

“I don’t think she did it on purpose.”

“She shouldn’t have said that to you, even once she figured it out.”

He shook his head and got up. “Now you know why Tessa calls her Rebound Rhea.”

“When was that?”

“Christmas,” he admitted.

“How festive,” she said and he was surprised that she could sound so fierce.

Thom shrugged.

Annika turned to watch him as he crouched beside the bike again. He was going to have to rebuild the carburetor but he couldn’t even think straight with her watching him so intently.

---