Page 106 of The Jerk in Apartment 1B

“Or we could do something else,” I say, smiling at him.

We go to his bedroom, which is where I woke up this morning. The past week, I’ve been spending the night here. It’s something a girlfriend would do, so I was surprised the first time Scott asked me to stay over. The next day, he offered to let me stay there again, and it turned into every night this week.

“I guess we should get to work,” Scott says, giving me a kiss on the forehead as I lie in his arms.

“I’m not sure I have the energy after that,” I say, not wanting to get up.

“We don’t have much left to do. A few more days and we’ll be done.”

“How do you have time for this? Don’t you need to be meeting with clients?”

“I rearranged my schedule and moved my meetings to the afternoons and evenings.”

I look at him. “Because of me?”

“Mornings are the only time you can work on the storage room.”

“Yeah, but you don’t need to be there. I could do it by myself.”

“Maybe I want to be there.” He kisses me. “Let’s go, or we’ll never leave this bed.”

When he says stuff like that, about how he’s rearranged his schedule to be with me, it makes me think he sees this as more than a casual fling. And letting me sleep over? Why is he doing that if we’re just friends who fool around?

Spending all this time with him, I feel like Scott’s my boyfriend. I have to keep reminding myself he’s not. He could be with some other girl at any time and I’d have to accept it. That’s the deal we made. This isn’t a relationship. We’re not exclusive.

How long will it be before Scott decides to end this? He said he was with Bridget for a few months. Is that his limit? A few months and then he’s done?

“You coming?” Scott asks, putting his jeans on.

“Yeah.” I get out of bed, my relaxed post-sex state replaced with unease and uncertainty.

What am I doing here? Am I going to keep letting myself be with Scott, falling for him even more, knowing it’s going to end? Or do I need to stop this? Tell him I can’t do it anymore?

That’s something I need to think about, but not today. I’m really happy with Scott. I’m not ready for this to end.

“These sketches you did are really good,” I say.

We’re in the storage room, labeling boxes. The one I just labeled has sketches of the inflatable furniture Scott wanted to make when he was still in the idea stage for his company. I took one of them out to look at, a sketch of an inflatable chair.

“I didn’t make those,” Scott says, setting a box on the shelf. “They were my ideas, but I can’t draw. I had someone else do it.”

“Who? Someone you hired?”

“I don’t remember.” He snatches the sketch from me and tosses it in the box. “We need to keep going.” He puts the lid on the box and shoves it on the shelf.

“Those sketches were the designs for your first products. How could you not remember who drew them?”

“What the hell difference does it make?” he says, tossing another box on the shelf. “Just let it go.”

“Why are you getting so upset?”

“I’m not.” He glances at me. “I just don’t want to waste time talking. We need to get this done.”

“We can’t talk? We always talk when we’re in here.”

“Yeah, well, not today.”

I walk over to him. “What’s going on with you?”

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