Page 49 of Crave Thy Neighbor

I pull my bottom lip between my teeth.

It’s the question I ask myself all the time. If I wasn’t happy, why did I stay for so damn long? Why did I try to force myself to love someone who didn’t love me back?

It always comes back to the same answer—Sam.

“Sorry. It’s none of my business,” he says quickly.

“For Sam,” I answer him anyway.

A frown pulls at his mouth, but he doesn’t say anything else.

And I drop the subject.

Nolan doesn’t need to hear about my marital problems of the past. I’ve moved on from it, so there’s no reason to rehash it now.

Instead, I pull up the number to a pizza place nearby that delivers and get our order in for a large meat lovers pie and an order of breadsticks.

I excuse myself to my bedroom and get to work unpacking what little I brought with me. It’s not much, mostly clothes and a few other essentials. I decided I would go light on this stay. Since I don’t plan on us being here long, there was no need to haul all my stuff here.

I get so lost hanging up my work clothes that I don’t even hear Nolan knock on my door, and I yelp when he speaks.

“Shit.” I grab my chest, trying to calm my racing heart. “You scared the crap out of me.”

“Sorry.” Except he doesn’t appear so. “Pizza’s here.”

“Oh, good. Let me grab my money.”

“Already took care of it.” He walks out of the room, and I follow him.

“You should have let me pay,” I say to his back.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“I don’t need you buying everything for me. I see you didn’t bother listening to me about the bathroom stuff either. I want to pay you back for that too.”

“Nah.”

“Nolan.” I yank on his shirt to stop him.

He spins around to face me, and suddenly he’s right there. So incredibly close.

That same fresh mountain air scent hits me.

It has to be his body wash. There’s no way a person just smells this good.

“It is.”

“Huh?” I glance up at him. “What?”

He smirks down at me. “It’s my body wash.”

Oh crap…

“Look,” he says, brushing past my embarrassment, “buying the bathroom stuff isn’t a big deal. Buying breakfast isn’t a big deal. The pizza isn’t one either.”

“Don’t forget you bought me drinks too.”

“I thought we were both supposed to forget about that.”

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