Page 30 of Love and the Laws of Motion
“Nick?”Livie asked, touching his arm gently.
He opened his eyes and lifted his head, which had drifted down until his face had been buried in his hands.“Sorry.Feeling a little overwhelmed.I’ll get a hotel.It’ll be fine.”
“But what about your work?”Livie was always surprising him with her perceptiveness.She’d put it together that he was fucked in more ways than one.
“I’ll, um, figure something out.”Somehow.
“Maybe...”She glanced up at Gemma in question.Gemma met her gaze and some sort of unspoken communication passed between them.
Gemma sighed and rolled her eyes.“Yeah, of course,” she said in answer to the question Livie had never asked out loud.
“You can stay here,” Livie said to him.“Until you figure something out.”
“Here?”
Livie shrugged.“Sure.You didn’t get that far last night, but wedohave a spare bedroom.”
“Thanks, Livie, but you’ve seen my computer setup—”
“There’s plenty of room for that, too.And we have 2 G’s down and up.”
“Really?”That was pretty fast internet access for a private home.
“I need fast internet for my research.”
If he tinkered with some stuff, he could get it significantly faster.It was only a matter of working around the cable company’s throttling software, which was a piece of cake.“Are you sure?”
“You’d have plenty of privacy to work.Gemma and Dad are at the bar most afternoons and evenings.Jess barely even lives here anymore when Alex is around.And I’m at school a lot.”
He had to admit, it would solve a lot of his immediate problems with one fell swoop.He could be back up and running online by the end of the day, and it would buy him some time to come up with a better long-term solution.“That’s really generous of you, Livie.You sure this is okay?”He directed the last part at Gemma, who seemed slightly less enthusiastic about the idea than Livie.
“Sure,” Gemma replied.“We’ve got the space.”
“But you don’t even know me.”
“Livie does, and I trust her.For now.Plus, you’ve earned a seal of approval from Spudge, so you must be an okay guy.”
That meant she had him on probation and if he knew what was good for him, he would not fuck it up.He patted Spudge, who hadn’t lifted his head from Nick’s knee.“Thanks for vouching for me, buddy.”
“Okay, let’s go,” Livie said.“We’ll get your stuff.”
“We?”
“I have some time today.I thought I could help you get some of your stuff.”
“Oh.That’s...You really are the nicest person I think I’ve ever met.Thanks.”
Livie turned her face slightly away to hide her smile.A faint blush stained the tops of her cheekbones.He was reminded, suddenly, of that revelation he’d had a few days earlier, that Livie was pretty, when you stopped long enough to look carefully.Not that he would be looking.Because she was a good friend and valuable colleague.And he was with...well, he and Poppy were over, but that didn’t mean he was ready to...Not that he would with Livie anyway, because...Well, she wasn’t his type, and she was afriend, and she was being really kind letting him crash at her house.Which was why he was definitely going to avoid all thoughts about Livie’s attractiveness.He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to have them in the first place.Vodka was a bitch.
When he tore his eyes away from Livie, he found Gemma watching him with an expression on her face that sent a chill down his spine.That woman was not a fan.
But she didn’t call him out or rescind the offer to stay.She just dumped another couple of slices of bacon on his plate.“Okay, eat up and get out of here.And welcome to the Romanos’, Nick.”Despite the “welcome,” he heard the warning in her words loud and clear.Stay away from her sister.Which was fine.Livie was a good friend and that was one relationship he had no intention of fucking up.
Chapter Twelve
It ended up taking half a day to retrieve Nick’s computer equipment from his apartment.He was understandably picky about how it had to be dismantled and packed up, and he didn’t trust movers, so Livie and Nick had to pack it and load it into a rented van themselves, then unpack it all once it was loaded into their spare room.
Half a dozen times during the course of the day, Livie asked herself what she’d been thinking when she offered to let him stay.Sure, he was in a bind and they were friends.But he already engendered a million uncomfortable, inconvenient feelings in her, and now he was going to be living in herhouse.Her safe space.What waswrongwith her?
