Page 5 of The No Touch Roommate Rule
Our eyes lock.
We suck air like we’ve run a marathon.
Her lipstick is gone, her mouth is swollen from my kisses, and my shirt hangs open from where she’s torn at it. The rain keeps falling, but time stops.
In her eyes, I see everything I’m feeling. Iseeit, and I know thatsheknows there’s no escaping this. We’re meant to be. At least for now. At least for tonight.
Fuck, God, if you’re up there, let her take me home tonight.
She holds my gaze for one more heart-stopping second, but just when I think she’s going to tell me to go get my truck and the biggest box of condoms in the hotel shop on the way to the valet stand, she turns and runs.
She fucking runs!
Away!
From me!
Again!
She runs away through the fucking rain like this is a stupid,sadmovie instead of a hot rom-com where we’re totally going to fuck like bunnies, be sad for ten seconds over some dumb misunderstanding, then keep fucking happily ever after for the rest of our lives.
“Makena, don’t you dare!” I shout, but she’s already disappearing around the corner. “Makena!”
Everything in me wants to chase after her, but I know better. If she wanted to be here, she would be.
But she doesn’t.
Why?
I don’t fucking know, but it seems like something a hell of a lot more intense than the fact that we have a tiny, insignificant age gap and she used to cut the crusts off my grilled cheese fifteen years ago.
Maybe she’ll tell me about whatever that “more” is someday.
Maybe she won’t.
But she kissed me back.
That’s the hope kernel I hold onto as I head inside, dripping puddles through the kitchen on my way back to the ballroom to find my tux coat. She kissed me back like she’s been dying to for seven and a half months. Like she’s been living with the same ache, the same certainty that we’re meant to crash into each other until it sticks.
That isn’t goodbye…because she didn’t say goodbye.
She just ran.
But she ran last time, too, and she still asked me to dance and gave me one of the best nights of my life. And we barely said a word to each other. Imagine how much fun we’ll have when our smart mouths get in on the action?
Nah, this isn’t the end. This is just the beginning of whatever chaotic fuckery we’re going to get up to together.
I’m certain of this.
Certain as I find my tux coat, share one last root beer with Torrance—I stopped drinking earlier, so I could sober up to drive—and grab a giant piece of cake from the “take home some food” table. Certain as I make plans to numb my pain with buttercream icing and Saturday Night Live reruns in my living room as soon as I get home.
Certain as the valet pulls my truck around and I press a twenty into his hand, figuring he deserves a reward for being stuck at work at nearly three in the morning.
“Thanks, man,” he says, grinning as he tucks the bill into his vest pocket. “You headed downtown?”
I shake my head. “Nah. Suburbs, dude. I’m a baller who loves grass and piddling in my garden.”
He laughs as he nods. “Cool. Safer right now, too. The roads are starting to flood down there. Management wanted us to tell anyone headed that way to take the long way around or make plans to stay somewhere else tonight. The storm is dumping rain crazy fast. Last I checked, there was a flood warning for half the city until eight or nine tomorrow morning.”
