Page 54 of Compassion

“No.” He interrupts, voice now devoid of any emotion. “It’s fine. You don’t owe me an explanation.”

“But-”

“You owe me nothing.”

“But-”

“I’m your housemate, not your boyfriend.” His crisp nod hurts as much as the emotionless tone. “It’s none of my business who you go share wine with or have dinner with or put on dresses for.”

“Arch-”

“You know, I’m not actually in the mood to celebrate.” The grimace on his face doesn’t waiver. “I think I’m just gonna crash early. It’s trash day tomorrow, and I like to sweep the area before Mrs. Prescott comes outside to remind me of what a worthless human being I am.”

My mouth bobs to speak, but he leaves no opportunity.

“Enjoy your wine. There’s some homemade chili in the crockpot if you’re hungry.”

The airiest squeak escapes.

“I’ll do the dishes in the morning.”

All I manage to do is repeat the sound.

“Night, Jaye.”

Being given his sweat-caked backside to say goodnight to rather than his face tells me everything I need to know.

I screwed this up.

Someway.

Some fucking how.

Ifuckedup my chance for us to be more.

The sound of the garage door being slammed shut has me squeezing my eyes closed.

Well, there goes that whole spill my guts plan. I guess the only thing left to do now is drink an entire bottle of red. Alone. On the only thing I like almost as much as him in this house. My purple couch.

Chapter 12

Jaye

What’s a woman to do when she can’t sleep? Well, reading is the obvious answer, but what am I supposed to do when that doesn’t work? Oh. I mean…yeah…I could do that to see if it helps, except I’m not in my bed. I’m on my couch. My very comfy, very feels so much better when I’m sharing it with Archer, couch.

Rolling over onto my side, I check the time on my cell again.

I wish I could time travel. While time traveling novels aren’t my favorite – the rules are just so shitty in most – I did really enjoy The Time Traveler’s Wife, although sometimes it was more heartache than I wanted.

Two minutes.

Two whole fucking minutes have passed since I last looked.

Hey, I guess I should be grateful, it’s not going backwards?

Unlocking the device reveals to me the silly selfie of me and Archer hiding our faces behind books during one of our reading sessions.

Sometimes after dinner instead of TV or air guitar rock battles or card games, we’ll have a book date – er – session. We’ll have dessert – typically cookies I made earlier in the week – and hot chocolate – homemade usually – cuddle under the same blanket and just read, stopping only to gush to the other one about a scene that we love or a topic that we wanna discuss. Do we usually get very far in the books? Nah. However, we do talk. And talk. And talk for hours sometimes. I love talking to him. It’s so easy and natural. There’s only one other person that’s ever been that easy to talk to in my life.

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