Page 3 of My Italian Roommate

MARIO

When I return to the bedroom, the girl isn’t there. That’s it. My top priority is to find out her damn name. I follow the sound of pots clanking in the kitchen and find her putting something on the stove.

“Are you hungry?” she looks back at me and flashes an awkward smile.

“I could eat. What are you cooking?”

“Some ground turkey and rice with vegetables.”

“That sounds good. Sorry, you haven’t even told me your name. What should I call you?”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Things just happened so fast I wasn’t thinking. Mallory. My name is Mallory.”

“Nice to meet you, Mallory,” I hold my hand out to her.

She wipes her hand on a kitchen towel and places it inside mine. Her silky, smooth hand vanishes inside my gasp. I let go and she turns back to the stove. “There are drinks in the fridge. Help yourself,” she tells me.

“You got all dressed up and put on makeup. I thought you might be going out,” I say and see that I’ve embarrassed her. Shit.

“No, I just didn’t want to make a bad impression,” she sighs.

“You could never. You’re a beautiful girl,” I answer and her smile returns.

I take a seat on the sofa and realize that it’s only a two-seater. Even with my legs strewn over the arm, there’s no way I can sleep here. Well, there’s only one option then. I have to figure out how to get this sweet little girl to go to bed with me…to sleep. Just sleep.

She plates the food and brings it to me on the sofa. She sits beside me, and it’s a tight fit, causing our thighs to touch and my blood to rush south. Here we go again. I hope my shorts do a better job of hiding my erection than my hands did.

“So, what do you do?” I ask, trying to make casual conversation. Trying to distract myself from my tightening loins.

“I’m a student, actually, at the university. I also work part-time in the administrative office, so I can afford to eat and pay my brother a little for letting me stay here.”

“That’s nice. What are you studying?”

“Psychology. You know what they say, only crazy people go into psychology, right?”

“No, I don’t believe that. I would think that people who want to help others do it, just like any other kind of doctor,” I place my hand on her thigh and wait to see if she pushes it away but she doesn’t even flinch. Joke’s on me because my skin turns feverish. Fuck.

“I just mean, well, Steve and I didn’t have the greatest childhood. My mother tried but it was hard for her all alone. Sometimes she drank too much and sometimes she yelled too much. It’s hard growing up without a father.”

“I think that having a personal understanding of these things will make you an even better psychologist.”

“Thank you. That’s a nice thing to say,” she smiles and possessiveness roars through my chest. I need to protect this girl. I don’t know where that comes from, but she’s too pure for this world. She’s young and also innocent. I’m not going to let anyone take advantage of her.

Steve never really talked about his childhood. I knew that his father didn’t come to graduation but I just figured that there had been a messy divorce in his past.

“What’s your family like?” she asks me and I can’t resist the urge to crack a little joke.

“Why? Are you psychoanalyzing me, sweetheart?”

She shrugs her shoulders and answers, “Maybe. I mean, when a strange man shows up in my apartment and I have to decide whether or not to let him stay, I should psychoanalyze him a little, shouldn’t I?”

“Well, I hope that I’m the only strange man who will ever show up naked in your bathroom, but I didn’t realize that you were still trying to make up your mind about letting me stay.”

“If you promise me that you aren’t crazy and you don’t mind sharing the bed with me, you can stay.”

Wait a minute. Did she just say what I thought? If I don’t mind sharing the bed with her? Holy sh…I have to replay it back in my head several times to make sure that I really heard it. Why would any sane man turn down an opportunity like that? Realizing that I never removed my hand from her thigh, I give it a little squeeze and say, “I promise. And no, I don’t mind.”

“So, your family?” she asks again.

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