I’m honestly not sure how much more of this traitorous reaction I can take.
“I’ve got this,” I say, but I don’t turn around. “Seriously. You’ve been way too nice, really. You cooked dinner, so you don’t have to help with the dishes. I think that’s an unwritten rule. It might even be written…” Suddenly, the cat litter dust rises in the air, very nearly choking me.
Wilder is strangely silent, so I turn around. He’s just standing in the doorway, looking all casual and delicious. He hasn’t shaved for a day, and there’s a dark ring of stubble lining his jaw. It probably smells like barbeque, but it’s hard to tell because right now, all I can smell is cat doo. Strangely, there are no cats crowded around me.
“Where are the cats?” I narrow my eyes because Wilder suddenly looks guilty.
“When you were doing the dishes, I went into the kitchen and fed them the leftover steak.”
“Oh! You treated them.” I should be mad or annoyed, but somehow, I’m not.
“And Connie too.”
“Ha! Can I ask you to take the litter box duty tomorrow morning? Because their doody is going to be absolutely unbearable.”
Wilder just nods. He nods like he’ll do practically anything I ask him to do, which makes my nipples hard, or should I say harder, but it also makes me feel terrible because I haven’t been nice to him. I need to start being nice. Maybe I can learn to cohabitate with him after all. He’s worked hard to earn my respect.
I can tell Wilder has no plans to watch me scoop cat litter like it’s the most fascinating thing in the universe, but he leans against the door frame, looking like a tower of rippling, delicious goodness. He’s like a caramel apple, kind of sweet but balanced out with nuts and a stick. Jesus. I meant an apple.
“I…”
“You really don’t have to help me clean up.” I inhale sharply, and I can swear I can almost smell the delicious man/grill scent coming off him in waves. It has to be him because the cat poo doesn’t smell good by any stretch of the imagination. “Seriously, I’ve got this. I’m s-sorry that—” Come on. You can say it. “I’m sorry I’ve been a jerk. I’ve been the worst roommate. You didn’t have to buy me that sewing machine, and I promise I will pay you back, even if it takes me forever. I…you already know now, since my friends basically just blurted out my whole life history, why I’m cautious. I…it’s not that…it’s not you, it’s me. Yes, that lame line. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m sorry.”
Wilder just stands there, slightly on edge. Either he’s not comfortable with my butchered apology, or he’s thinking about saying something. He looks like he wants to tell me something, but he obviously changes his mind. He swallows so loudly that it’s like eating whatever words were going to come out, and I’m glad he’s apparently going to cut me some slack in the how much I sucked at the apologizing thing.
“That’s…you don’t need to apologize.”
“No, I really do.” I hold the cat litter scoop up but quickly set it down when I realize there’s poo dangling from the edge. Jeez. Wilder just had to corner me when I was in here. He couldn’t find me when I was doing dishes, so I at least had the water from the sink to blame on the fact that I’m suddenly slightly moist somewhere in the vicinity south of my belly button and north of my knees. “So, yes. I’m sorry.”
Wilder still looks like he has something he wants to say.
I wait, and as I wait, my body gets warmer while my throat gets tighter. My chest also hurts because my heart is pounding away at me so unmercifully. It’s aching too, and I find it hard to swallow, hard to catch my breath, and hard to get my nipples to stop piercing through my shirt. I swear, it’s noticeable, so thank bacon bits and the delicious steak we had for dinner—which I refused to admit was delicious, but it was—that Wilder is being a gentleman and is looking at my face.
“I…” he starts.
I wait some more.
A slight red tinge creeps up his neck, and his Adam’s apple bobs hard. He looks like he’s sweating.
“I didn’t just buy you the sewing machine to be nice,” he finally chokes out.
It wasn’t what I was expecting him to say. I’m not sure what I thought was coming because nothing about Wilder has been at all predictable.
“I…when I got it, I wasn’t just thinking about the sewing you could do with it, or how great of a model it was, or how it was the one the guy recommended, though I wouldn’t know any different because I don’t know a thing about machines. I wasn’t thinking about buying it with some agenda in mind. Not when I picked it out and paid for it and not when I set it up in the room. I just…I thought…I thought about you smiling when you saw it and you using it and loving it. I thought about how much enjoyment you’d get from it. That’s what I was thinking about. Your smile.”