The Love Coupon (Stubborn Hearts 2)

“I’m not an antisocial ogre.”

She snapped to attention. “You’re not?”

He waved her over, while he piled chicken and fried green tomatoes with butter beans on another plate. He still had enough to pack for lunch tomorrow.

“I didn’t expect you to be home.” She tossed her satchel and the scarf on the sectional and unbuttoned her jacket, sliding onto a stool. He resisted saying Don’t leave your stuff there. “I wouldn’t have banged the door otherwise. I’ve been careful not to bang about. It nearly kills me.”

“You don’t have to treat me like I’ll break if I should happen to hear a door bang or find you in the living room in pajamas.” He pushed the plate in front of her and went to the drawer for silverware. I can be an antisocial ogre, and keep banging the door like that and there will be words.

“I don’t wear PJs.”

A less careful man might’ve shut that drawer on his thumb.

“I bullied you into having me stay here. I only have so much luck to push and I agreed to respect your rules.”

“You don’t have to be a ghost.”

“No smoking, no drinking, no drugs.” He poured her a glass of wine, with a somewhat defiant flourish, but it didn’t stop her reciting all the ways in which he’d established the weirdness. “No obvious possessions. No messing the kitchen. Only sounds of silence. No coming and going all times of the day and night. No fun. No bringing my stripper friends around. Act like a nun.” She took a sip of the wine. “Calling me a ghost makes me sound a lot more interesting.”

They needed to start again. “You don’t have to avoid me.”

“I’m an early bird and you prefer to work late. Other than weekends, it’s going to be easy.” She took a bite of chicken and made a good-food groan. “Unless you cook like this all the time. In which case think about getting a restraining order.”

“When your building access code no longer flashes green, you can expect the worst.”

“Noted,” she said.

He came around the counter and sat beside her and they ate through Otis Redding singing “The Dock of the Bay,” Oasis singing “Slide Away,” and during Miles Davis’s “So What,” he snickered.

“What didn’t I say?” she said.

“That’s just it. I didn’t think you knew how to be quiet for this long.”

“Food will make me do it.”

“Noted.”

“But otherwise I figure we live in a world that rewards people who can hold the floor, in an age where being thoughtful and measured is tagged as slow and dull.”

That was something he understood. He was an introvert, but he’d learned early you didn’t get what you wanted unless you asked for it, fought for it, defended it. But that was significantly easier to do at moderate volume with fewer words when you were six-four, took up more than your fair share of space and had a decent baritone than if you were barely scraping five-three, had delicate features, translucent skin, rusty, knowing green eyes and could be considered cute.

Yeah, his housemate was cute. Adorably so, which was at least half the reason he’d laid down the rules. Not that he was attracted to her—she wasn’t his type at all—but he was fascinated by her like you might be with a natural disaster. No, that wasn’t quite it. Having Flick in his condo was like getting a puppy. You knew the destructive phase wasn’t going to last forever, got caught up in the sheer adorableness factor and couldn’t resist playing around, and suddenly the whole day was gone.

He didn’t have time for a puppy who could mess up the furniture or piss on things, or a distracting roommate who could do the same. But still, the whole idea of living with someone who was the opposite of everything he’d normally have chosen was oddly intriguing. It put his inner ogre on his best behavior.

“This is a really great apartment.” She got off the stool and rounded the counter, taking both their empty plates and silverware to the sink and rinsing them off. “I knew it would be when you told me the address. Have you owned it long?”

He watched her stack the dishwasher. “Not long enough to have made too big a dent in the mortgage.”

“Did you use a decorator?”

“Josh. He has a great eye.”

“That would account for why it’s so Better Homes and Gardens, all this tonal gray and beige, not frat house central.”

“Mushroom, that’s what Josh called it.” She started on the pan he’d left in the sink, giving it a scrub. “You don’t have to clean up.”

“You fed me.”