He was right. Getting up this early wasn’t doing anything for the bags underneath my eyes. “Okay, so maybe I’ll bring an overnight bag sometimes.” If I went by tube and Dexter drove, there was no way anyone would ever know about us. Dexter was true to his word, keeping our interactions professional at the office. No one had the slightest clue—if some of the mundane tasks I was given were anything to go by.
“Yeah that’s one option,” he said as he swept past me and grabbed his toothbrush.
I couldn’t stay today. I didn’t have any clothes here, and I wasn’t about to wear the same outfit as I wore yesterday. “Okay, well, we can talk about it again later.” There was never any discussion about whether or not I was going to come over. Only what time and what we were going to do. Sometimes it was easy to forget that a couple of months ago, we’d never met.
“Things are going to get busier and busier in the office,” he said before brushing his teeth.
I pushed my wallet into my purse and paused. What was he trying to say? Was he giving me the brush-off? I’d heard my girlfriends complain about this excuse men made when they wanted to end things but were too scared to actually say the words. Oh, I’m going to be away for most of August, or, my car is getting fixed up in the next couple of weeks and I won’t be able to come over. Well if that was Dexter’s game, I was going to make him say the words.
“Spit it out, Dexter. What are you trying to say?”
On cue he spat his toothpaste, rinsed his mouth and turned to me. “I think we should go over to your place tomorrow and collect all your stuff and bring it back here. I want you to stay with me.”
I stared at him, my brain trying to work through what he’d just said. I took a deep breath, trying to even out my whiplash. I didn’t know why I’d just jumped to the conclusion he might be trying to end things when there hadn’t been any signs. I supposed I was just used to disappointment. But move in here? That seemed like a lot, but the corners of my mouth were twitching as if I was about to break into a grin. “All of it?” was all I could come up with at first.
“Sure. You came over from the US. It’s not like you have a lot.” He froze. “Right?”
I shrugged. “As much as I could fit in two suitcases.”
“Exactly. So, we could go and get it,” he said again. “You spend almost all of your free time here anyway. And as we get closer to the finals, there will be less time to spend together. We should make the most of it.”
It made sense, but at the same time, this was more than practicality. This guy was asking me to move in with him, even if it was only for a few weeks. “Isn’t this a big decision? Don’t we have to discuss it and come up with pros and cons, and shouldn’t I ask you questions or something?” My logical brain told me this was fast and reckless. I would be putting my faith in this guy to keep a roof over my head—not something I could even trust my parents to do for me when I was a child. So why wasn’t I freaking out and telling him no?
Dexter turned on the shower, slid out of his boxers and stepped in, the steam quickly obstructing my view of his perfect body. “Well we could analyze it to death or we could simply see it as convenient. If you decide to stay in London, then we can have another discussion.”
Stay in London? Now the elevator of anxiety started to clunk into gear and hurtle skywards. That wasn’t even on my radar. “Who said anything about staying in London?”
“Well, aren’t you applying for jobs?”
Should I have been? My palms started to sweat and I wrestled off my cardigan. I’d assumed I’d go back to Oregon when this was all over, go to my sister’s graduation and polish up my resume before starting to apply for things. “I haven’t so far.”
“You want me to see if Primrose knows anyone who might have a vacancy?”
This morning I’d expected to collect my things and haul my butt over to the other side of town just like I did every morning, but instead, I’d woken up on the freaking yellow brick road. “Just hold your white horses, there,” I replied. “A fast second ago we were talking about bringing my two suitcases over this weekend and now you have me immigrating to London. We might want to slow down a second because I’m starting to feel the pull of the g-force.”