Messy Love (Stumbling into Love 3)

“Excuse me, what? I didn’t see that coming.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I expected like… Me. Big. Man. Me. Like. Coke.”

Again, Jonathan laughed, deep and husky. Maybe the realest one I’d ever heard from him. “I had no idea Coke was considered a manly drink.”

“So many things to teach you, newbie.” I pulled a beer out for myself.

“I’ll just take some water, since I’m driving home tonight and all.”

I handed him a plastic bottle from the fridge. We uncapped, and I held out my drink. “To possible roommates.”

“To possible roommates.” Jonathan touched his to mine, and we drank on it before getting down to the nitty-gritty details of rent, utilities, and the like. “That all sounds fair to me,” he replied just as the intercom buzzed. I went over to the box on the wall, answered it, and let the delivery man in. A few minutes later we were sitting on the couch with pizza on the coffee table.

“What kind of work are you looking to do?” I asked, trying to get to know him some.

“Dunno.” He shrugged. “I’ll do anything, really. All my experience is in construction. For now, I’m looking for anything that isn’t my family business until I can decide what the fuck I want, I guess. That probably seems ridiculous at my age.”

“You’re obsessed with your age. You’re thirty-two, not eighty. Plus, it’s never too late to figure shit out, or hell, to evolve. I hope I evolve and change my whole life, finding out new parts of myself, finding new things to like. That’s what keeps life exciting.”

Jonathan gave me a forehead-wrinkling frown, as if unsure how to reply, then said, “Yeah…I like that.”

“Quick, tell me three things you enjoy.”

His frown was back and even deeper than it had been a second ago. “Wait. What?”

“Quick—three things. No thinking, just say them.”

“Art, building things, horror movies.” He cocked his head like he was surprised the words had come out of his mouth.

“What?” Why in the fuck was Jonathan Carson so intriguing to me?

“I…never mind. What about you?”

“Nope. Not happening. What were you thinking?”

“That this is good pizza?” he replied like it was a question.

I rolled my eyes. “You’re shitty at this.”

“At what? Conversation?” Jonathan asked, and we both laughed deeply.

I almost sucked pizza down my throat, so ya know, good times. “Okay, I have a plan.” I took a swallow of my beer.

“Shoot.” Jonathan took a bite. He was loosening up again, and I liked that. I wanted to make him do it even more.

“When you move in, we have to make a commitment that we’ll do one new thing a week, something you’ve never done before. Something you’ve been curious about, even if you’ve never really considered doing it. They don’t have to be big things, just new things.”

“I’m not sure I like this game.”

I chuckled. “I don’t even know you that well, and I had a feeling you’d say that. All the more reason you need to do it.”

“Let’s pretend for a second that I agree.”

“You will.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You can pretend I don’t,” I countered. He looked down and smiled, shaking his head, his mop of hair brushing his forehead.

“Again, let’s pretend I agree. How will we decide what these things are that I have to do?”

“Me, duh.”

“But how will you know what’s new to me and what’s not?”

“This goes back to the conversation thing we discussed earlier. I’ll open my mouth and ask…and you’ll answer.”

“Oh, hey, I found something for you.” Jonathan pretended to pick up something from the floor before raising his hand to flip me off.

It was such an…older person type thing to do.

Don’t make a daddy joke. It was clear he was sensitive to that, so I held back.

“If you don’t put your finger away, I’ll bite it.”

“Why do I believe you?” Jonathan asked.

“Because you’re smart,” I told him, and Jonathan shifted some. We were both leaning forward, sitting on the edge of the couch, close to the table, looking at each other. “Say yes.”

He shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal, but for him, I knew it was. “Sure.”

“That’s my boy. We’re gonna have so much fucking fun.”

“If you say so.”

“See? You’re getting the hang of it already. I’m always right.”

He snickered, ate more pizza, was quiet. I nudged him with my arm. “Horror movies are my favorite too.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Jonathan

Everything felt like a fucking whirlwind after that. Danny and I hung out for a while after eating the pizza, and then I told him I needed to head out. He said I could stay, but I declined. I needed some time to sort through things. I’d agreed to move in…and to do something new with him at least once a week, which was crazy and not like me at all. Something about his energy was contagious, though. It was impossible to say no. Fuck, I was losing it.