Roomies (A Standalone Novel) (New York City Bad Boy Romance) by Claire Adams

he’s
standing at the door, making faces every time our waiter turns his direction.
For such a good friend and genuine guy, Mike is kind of an idiot sometimes.
    “Ready to go?” he asks as
I approach.
    “Yep,” I answer.
    I debate whether to tell
him about Dane, but decide against it. That sick, tingling sensation I had
permeating my body last night is back and this time, I can’t just blame it on
the alcohol.

 
    Chapter Ten
    That
Sinking Feeling
    Dane

 
 
    So, it’s been a couple of
weeks since Leila found out what I really do. Our conversation behind the
restaurant was innocuous enough, but it was the last real conversation that
we’ve had.
    Now, I’ll come into the
room, we’ll say “Hey,” to each other and that’s about it.
    She’s avoiding me,
although I can’t imagine why.
    In the grand scheme of
things, my not telling her about my real job is an annoyance, and I can see how
it would be somewhat disrespectful, but it’s really not that big a deal. It’s
not like we’re close friends or anything.
    Then again, I’m starting
to get the feeling that it’s something else entirely that’s bothering her.
    The good news is that I
haven’t been fired yet. The bad news is that Jim’s been avoiding me, too.
    Oh well.
    Right now, I’m sitting in
the parking lot of Yankee Stadium, receiving a nice, relaxing blowjob from
Wrigley. I made a joke to her that we were at the wrong field, but she didn’t
get it.
    At this point, I don’t
know if I could really go back to normal sex.
    It’s something I fought
at first, right up until we got up to the roof of her building. Now, I’m just
as much an exhibitionist as she is. Well, I guess that’s not entirely true. I
still don’t like actually getting caught.
    It happens more than
you’d think.
    I come and, within five
flat seconds, Wrigley is asking, “What time’s the game?”
    “I think it already
started,” I answer. “Then again, the cheering crowd might have just been a
psychosomatic thing.”
    “What do you mean?”
    She’s a demon in the
sack, but she has a real problem with nuance. Given our present location, I was
tempted to ask her for a hand-job, but I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have gotten
that, either.
    “Never mind,” I tell her.
    I might feel like I was
using her if she didn’t make it so abundantly clear on such a frequent basis
that the moment feelings are exchanged, she’s changing her phone number and
moving to a different apartment.
    “Take me to dinner,” she
tells me.
    “Where do you want to
go?”
    “I heard about this
French place called l’Iris —”
    “Don’t eat there,” I
interrupt. “It’s fucking filthy.”
    “How would you know?” she
asks, poking me in the ribs.
    “I’m the chef there,” I
tell her. “Seriously, you have no idea what they do in the kitchen when I’m not
around.”
    Hey, at least I’m over my
fear of telling women what I do.
    “I didn’t know you’re a
chef,” she says.
    “Yeah, actually I—”
    “Where would you like to
eat, then?” she interrupts.
    Apparently, women aren’t
nearly as crazy when it comes to the whole chef thing as I thought.
    “I really don’t care,” I
tell her.
    “You really don’t have
tickets to the game?” she asks. “You’re such a cheap fuck.”
    “Do you mean that
figuratively or literally?” I ask.
    It’s strange, but I think
I’m actually becoming a one-woman man. It’s even stranger that the one woman
I’ve decided to keep coming back to is so vehemently opposed to us forming a
relationship with any kind of attachment other than pure lust.
    Dinner, it seems, doesn’t
count as non-sexual.
    “Both,” she answers
casually.
    “We can go to the game if you want,” I tell her.
    I bought the tickets on a
whim last night. I really wouldn’t mind something a bit more serious, but I
wanted to get the sex part out of the way before we got into the stadium.
Otherwise, there’s no doubt in my mind that she would spend the whole