Paige looked at Mitch again. She slowly nodded. “Yeah, I think I will.”
Mitch’s gaze met hers, and she felt a little jolt of awareness. And emotion.
The emotion she was going to ignore. But the awareness—i.e., the strongest attraction she’d ever felt for anyone—she liked. She was going to wallow in it, in fact.
She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, stroking her thumb over the end of his collarbone.
Mitch stood swiftly.
He had a good hold on Bernie, or the cat would have tumbled to the floor. The other cats looked at him with a what the hell, man? look.
Paige felt the same. She frowned at him. “You okay?”
Considering where they’d each had their hands and mouths, on each other—even just a couple of hours ago—she hadn’t expected touching his shoulder to repulse him.
“We… need to talk.”
Oh. Great. He didn’t want her to stay.
What had happened when he’d gone to talk to his family?
She sighed and put Eddie down on the cushion Mitch had just left. It would be nice and warm for the cat, at least. Then reluctantly set the bread pudding on the coffee table.
“Okay.” She got to her feet.
Mitch put Bernie down with Eddie, grabbed his phone from the arm of the sofa, and started for the stairs.
Paige glanced at Griffin. He was watching Mitch go.
“You can have the rest of my bread pudding.” She cast a regretful look at the box. “It’s probably for the best.”
Griffin looked up at Paige. “Okay. And just let me know if I need to put headphones on.”
“To drown out our yelling or my crying?”
“Sure, that’s what I meant.”
“Does he really look in the mood to do anything but yell or make me cry?” she asked.
“Uh.” Griffin glanced at Mitch, who had already started up the steps. “Yeah.”
“You think?”
“The guy’s wound up about something. Mitch never gets wound up. About anything.”
“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to yell.”
Griffin chuckled. “Maybe ‘yelling’ means something different in Iowa. But that guy isn’t going to yell at you the way I know yelling.”
Paige felt her stomach flip. Mitch was wound up, huh? And he wasn’t going to yell? Well, then maybe she definitely wanted to get upstairs.
“So you do know how to talk,” she commented, stepping around the end of the couch.
“I know how to amputate a leg and unclog a toilet too. Just because I know how doesn’t mean I like to.”
Paige’s eyes rounded. “Right. Got it.”
Griffin smiled, but he turned his attention back to the game.
Paige took a deep breath and headed upstairs.
The old house had eight steps up to a landing, then a ninety-degree turn to the remaining ten steps. At the top was a wide area that had a door straight ahead and then two on either side. The door straight ahead was the bathroom. The others were bedrooms.
Mitch was pacing the area outside of the rooms. He stopped when she stepped up the top step.
“You’re not okay,” she told him.
“I’m… fine.”
“What’s going on?”
“I just—” He huffed out a breath. “I realized you were right about separate bedrooms. And in that vein… I think we should try to keep our hands to ourselves.”
She had definitely not been expecting that.
She frowned at the stairs. Griffin had not gotten this right either. He thought he was so smart.
“So no sex?” she asked.
“Right.”
“Why?”
“Because you need a friend. You need a place where you can relax and not worry about expectations others are putting on you.”
Paige folded her arms, but she nodded. “Right.”
“Well, if we keep sleeping together and living together and playing house for seven months, my expectations might get out of control.”
Ah. She pulled in a breath. “Oh.”
He ran a hand through his hair and tucked his hands into his back pockets. “Yeah.”
“And your family helped you figure this out,” she guessed.
“I told them why you’re here, and they think it’s great that you thought to come here. But they’re thinking that it might be best for both of us if we just…” He just looked at her for a few seconds without finishing the thought.
“If we just what?”
He shook his head. “I swear it made sense back there when they said it.”
“But now?”
“Looking at you, standing there, just outside my bedroom door, it doesn’t make sense at all.”
That caused heat to curl through her belly. She glanced at the door to her left. The first one at the top of the steps. His bedroom.
“So, what do we do?” she asked. She honestly didn’t know.
She wanted him. She’d wanted him since the first time their eyes had met. And she’d had him. It had been hot and fun and dirty. The best sex of her life.
But… she liked this guy. He was a good man. He helped strangers. His family meant the world to him. He made her feel smart and funny and interesting and he thought she was the most beautiful thing in the world. He worked hard. He laughed and loved hard.
She did not want to break his heart. She did not want to make promises to him, even implied ones, that she couldn’t keep.
“I guess we try to just be friends. No physical stuff.”
That sounded like a really good idea.
She hated it.
But she nodded. “Okay.”
“So, you can take that room.” He pointed at the door furthest from his.
She had to smile at that. “Okay.”
“I moved your suitcase in there.”
She’d pulled it up the stairs and left it in the bathroom after she’d showered. She hadn’t known which room was his for sure.
“Thanks.”
“And… I’m going to head to bed.”
She nodded. “Okay. I think I will too.” It wasn’t like the man downstairs was going to entertain her or engage in a deep conversation with her. Or even a not-deep conversation. And if Mitch didn’t want to hang out, then yeah, she might as well go to bed and read or something.
He stood just looking at her.
She looked back.
“This is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he finally said.
Well, at least there was that. She smiled. “Glad to hear it.”
He gave a short laugh and ran his hand through his hair again. “If you change your mind on the getting married thing, I want to be the first to know.”
Her eyes went wide. But it was more just surprise that he’d said it. She didn’t actually feel the stab of dread that she would have expected. “Uh. I thought you said you wouldn’t propose.”
“That wasn’t a proposal.”
“You sure?”
“Pretty sure.” He frowned. “Was it?”
“I’m going to give you a pass on it this time because you didn’t actually ask, but watch yourself, Landry,” she said.
It was the strangest thing to be fighting a smile. Proposals had always sent a wave of panic through her. Even when Garrett had asked her. He’d actually been her boyfriend for over a year at that point. She’d been expecting it, more or less. And still, the question had made her catch her breath. Not in a good way. She’d forced a smile and said yes.