Chapter 2

Sean had known it would be rough when Molly realized what he’d done. But stepping into her Southport apartment at 1:43 a.m. and seeing that the douche who’d been taking advantage of her for months was finally gone was totally worth Molly shoving futilely at his chest as she put all her weight into trying to push him out the door he’d just walked in.

“You rotten…low-down…stinking…jerk!”

Patting the back of her hand, Sean grinned and sidestepped her to walk farther into the apartment. “Settle down, Moll. I get that you’re pissed, and I’m sorry. But it’s been months, and you still hadn’t done anything.”

“So you did?” she screeched, storming around him with her fists balled tight at her sides. “After I told you I would handle it. After I explained in no uncertain terms that I didn’t need your help.”

“Yeah. After all that. Because you didn’t handle it. And you really did need my help. That piece of garbage wasn’t going anywhere. You should have seen him when I showed up here this afternoon.”

Gary had been stretched out on her sofa with a skillet of burned eggs that looked hours old half spilled out on the cushion beside him.

“Oh my God. Before the wedding,” she said accusingly. “You took Max’s bike and came over here.”

A nod. That’s what he’d done, and he’d do it again.

Gary was a total pig with zero respect for Molly or her space, as evidenced by his regular habit of bringing company home with him at 4:00 a.m. after the late-night bars kicked them out and then firing up the Xbox at full volume. Molly worked three jobs and paid half Gary’s rent, so the least he could do was let her sleep, but no. He ate her food and drank her beer, even when she asked him not to.

As if that wasn’t enough, she kept finding little things broken around the apartment. A mug, a tiny blown-glass motorcycle Sean had found for her in Prague a few years back, a chair, and a dozen other things he didn’t even want to think about. And it wasn’t like Gary even came clean about it. Molly would just stumble across the toaster oven with the door hanging off the front or the fresh dent in the plaster next to the bathroom.

She’d mention it, but Gary didn’t have the money for rent, so he sure as hell wasn’t kicking in extra to cover the damage. And Molly just let him get away with it again and again because the guy had this down-on-his-luck thing she couldn’t turn her back on.

But Sean was through letting the weasel whine his way out of the offenses. It had been time for him to go, so Sean made Gary an offer he couldn’t refuse.

One that involved a handful of bills, a new job, and a week’s stay at a hotel. Not the Wyse. And not of the guy’s choosing. Anything he didn’t want to take with him was at a storage locker. It was all very up and up. Because Molly was convinced the guy was helpless, some tragic victim of circumstance. And she had that thing about people—even shitty people—worrying about whether they’d be able to keep a roof over their head or be out on the street.

She’d known that worry for too many years herself, thanks to her epically asshole-ish dad. Not her biological father, who she’d never met, but Vic Brandt, the bastard married to her mom when she got pregnant with another man’s kid. Something Vic had never let any of them forget and had held over their heads like a threat for fifteen years.

Blowing a slow stream of breath through his nose, Sean unclenched his fists and reminded himself that Vic was dead. And Molly had Sean and all the guys looking out for her these days.

Meeting her eyes, he nodded. “That’s right. I handled it before the wedding, and now he’s out of your hair.”

“What did you do to him? You know what a hard time he’s been having since he lost his last job. Where’s he going to stay? What’s—”

“I got him a place to stay and a job.” Sean didn’t mention the money or the threats. “He’s good.” Better than he should be.

“And I’m out his rent!” Molly exclaimed, her arms flying to her sides.

Now this was getting frustrating. “He wasn’t even paying you all of it.”

“But he was paying me most of it, which was better than the none I’ll have until I find someone else.” She leaned in to him. “That was money I needed, Sean.”

He knew. Because Molly was all about building her security. And part of that involved a plan to buy the building she was living in. She’d been saving for the down payment but more slowly than she should have.

“Well, good thing I already found you another roommate.” He’d had enough of this. “It’s late, Moll. Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

“What?” Molly coughed out, indignation written all over her too-proud, too-pretty face. “We’re not done here. I don’t know who you think you’ve lined up for me, but the only person who decides who comes or goes in this apartment is me, mister.”

“Yeah?” He ducked, catching Molly at the waist with his shoulder. Ignoring her squeal of protest and the two fists banging their way down his back, he hoisted her up and started toward her room. “You want me to get the freeloader back in here?”

Silence and then a low growl.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Don’t you that’s what I thought me, Sean. You had no right, and no way am I letting you pick who moves in here.”

“Moved,” he corrected, grabbing the loop of keys she’d thrown on the table when she walked in.

“What?” she asked, stilling where she hung over his shoulder.

Walking to her bedroom—and its door with the dead bolt she’d installed four roommates ago and locked from the inside at night—he flipped through the keys. He’d about lost his mind when she’d put in the dead bolt, because what did that say about how safe she felt in her own apartment?

“Moved in. Past tense. Your roommate’s already here.”

“What the eff, Sean,” she hissed, starting to struggle anew. “There’s someone here already?” She craned, pushing her palm into his face as she tried to get a look at the other bedroom. “Who is it?”

And the fact that she’d started whispering now was one of the best things about his girl. Because he knew why she was doing it. She wouldn’t want someone with the shit luck of ending up as her new roomie to know they weren’t wanted. She wouldn’t want to make them uncomfortable.

Little did she know, but the way she was squirming over his shoulder and gripping his belt about two inches above his ass was making her new roomie very uncomfortable.

Enough of that. Flipping her forward, Sean dropped Molly onto the bed with a bounce that sent her flowy skirt billowing high around her thighs as he followed her down. She gave one futile shove at his chest and then gave up the fight, her scowl firmly in place.

And that was the opening he’d been waiting for. “It’s me, Molly.”

All that hot challenge cleared from her eyes, and a searching confusion took its place. “What did you say?”

“I’m your new roommate.”

She blinked a few times, looking away before meeting his eyes again.

And without all that feisty defiance coming back at him full strength, Sean was suddenly aware of the position he’d put them in. The way he’d braced on his arms above her with one knee planted between her legs and the other outside her thigh. The rise and fall of her chest too close to his and the open vulnerability in those big, blue eyes peering up at him.

Shit.

The lines with Molly were clear, and sure, he had fun nudging at them from time to time. But this friendship was too important for him to ever risk actually crossing one of those lines. So what the fuck was he still doing on top of her, still staring into her eyes? In her bed?

Especially when he’d just signed on to share this space for the next however many months.

Clearing his throat, he backed off the bed, doing his damnedest not to look at how much of her bare thigh was on display.

“Wait, Sean,” she said, sitting up. “You can’t just drop this on me and walk out.”

He could, and he would, and it would be a hell of a lot better if he didn’t explain why. “Night, roomie. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

* * *

Drumming her fingers over the kitchen butcher block, Molly stared at the front door, her temper rising with every second that passed. This was one of those moments when she wished she were the kind of woman who could manage a full set of nails. The satisfaction of each click had to be greater than what she was getting with her fingertips silently padding against the wood. And while she was wishing, it would have been nice to be an early riser. This lying-in-wait would probably have been more effective if she’d been glaring at Sean’s bedroom door when he stumbled out at five or whatever insane hour he’d gotten up that morning. Instead, here she was, waiting for him to get back from the gym at nearly eleven, a half-eaten bowl of cereal beside her.

Finally, the door opened, and she shored up her scowl, preparing to lay into him.

“Hey, Moll, how’d you sleep?” he asked, breezing into the apartment with that sun-god smile going full tilt. Like he’d had an awesome morning already and wasn’t taking the threat of her impending wrath seriously at all.

“Terribly,” she stated flatly, ready to set him straight. “I guess my best friend betraying me, totally disregarding my wishes, and having no respect for my feelings about my own home just got in the way of those perfect z’s.”

One neat sandy-blond brow pushed up, tugging the corner of his mouth with it. “That so? ’Cause I was feeling pretty shitty about stalking off after springing the news on you last night. Came back about fifteen minutes later, and you were out cold.” Dropping his gym bag inside his room, he turned back to her and ran his fingers through his sweat-dried hair.

Molly tried not to notice the way his gray Bears T-shirt hugged his shoulders and chest or how it rode up, skimming the low waist of his white basketball shorts.

Post-workout Sean was undeniably hot, but this was important.

“I was fake sleeping,” she lied. She didn’t even remember her head hitting the pillow. “I heard you coming and didn’t want to talk to you again.”

Nodding amiably, he walked past her and grabbed a bowl and a spoon. “Moll, you know you never need to fake it with me.”

She snorted, because of course he couldn’t resist.

Then sliding onto the open stool across from her, he started to fill his bowl with Count Chocula. “Pass the milk.”

She handed it over and watched as he poured half the amount she liked in her bowl. He wouldn’t even drink the milk after. So weird.

“Sean, I’m mad.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“It wasn’t your place.”

His eyes met hers, and she squirmed a little, because maybe that wasn’t a totally fair or accurate statement. She and Sean looked out for each other. They had for years.

He blew out a slow breath. “You’re right. It wasn’t my place. I just can’t stand seeing guys like Gary take advantage of you. And I guess I lost it. I’m sorry, Moll.”

Molly bit her lip and nodded. It was hard to stay mad at Sean when his heart was in the right place. And the truth was that Gary had needed to go, but the guy had been so down on his luck. She just hadn’t been willing to pull the rug from under him, especially since she hadn’t found a better prospect yet. And while he hadn’t been paying everything he owed, the money he had given her mattered.

Mr. Razul had told her he’d wait, but he wouldn’t wait forever. If she wanted this building, and she did, she needed the cash. Which brought her to the stack of bills tucked beneath her napkin dispenser. It looked like pity money, which Sean really ought to know better than to try to give her.

“Look, fine, I get why you wanted Gary out. I wanted him out too, though I would have preferred his exit to be on my terms. But that aside, what are you doing here?”

Spooning a bite into his mouth, Sean chewed around his words. “I live here. Rent’s on the counter. First and last.”

She shook her head, not wanting to laugh again, but this Sean—this slightly disheveled, imperfectly mannered, borderline belligerent Sean, with the mischievous eyes and good intentions—got to her in a way she couldn’t always resist.

“You don’t live here. You live at the Wyse. In an apartment probably four times the size of this place, with a view that’s to die for.”

He shrugged, shoveling another giant spoonful into his mouth. “A view to die for and an interior in serious need of modernization. I wasn’t lying to you last night. I’m getting some work done on the place. Though in the name of full disclosure, renovations don’t start until tomorrow.” He pointed his spoon at her. “But now that I think about it, the movers were there getting my stuff out while we were at the wedding. So I really was having work done yesterday, and without my bedroom stuff, it really wasn’t livable.”

So he hadn’t actually lied. “Wow, and that teaspoon of inadvertent honesty sprinkled on this mountain of deceit is actually supposed to make me feel better?”

Sean stood and carried his bowl to the sink, where he washed it out and dropped it into the drying rack before turning back to her. Hands hooked on the sink edge behind him, he crossed one ankle over the other. “No. But being able to sleep without your bedroom dead bolt should. Or just helping out a friend in need?”

Her mouth fell open. “And now with the guilt?”

Amusement lit his eyes. “Whatever it takes.”

Standing up, she propped a fist on her hip. “Too bad I don’t guilt easy. Not when my so-called friend in need has another apartment available to him just a few floors away.”

The half smile said she’d nailed him. His hands came up in front of him. “My parents’ place?”

“Yeah. Aren’t they heading back to New York this week? It’ll be empty and—”

“Hell no. You’ve been there. It’s a museum. The furniture is uncomfortable as fuck, and I can’t put my feet on anything. I’ve got a meeting with them tonight before they head back, and I’m already uncomfortable.”

“A meeting? You’re having Sunday dinner with them.”

“Tomato, tomahto. Besides, I can’t move out. Not yet. The minute I vacate, Gary is going to be back at your door with another sob story, and you’re going to be right back where you started. Stuck with the most pathetic freeloader of all time. Both of you need to move on, and I’m the guy who’s going to help you do it. Like it or not.”

Her brows shot high, because that sounded suspiciously like the gauntlet being thrown.

“I don’t think so, Wyse.” Sean really had done her a favor, since she hadn’t had the heart to kick Gary out herself. And even more so by letting the guy think that Sean would be moving in himself, because Gary was the epitome of the three Ps. Pushy, persistent, and pathetic. If he knew the second room was available, he’d have been working her over to let him back in already.

But still, no way was Sean going to tell her how it was. She told him how it was. Just maybe not tonight.

He walked over to the couch and dropped into the deep cushions. “You want to watch Bob’s Burgers or Dark?”

“We’re caught up on Bob’s Burgers,” she said, taking the far side of the couch and pulling her legs up so she was sitting cross-legged. “And don’t get too comfortable. I want to see what happens next, but this conversation isn’t over.”

He slumped comfortably, kicking up his legs. That damn half smile on his lips. “Fair enough.”

She was glad they’d shifted into a more agreeable place, but Sean was definitely going to have to go. Not today or maybe not even tomorrow. But soon. He’d have to. Because she remembered what it had been like the last time they lived together, and no way could she go back to that.

Sure, she was older now, and it had been years since that unfortunate, misplaced crush had flared up…but still, having Sean on the other side of her wall every night was very different from indulging in the occasional crushy moment at her place or once-every-blue-moon post-shower, low-slung-towel sighting. Every day though? A girl could get ideas when she had too much quality Sean time on her hands. A girl could get feelings. And she knew firsthand just how hard it was to wrestle those tenacious emotions back to the friendly side of the fence. So no. No way was Sean spending a month sharing a wall with her.

But for now? “We saw that one… Yeah, there we go. Perfect.”