He’d have to figure out a way to make Jill accept the offers of clothes and supplies. He hadn’t asked, but he already knew she’d never let him buy her a damn thing unless they were officially matched. “I gotta go,” he said suddenly. Everyone at the table turned to stare at him with confused looks on their faces. Yeah, it was a bit weird. After all the fighting he’d done to keep Jill on campus, it was odd that he’d abandon her the first hour. He wasn’t abandoning her. He needed ten minutes, twenty max.
He turned to Jill. “I remembered a meeting I have to go to, but Loren and Adam will give you a quick tour, and I’ll meet up with you back at my digs at say”—he glanced at his cell phone—“2:30. ‘Kay?” Without waiting for her response or Adam and Loren’s agreement, he jumped from the chair and raced out of the cafeteria. It took three minutes to sprint to his apartment and grab his car keys, and another two to get to the garage and start his custom Ford Explorer. He’d always been fine at driving one–handed, but it was cool having the steering knob on the wheel. Made his life easier.
Four minutes later, he was at the CVS pharmacy down the road from The Program campus. He raced through the aisles, pushing his cart ahead of him, looking for things Jill might need. Girly shampoo? Yeah. Conditioner, too. He didn’t bother reading labels and simply grabbed the pinkest floweriest bottles he saw. Next up was deodorant for women, pink razors, and some body lotion.
The next aisle was the feminine care aisle. Tampons? Yeah. He guessed she needed this stuff, and he didn’t want her wasting any of her little money on it. Damn this stuff was expensive. He’d had no idea. He’d never complain about condom costs again. Pads? Extra long? Heavy flow? Shit, he didn’t know. He grabbed two different packages.
He paused in the aisle and swiveled, reading the overhead aisle signs as he went, trying to decide what else she might need. The store didn’t sell clothes other than some Santa hats leftover from the not–so–recent holiday, and the Valentine’s Day push was in full effect. The center aisle was all pink.
Oh, pink. Nail polish, makeup. Jill hadn’t been wearing anything like that, but it didn’t mean she didn’t want to. She probably didn’t have the opportunity. He hustled over to the correct aisle and grabbed some eye shadow, a lipstick and hot red nail polish. There was no time to analyze colors, and he wouldn’t have known which to get Jill even if he’d had years to spend in the store.
He glanced down at the cart. Looked good. Not too much shit, just enough. He headed for the checkout counter, stopping for a minute to pull a romance novel into the cart. He didn’t read the things, but he remembered his mom, who’d read them by the armful, saying they gave her hope and sunshine on her darkest days. Jill needed a little sunshine.
* * * * *
Jill nodded and smiled at Loren, but nothing the other woman was saying penetrated. Exhaustion was setting in, and she needed a bed soon, or she’d collapse on her feet. The adrenaline that had fueled her from the moment she’d taken the grocery money and said goodbye to Jack, driven the three hours to Beltsville, Maryland, and met Rowan was gone. She was out of gas.
She didn’t have a watch to know the time, and she’d “accidentally” left her cell phone at home, in case Jack could trace her, but it seemed they’d been on this tour for hours. She’d need another one if she were to find her way around the campus without getting lost. She prayed the next stop was Rowan’s apartment.
Together, she and Loren climbed a flight of stairs. Adam had left a while back to go to a class he taught. He was some sort of trainer for the teenagers on campus. She instinctively liked him and Loren. If he was a teacher, then he was likely trustworthy. Loren seemed kind, too. She hadn’t said anything, but she seemed to know she was running from her husband. Rowan probably told Adam who’d told his fiancée.
Loren knocked on a painted, off–white wood door about halfway down a long hallway. They waited a second before Rowan opened it, and she had her first glimpse into the apartment that would be her new home for the foreseeable future.
“Well, I’ll leave you here then,” Loren said, giving her a spontaneous hug, which she was too shocked to return. “Call me if you need anything. I’m around.”
Jill watched her walk off down the hall. “Come on in,” Rowan said causing her to turn from her place in the doorway.
Curious, she entered. It was small. Tiny. It was cramped for one person of Rowan’s size. How in the world would the two of them fit in here?
“I’ll give you the ten–cent tour,” he said. From his stance in the middle of the room, he pointed. “Bed, closet, bathroom. Got it? Won’t get lost?”
She found a smile. If they managed to keep their sense of humor, maybe this could work. By accepting his hospitality, she could get a job and save enough money to move out and make a fresh start.
“I’ll empty a few drawers for you, and the closet’s pretty empty,” Rowan said. “Don’t have much in the way of hanging–type clothes.”
“Me neither.” She was starting to appreciate fully the magnitude of what Rowan had done for her. He was giving up half of his space in this tiny room, not to mention his privacy.
“I was thinking we could jerry rig a curtain or something to hang in the middle of the room. Give you some privacy,” he said.
“That’d be good,” she said, looking around and wondering what they’d do about beds. As far as she could see, the one room apartment had one bed and zero kitchens. It wasn’t a particularly large bed. Maybe a full size. She and Jack shared a queen, and it’d been too cozy for her liking. In her mind, married couples should go retro, like on
I Love Lucy
. Twin beds all the way.
Rowan cleared his throat. “I’m gonna find a mattress. We can squeeze it in there.” He pointed to a small space near the tall wooden dresser. “Tonight, I’ll crash on the floor.”
She raised wide eyes to him. “No. I won’t kick you out of your bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.” They both started arguing, but she broke it off when her vision grew blurry and the floor started to wave in front of her.
Rowan caught her in his arm. “Whoa, Jill. You okay?”
“I’m fine. Just tired.”
“That’s understandable. Take the bed for a quick snooze. I’ll head out to train for a bit and come back to grab you for dinner.”
“That sounds perfect,” she said, knowing her words couldn’t convey how perfectly perfect his plan was.
They stood in silence smiling at each other and finally Rowan blushed and stepped to the door. “Have a good rest.”
The moment the door closed behind him, she stepped to her backpack, which Rowan had considerately brought to his apartment. Digging through it, she pulled out her toothbrush and a clean T–shirt. Though it had been cold on the walk from her car to The Program campus, she’d sweated from exertion and nerves.
The bathroom was tiny but clean. She’d been a tad worried about her new roommate since the apartment was comfortably cluttered. Magazines scattered on the floor, a few pieces of laundry hadn’t quite made it into the basket, and a soccer ball lay on the rug where someone could trip on it. The bed wasn’t made. She wasn’t much of a housekeeper, at least Jack criticized what she thought was an immaculate home. She was glad Rowan wouldn’t be too particular about neatness.
She looked into the bathroom mirror and shuddered. No wonder Rowan had rejected her. With her grayish pale skin and dull brown hair, she was nothing appealing. Back in high school she’d been considered one of the prettiest girls in her grade, but back then she’d had an allowance for makeup and haircuts.
Jack’s grocery budget didn’t include “useless girly shit.” She eyed the shower longingly, but reconciled herself to a nap. If she tried to shower, she might fall asleep and drown. Sleep first, shower later. But then she noticed the line of shampoo bottles on the shower shelf. Three tall bottles stood in a soldier–straight line. One white with blue writing; a generic from the pharmacy. It was the other two bottles that had her eyes widening. Pink bottles from Herbal Essences. They wouldn’t be Rowan’s, right? What were they doing there? She leaned into the tiled stall and picked one up. From the weight of it and the lack of soap residue, she judged it had never been used. Why did he have brand new bottles of her dream shampoo in his shower?
What else did Rowan have in here? She tentatively opened a drawer, listening for the apartment door to open. She didn’t want her new roommate to think she was snooping. The only sound she heard were the distant voices of men walking down the hallway of the building. The voices faded and a door closed.
The first drawer revealed an electric razor and some men’s cologne. She pulled out the bottle and gave it a sniff. She liked it. Masculine and subtle, kind of like the bottle’s owner. Jack wore cologne, but it was a heavy overpowering scent. Sometimes it made her sneeze. The next drawer had an open package of Kotex and some scattered pink Daisy razors. Weird. Who did that stuff belong to?
She was too tired to figure it out now. The bed was calling her name.
An indeterminate time later, the sun’s rays penetrated her closed eyelids. She blinked, then opened her eyes. It took a minute to recognize and remember where she was. The large man wrapped in blankets on the floor a few feet away from the bed brought it all flooding back. Rowan still slept huddled on the rough–looking carpet. His partial arm stretched up by his ear.
As if he could feel her gaze, his eyes opened. “Jill?”
“Hi.”
“Did you just wake up?”
She nodded. “Is it time for dinner?”
He smiled sleepily. “Girl, it’s time for breakfast. You were conked out last night for dinner, and I figured you needed sleep more than food.”
He was right. She hadn’t slept soundly in years, never sure what the man sharing her bed would do. She was shocked her body had let her fall into a deep enough sleep not to have woken when Rowan came in the room. “I’m sorry I took your bed.”
“S’okay.” He yawned and rolled to look at the alarm clock on the nightstand near her head. “It’s early.”
“Sorry. Go back to sleep. I’ll go take a walk or something. You can have your bed back.”
He sat up and stretched. He didn’t have a shirt on, and she got her first look at his powerful tanned chest. He had a tattoo on his chest and another around his upper left arm. She liked the ink, and she liked his flat stomach. She looked lower and saw the sleeping bag he was rolled in had lowered enough to see below his navel. He had an erection.
She felt her eyes widen at the sheer size, and then panic set in at what he might want to do to get rid of his arousal. Jack frequently wanted morning blowjobs, or when she managed to sleep late, she’d wake up to him thrusting himself inside her. She’d taken to wearing flannel pajama pants with the waist tied tightly or waking up early to get breakfast on the table.
Rowan cleared his throat and bunched the sleeping bag back at his waist. “Want the bathroom first?”
She appreciated his discretion. He knew they’d both be embarrassed if he stood. “Um, sure.” She climbed out from under the covers that had been pleasantly infused with Rowan’s scent, and scrambled to the bathroom. She shut the door behind her and bent to turn on the water. She took care of bathroom business, then jumped in the shower. She’d grown accustomed to racing through her showers, never wanting to be caught wet and vulnerable by Jack. Today she soaked up the hot water and ran the flowery scented shampoo through her hair, not once but twice.
Next came the conditioner, and finally when the mirror was completely hidden by fog, she switched off the water and grabbed a towel. She’d been tempted to use one of the pink razors in Rowan’s drawer, but hesitated. She didn’t know who they belonged to, and she didn’t want to anger a girlfriend. A girlfriend…damn. She’d never bothered to ask Rowan if he was seeing someone. She didn’t know one hundred percent how this whole matching thing worked. Did the genetic matching thing equal falling in love? She didn’t know. He could have a girlfriend. It was possible she’d screwed up his life more than she’d dreamed.
Then she realized she’d left her backpack outside. She had no clean clothes in which to change. She opened the door a crack. “Rowan?” No answer. A little louder. “Rowan?” Still no answer. She’d have to go out and get the bag rather than having him hand it through the doorway. She tiptoed out of the bathroom with the towel firmly around her body. It was one of those huge bath sheets, so she was pretty covered. And he’d already seen her partly naked. It was kind of hard to take back her modesty after baring herself yesterday.
The reason for Rowan’s silence was clear when she stepped fully into the room. He’d climbed back into his bed and was snoozing. She ran to her backpack and bent to grab it.
“Find everything you need?”
Rowan’s deep, sleepy voice caught her rising from her crouch. She whirled to see him watching her. “Uh, yeah. Thanks for the shampoo. I’ll buy my own as soon as I can.”
“Don’t bother. Happy to share.”
She fumbled with the straps of her bag. “You use that brand?”
“I use whatever’s on the shelf. Feel free to use anything you see in there.”
“Um, I meant to ask you.” She stared at the floor, holding her towel in one hand, the bag in the other. “I saw some products in there that don’t seem like they’d be yours…”
“Sure, go ahead. Use them.” He waved his hand lightly at her. “Hurry up if you could. I have to take a l—um—use the bathroom.”
“Thanks for letting me use the stuff, but I meant more who’d they belong to? I know you don’t need tampons.” She gave a pointed look at the area under the blanket she estimated to be his crotch and remembered his earlier erection.
His cheeks reddened. “They belong to my girlfriend. Ex–girlfriend,” he hastily added.
“She won’t mind if I use her stuff?”
“Nah. We don’t talk much.”
“Oh. Okay. As long as you’re sure.” She backed her way into the bathroom and locked the door. She’d never bothered locking the door with Jack, ‘cause he’d accuse her of hiding or doing something against him and try to break it down. Then he’d blame her when he broke his hand or something and blame her for the repair bill. Now, she trusted Rowan not to enter without permission, but she had the luxury of locking the door, and she was going to use it.