Love on the Rocks Box Set

I’ll Take the Rain-3

My last class on Mondays is over by quarter to six. I take the bus to our townhouse and walk in on a bustle of activity in the kitchen. Our roommate is making spaghetti—despite the chill outside, she’s wearing a thin tank top and running shorts under an apron and little else. The kitchen reeks of garlic and tomato sauce, and the window above the sink is fogged from the heat.

“Want some sketti?” she asks me as she stirs the sauce on the stove.

I toss my coat onto one of the chairs around the kitchen table. “Sounds good.”

She points the spoon at me, sauce dripping onto the floor. “Not there, mister. We’ll be eating soon.”

As I scoop up my coat, I nod at the mess by her feet. “You spilled some.”

With a shrug, she turns back to the stove. “I’m cooking, not cleaning up. Dinner’s in ten.”

I head upstairs to deposit my coat in our room. He’s already in, seated at his desk, hunkered over an open textbook. I drape my coat over the back of his chair and lean down to kiss the top of his head. “You hungry, babe?”

“A little,” he says, turning with pursed lips so I can kiss him properly. “I got a biology test tonight, though. I can’t really stop to eat.”

His class is at 7:30—he’ll have to leave here at seven to catch the bus onto campus, which only gives him less than an hour to study. “How about I bring up something for you? We’re having sketti.”

He gives me a sardonic look. “Sketti?” he asks, skeptical. “Is that what she calls it?”

“It’s kind of cute, don’t you think?” I ask.

The look on his face says it all, but in case I don’t get it, he says, “No.”

I hang around a few more minutes, but he turns back to his book and I effectively disappear. I try to find something to talk about, but nothing comes to mind. I don’t want to interrupt him—the last thing I want to hear now is he’s too busy for me. So I wait, lingering on the edge of his vision as I straighten the books on my desk, waiting for him to notice me.

To see me.

He doesn’t.

Finally, enough time has passed that I decide to go back down and check on dinner. Apparently I didn’t have to take my coat upstairs after all—a marathon run of s*x in the City has the cook giggling on the couch in front of the television, a full plate of spaghetti balanced precariously on a tray covering her lap.

“Thanks for letting me know it was ready,” I joke as I duck into the kitchen.

From the living room comes the reply, “I told you when it’d be done!”

I grab two plates from the dishwasher and twirl noodles onto each. When I start to ladle on the sauce, she comes into the kitchen for a second helping. “This is so good,” she moans. “It’s almost better than sex.”

“I don’t think anything’s better than s*x,” I say. With any luck, if the bio test goes well, I might finally get a little loving tonight. I need it.

“How would you know?” she counters, elbowing me aside for more sauce. “You guys don’t seem to do it much anymore.”

I give her a quizzical look. “How the hell do you know what goes on in our room?”

“Mine’s right next door,” she reminds me. “The walls are paper thin. I can hear you jerk off, so no matter how quiet you’re trying to be, I know when you guys are going at it. And that hasn’t been very often lately. Can I ask you something?”

Dread curls in the pit of my stomach. No, I want to say. I take both plates over to the table and start buttering a few slices of crusty Italian bread. I don’t want to talk to her any longer.

After a moment, she says, “You can say no.”

Now how bad would that look? I shrug as if I don’t have anything to hide from her. “What do you want to ask?”

“You can say it’s none of my business, but I am majoring in counseling,” she says.

Yeah, so? I think, but I keep silent.

She’s stirring the sauce now, not quite looking at me as she continues. “It’s just…I don’t know. Lately things seem a bit strained between you two. I mean, you were great at the beginning of the year.”

Tell me about it. Why can’t we get back to that?

But I don’t say anything, and she keeps on, filling the silence between us. “Now it seems something’s not right. Does he…I don’t know, does he hit you?”

I jerk my head as if she slapped me. “What? No. God, no. Why would you even think—”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “You just don’t seem like yourself lately. Neither of you do. I just thought—”

“You thought wrong,” I say, anger creeping into my voice. “It’s not like that at all. He’s not like that.”

She leans back against the stove, plate in hand, watching me with her lips pursed in thought. “Why’d you sleep on the couch last night?”

Before I can respond, her gaze flickers past my shoulder and I turn to find him in the kitchen doorway. The unreadable expression on his face scares me. How long has he been standing there? What did he overhear?

Then he looks at me, and a slow smile spreads across his lips. “I thought maybe you forgot about me,” he says, coming closer. One hand eases across my lower back and his arm wraps around my waist for a quick hug. “What are you two chatting about?”

I give her a silencing glare. “Nothing, babe.”

Her mouth twists and she shrugs, as if she isn’t so sure.

* * * *

I follow him back to the room with both plates of spaghetti in my hands, waiting for him to say something. He doesn’t. At our room, he holds the door for me and stands aside, so gentlemanly. It makes me think maybe he didn’t hear what she said, what I said.

What did I say? I don’t remember.

Once I’m in the room, he closes the door and clears a spot on my desk for our plates. Still he doesn’t say anything. I begin to relax. All I want is a nice, quiet evening together. Is that asking too much?

He moves his chair over to my desk and we sit side by side, his thigh warm where it presses against mine. As we eat, he leans into me ever so slightly, then drops his arm to rest in my lap. I know he loves me, he does, no matter what anyone else says.

And God, I love him.