Unexpected (25 page)

He winks. “I'll remember
that.”

When I can
hear
that
his steps are far enough
down the hall, I let out a long breath. This is getting out of
hand. What is causing me to lose all control? I can keep trying to
tell myself it's the alcohol, and perhaps a little bit of it is,
but it's only intensifying the effect. The effect meaning that
he
has
one over me. Adrian Williams, of all
people.

But how? And why?
And why
now
? It's not like I haven't
had ample time before to feel this way. The sudden discovery has me
nervous as hell. I'm not even sure how to act around Adrian now.
Especially when I can't keep my eyes off
his body.
His exceptionally toned body, with sinewy
muscles, and those gorgeous green eyes...

Hazel
Bell! Snap out of it!
I kick off
my shoes and lean back into the couch, attempting to relax. Just
when I'm starting to, Adrian walks back into the living room,
donning a half-zipped gray hoodie. It shows off a little bit of his
chest as a tease, making me wish it wasn't just a tease. It's hard
to relax when all you can think about is your roommate being
shirtless again.

He plunks himself down
right next to me, an arm going behind me. “So what's it going to
be?”

“
What's
what
going to be?” His nearness is causing my brain to
short-circuit.

“
What movie?” He
leans forward, picking up the bottle of rum and pouring a generous
amount in each of our glasses.

I lean
toward him
with my elbows on my knees. “I
want to say romantic comedy but I don't think it would be right to
torture myself.” Maybe not so much torture but depress considering
how unromantic life really is.

“
Well, you know I
would be fine with it.”

I smile. Adrian is one of
the few men I've come across who can sit through a chick flick and
not be bored. “Okay, let me see what I can come up with.” I stand
up, crossing the room to our shelf of combined DVDs. We put both of
our collections together in alphabetical order since that would
make it easier to find what we're looking for. There were only a
couple duplicates, but that's because we always knew what movies
the other had. Why buy a movie when you can borrow it from a
friend?

I settle on
Northanger
Abbey
. While it's not a romantic
comedy or a chick flick—okay maybe kind of a chick flick—it
is
Jane Austen. I hold it up for him. He says, “I've never
seen it.”

“
Good,” I say,
put
ting
it in the DVD player and
press play. When I sit back down, I accidentally end up closer to
him than I had been a moment ago. Part of me wants to scoot
over—just a
teeny
bit—back to where I was
before. The other part tells me not to. I don't want him to think I
don't feel comfortable being close to him. On the other hand, I
don't want him to think I
want
to be closer to
him for another reason. Although...

Brushing off the thought,
I relax where I am and focus my attention on the television
screen.

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