Until the World Stops - L.A. Witt Page 0,18

without a shirt on.

For God’s sake, if I was going to marry a hot man I didn’t like, did he have to be adorable too?

Admittedly, there’d been a few times when I’d considered suggesting we be husbands with benefits, because I wasn’t gonna lie—Casey was hot. And from what I heard on the rare occasion he brought one of his hookups home, sex with that man sounded seriously fun.

But…no.

It had turned out that once we weren’t working together, we got along okayish as long as we stayed out of each other’s way as much as possible. We’d been awful as coworkers, but we made halfway decent roommates, and I didn’t want to disrupt that. Sex would definitely complicate things, and we still had at least a few years left on this arrangement. I mean, theoretically we could divorce whenever we wanted to now that he’d transferred his GI Bill to me, but health insurance complicated things. When we’d hammered out this agreement, we’d decided the best thing was to keep going until I’d graduated and nailed down a job with insurance. Once that was in the bag, we could call it a day.

So in the meantime, I’d just keep myself entertained by occasionally jacking off to the sound of Casey getting laid at the other end of the hall and sometimes finding myself a match on one app or another. Which…was probably why all mental roads led to Casey’s bed right now—I really needed to get laid.

Shame about that fucking virus that was putting both my sex life and my job on indefinite hiatus. Ugh.

I once again tried to focus on my homework. Casey scrolled through social media on his phone in between letting Tilly take pieces of ham and cheese from him. The vet had told us to be careful what we fed her since apparently she was a bit of a princess in the digestive department, but we both sucked at saying no to that little face.

When his sandwich was gone, Tilly moved to the windowsill to sun herself, and Casey turned on the TV. I didn’t mind—the background noise was actually kind of nice while I worked.

“Hey,” Casey said after a while, frowning at his phone. “Have you been watching the news about this virus?”

So much for no distractions. “The coronavirus or whatever? A little, yeah. Sounds nasty.”

“Yeah, it does.” He scrolled a bit. “I can’t decide if they’re fear-mongering, or if this is something we should actually be worried about.”

I watched him. I was the one who usually jumped to the worst-case scenario with things. When we’d worked together, I’d once accused Casey of being the kind of guy who’d be on a plane that was on fire, missing both wings, and plummeting toward the ground, and he’d still tell everyone to calm down and wait for someone with a cooler head to assess the situation. That was probably the third or fourth time he’d told me to eat a dick.

So when he was actually raising his eyebrows over this virus, it gave me pause.

“You really think it sounds bad?”

“I don’t know.” He put his phone down and looked at me. “It sounds like people who know what they’re talking about are worried about it. Like…really worried about it.” He grimaced. “Dang. Maybe the guys who won’t meet people on Tinder all of a sudden are on to something.”

I swallowed. “You’ve noticed that too?”

He nodded. “I thought they were being paranoid or… I don’t know.” Glancing at his phone, he added more to himself, “Maybe they’re the smart ones.” He fidgeted as if his skin were crawling.

“Maybe hookups aren’t a good idea,” I said quietly. “I read an article yesterday where they’re recommending total shutdowns. Like, everything. Not just the big sports events and concerts and shit with crowds, but everything.”

Casey chafed his arms. “Ugh. Okay. I’m deactivating my Tinder account.”

“Yeah. Good idea.” I’d done that a few nights ago. It felt like an overreaction, but whatever. If it wasn’t safe for the events where I needed to work, then I didn’t feel safe jumping into the closest confines imaginable with a total stranger. Just the thought of kissing someone made me squirm, and not in a good way.

So now Casey wouldn’t be going out and hooking up. I wouldn’t be going out and hooking up. That meant more time at home, avoiding each other in this big duplex that suddenly felt about as cramped as my tiny studio had been.

Ugh, fuck my life. No sex.