Pull You In (Rivers Brothers #3) - Jessica Gadziala Page 0,63
if I needed more reasons to like the man.
"I'll be on your team on Pictionary. I mean, we will lose. I can't draw a straight line. But we will lose splendidly," I told him, shooting him a hopeful smile.
"And we'd kick everyone else's asses in Scattergories," he agreed, making my heart dance around happily at the idea of him seeing us doing that. Playing board games. With his family.
"Oh, they'd go down," I agreed, bumping my hip into his playfully.
"This is the part where I am supposed to give you a tour," he said a second later, turning away from the canvases. "This seems pretty self-explanatory," he went on, waving out toward the open space that served as the living and kitchen area. He didn't have a traditional dining room table, but he did have a black console table pushed up against a wall across from the main part of the kitchen with two chairs butted up against it. I imagined, like my dining set, it only got used when he had company.
"Then through here," he went on, leading me over toward the small hall, "we have a something they have the audacity to call a spare bedroom," he told me, opening the door to reveal a room that was, admittedly, more of a large closet than a bedroom. He had various things stored there in the somewhat laissez-faire, haphazard way men tended to store things. Half-collapsed boxes overflowing with old clothes butted up against a set of matching luggage. There were skis, a surfboard, and various sports equipment—balls, kettle bells, even a yoga mat.
"Yeah," he said when he saw me eye the yoga mat. "Not my purchase or my idea. I fucked up my back a few years back while attempting surfing for the first —and last—time. One of the girls suggested yoga. I figured I would give it a try."
"Not a fan?" I asked, interested only because it involved him. As for me, the concept of exercising was as foreign as giving up carbs.
"I might have fixed my back, but I threw out my shoulder trying to get out of one of the positions."
"So this is the place where your grand ideas for starting new workout regimens goes to die?" I asked.
"Something like that," he agreed, chuckling. "Though, I haven't tried the skies. Those were a Christmas gift from Atlas who spent a whole winter on the slopes once. I had every intention of going, but..."
"Life," I supplied.
"Exactly. Some day."
"Maybe you will take that road trip to somewhere snowy and try them out."
"Maybe," he agreed, looking over at me, eyes going soft. "And maybe you'd come with me."
"I mean, I would go. But, yeah, you don't want to see me on skies. Like... you saw how much I struggled with heels. And you think I could strap a plank of wood to my feet, and still be able to walk?" I asked, wincing. "But I would enjoy the heck out of the lodge, drinking hot chocolate by the fire. That sounds amazing. Speaking of books," I said, looking around the room, then back at the living room, "where are all of yours?"
"Oh, Peyton takes them. Peyton is," he started, letting out a chuckle, "this is where shit gets a little confusing. Peyton is the sister to Autumn who..."
"Is the wife of Eli. I have a pretty good memory," I told him. "Autumn owns the sex store. Peyton is a source of endless amusement."
"That's putting it lightly. But yeah. She's a librarian. So she takes them off my hands. I'm not someone who re-reads, so there never seemed to be a reason to keep old books around. Alright. This is the bathroom," he said, closing the storage room, waving across the hall.
It was nicer than mine. Modern like the rest of the building, the bathroom had a walk-in glass shower stall with a black window grid pattern on it. He even had one of those neat faucets where the water came down off the handle like a waterfall.
"This is fancy," I declared. "But not having a bathtub is a sacrilege."
"I don't think I've had a bath since I was a kid. But You in a tub? I can get behind that," he said, the charm something that seemed to come so easily to him. And me, so unaccustomed to it, lapped it right up. "And, finally," he said, moving the few feet to the end of the hall, opening the door, "my bedroom," he said.