The Love Coupon by Ainslie Paton

Author:Ainslie Paton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-01-18T14:02:43+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Reluctant Tom, the man Flick had first moved in with, closed up, got gruff and remote when he was anxious. Tom was anxious about his dad’s pending visit, but he didn’t try to hide it from her. Flick could fall in love with him for that alone.

If she wasn’t a little in love with him already.

Unfortunately, that was the demon shadow of her grief talking and she needed to remember that. Anyone would be moved by the way Tom cared for her. He’d made time to ease her loneliness, gave her space to break down, took her to bed and made the kind of love to her she hadn’t known existed.

She’d wanted to forget, to be reminded that the pain of Drew dying would be a part of her but not a constant. Tom had done something more than reroute her sorrow-stuck thoughts. He’d unearthed her and sent her floating and then brought her home safely, somehow stronger for having been pulled apart.

Again, the gremlin grief doing her thinking.

She needed to be smart and not read too much into that one intense encounter last night that began with tears and ended with the semblance of love. It was consolation, like all the meals Tom cooked and all the nights he’d slept beside her, but pushed to the extreme and bent into a shape that’d pleased them both, made Flick feel easier in her skin and Tom comfortable enough not to hide his apprehension.

From Flick’s point of view, this was easily solved. “I’ll move out for a few days when he gets here. I can couch surf or stay in a hotel. It’s no big deal. It’s a few nights.”

Tom paced between the refrigerator and the counter. “You’re not moving out.”

“It’s only fair.”

He opened the fridge and stared into it. “You live here.” He came back and slapped a packet of diced beef on the counter. “He’s passing through to do a surprise inspection.”

She didn’t know what to make of that. By all objective standards, Tom was a success. What could his father possibly find fault with? Unless it was his choice of roommate. “It shouldn’t be awkward between you and your dad because of me. And he needs a bed. I’ll move out.”

“Shit, Flick.” Tom banged a pan on the stove top. “That’s not the issue. He can have my bed. I’ll sleep on the sectional.”

“I’m over here on a stool at the counter in the good old USA and you’re way out on a space station where time has a different meaning and the oxygen is thin.”

He stopped fussing with the stove and looked over his shoulder at her with an exasperated expression. She made him frown harder when she said, “You’re also speaking in an alien language I can’t understand. He’s your dad. What’s the big deal here?”

“He will get in your face and grill you.” Tom came to the counter and put his hand down over hers. “He will judge and pick and deliberately try to upset you.

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