Free Sweet: (Intermix) (True Believers) by Erin McCarthy Page A

the next big explosion.”
    His eyes shifted from the wall to me as he covered the last bit of white, his right arm paused. I felt trapped in the corner, his body warm, the light harsh, paint fumes intense. But all I could think about was him. The way his lips moved when he spoke, the rich coffee color of his eyes, and the shadow of his beard.
    “That sounds like a terrible way to grow up,” I said quietly. “I wasn’t trying to compare.” I felt whiny in comparison, even though I had just been trying to explain why I didn’t know how to do anything particularly useful.
    “I know. Don’t be so fucking sensitive.” He switched the roller to his left hand and nudged me with his right shoulder. “We’re just sharing, Jess. Talking about our feelings. Getting to know each other now that we’re roomies and painting pals.”
    The stupid way he was looking at me, his goofy expression as unlike him as his words, made me laugh. “Dumbass.”
    I stepped back and surveyed the room. “Awesome paint job, though. I can’t believe how fast you did this. You know, they sell gallons of mess-up paint that someone asked for but then didn’t want for like eight dollars a gallon. We could totally paint the living room, too.”
    “No.”
    “Why not?” I asked, smiling at him with what I hoped was charming enthusiasm. I wasn’t surprised he’d said no. I was expecting it, and mostly I just said it to annoy him.
    “I don’t need a reason. Just no. And clean this paint tray and the brush in the basement sink.”
    Blech. That sounded unfortunate. “Clean them how?”
    “With
water
,” he said slowly and clearly, like he was speaking to a moron, making a mock scrubbing gesture. He shook his head. “God help us.”
    I stuck my tongue out at him.
    Moving with a dexterity I didn’t know was possible, his hand shot out and he actually caught my tongue between his fingers.
    “Heth!” I said, trying to say
hey
, but without a freely movable tongue it came out garbled. Laughing, I swatted at his arm and tried to pull back.
    “Shit, watch out!” he said, eyes going wide in amusement, his hand whipping behind my head.
    “What?” I spun around and saw that his hand was the only thing preventing the entire back of my hair from touching wet paint. “Oh, crap!” I hadn’t realized how close to the wall I was.
    When I stepped forward, he pulled his hand back and showed me that his knuckles were covered in gray paint. “Way to go.”
    “Sorry.” Then I ruined the apology by giggling.
    “Think it’s funny?”
    I nodded. “Just a little.”
    Riley took his wet knuckle and reached out toward me, a gleam in his eye. I couldn’t back up and when I tried to dart to the side, he blocked me. Then before I realized what he was doing, he had smeared wet paint on my upper lip like a mustache. I sputtered. He laughed.
    “Damn, now
that
is funny.”
    I could only imagine how not sexy I looked. Still holding the brush in my hand I brought it up to his chest and painted an X on it. In the middle of my action, he realized what I was doing and grabbed my wrist so that the second line squiggled awkwardly off the side of his shirt. I laughed. “You made it worse.”
    “I like this shirt!” he protested, glancing down at it.
    “Are you joking? That shirt is a white undershirt from Walmart. Or actually, it was white at one time. Now it’s the color of a tea bag.”
    “You’re exaggerating.” He looked up and studied me, very serious. “Jessica?”
    “Yes?”
    “I mustache you a question.”
    My lip twitched. “Let me mullet over.”
    We both lost it. He pulled out his phone. “We need a picture of this.”
    Did I want to preserve a picture of me with a painted gray mustache? Not necessarily. But I did want a picture of me with Riley, and I did want to see what I looked like. There were certainly more embarrassing pics of me floating around the Internet—hello, why do all friends insist on posting pictures with your eyes