offer.
Sensing her momentary weakness, he leaned over her station and smiled in a manner guaranteed to break hearts and insure a fifty percent gratuity. “You need a place to live, Tessa. You can’t live on the street.”
Yeah, make her sound like a bag lady already. Tessa pushed bedraggled hair back from her face and met his eyes with dignity. Faked, but dignity nonetheless. Tessa was nothing if not proud.
“I could be some wet kitten or stray dog tossed out on the street by their heartless owner and you’d take me in. You’re too soft. I know you, Gabriel O’Sullivan.”
“You’re not a stray dog.”
“Thank you for that compliment.”
“Come on, Tess. It makes sense.”
She didn’t need this conversation right now, but fine, if he wanted to explore the myriad reasons why she couldn’t move in with him, she would list them off one by one. Starting with the obvious.
“You are a man.”
He didn’t roll his eyes, but he might as well have. “Yes.”
Gabe pushed it off so easily, as if his physical attributes were no big deal. But that was what made him so irresistible. Dark brown hair that had a tendency to curl into the nape of his neck, blue eyes that crinkled at the edges, not too tall, not too short, not too bulky, not too lean and a full mouth that was curved into a perpetual smile. He called himself average—and compared to the potent animal magnetism of Sean, he was—but damn if the women didn’t throw themselves all over that simple charm. Oh, yeah, he knew exactly what he did to the female species.
Tessa gave him a skeptical look. “I am a woman.”
He handed Lindy three cosmopolitans without even breaking a sweat. “There is that.”
“We cannot live together in blissful, platonic harmony. It’s impossible.” Tessa had lived with a colorful menagerie of roommates, all female. And maybe she could have considered a lesser male as a roommate…but Gabe? No. That was just inviting trouble to come on in for a late-night drink.
Sean angled in front of her, fixing his place near a beautifully dressed brunette.
“I thought you were working,” said Gabe.
“I was doing you a favor, but I got the phone number I wanted and now I’m no longer working. Now I’m just shooting the shit with my family and friends and listening to this fascinating conversation on the intricacies of the human libido. A male and a female living together is a huge mistake.”
Gabe shook up a vodka martini. “With Tessa? I’m not worried.”
Tessa coughed, the emotional equivalent of a furball stuck in her throat. “I don’t know why I put up with this place.”
Gabe flashed her an easy grin, and for one second the resemblance between Gabe and Sean was unmissable. Sean was broader, beefier, swore like a sailor, with a nose that had been broken in two bar fights since she’d known him, but somehow he was always impeccably dressed in a suit and tie.
“You put up with us because we like you and you’re the fastest mojito maker on the Atlantic seaboard,” said Gabe. “Sean, tell her she should move in with me.”
Sean rested his chin on his palm. “Why should I contribute to what will be the loss of our finest frozen drink maker and chief barback when Tony doesn’t show? Do I look like a moron? Oh, no, Gabe. This is all about me. I like Tess. I want her to stay gainfully employed at this fine establishment so I can flirt with the female patrons while she works her little ass off, finely shaped as it is. She moves in with you, and you two will be all over each other. Groping, fondling…” Sean illustrated with graphic hand movements. “I’d put good money on that one.”
Tessa strategically avoided looking at Gabe. “I should sue you both. Male chauvinist perverts.”
“Come on, Tess,” Gabe insisted. “You know it’s the perfect solution. We’ll make it temporary.”
“Temporarily forget about having sex then,” added Sean. “With Tessa Trueheart here as your roommate, you can kiss that goodbye. One more reason this is a bad idea.”
Sean was only half-right, and Tessa corrected the attack on her character. “I would never interfere in my roommate’s personal activities. Hailey—the roommate before Janice—she had three boyfriends and none of them knew about the others, except for me, of course. I hated it. All that lying and pretending.” She stuck out her tongue. “Blah.”
Sean’s expression sharpened, transforming into full Law & Order mode. “So you come home and Gabe here is getting busy with some fine young thing on the sofa. What do you do?”
“What time is it?” asked Tessa, pouring a Jack neat for a Wall Street type with kind eyes.
“What does that matter?” asked Gabe.
“It’s important. If it’s still daylight, and under civilized society’s strictures for productivity—i.e. time for Tessa to hit the books—then I don’t care who’s doing it in my living area. I’m going to study or else I’ll never get my degree.”
“That’s cold.”
“You haven’t lived with the number of roommates that I have. You have to have rules and order or you’ll go crazy. You both are on your own. Someday soon I’m going to be on my own.”
Tessa ended with a sigh, picturing herself walking up the mighty stone steps of her most prized apartment building, waving at Rodney the doorman before trudging into the old, quaint gated elevator that shuddered when it passed the third floor. After she made it safely upstairs, she’d open her door to solitary paradise, where she could crank up her Cher CD—the one she hid from the world—and then she’d fall into a neatly covered periwinkle-blue chintz chair. A huge tabby cat would jump into her lap and curl up in the afternoon sun, purring like a vibrator—the one that she’d buy if she lived alone.
There were a lot of advantages to living life alone. Most people took it for granted. Tessa, who had always had someone breathing down her neck—and finishing off the last of the milk, craved it the way some women craved pricey shoes. And at Hudson Towers, not only would she have the apartment she wanted but she could afford the rent on a one-bedroom all on her own. Well, not right at this exact moment but very, very soon. Her savings were piling up nicely, and once she finished her associate’s degree in finance—approximately forty-six more credit hours—she’d be good to go.
Gabe pulled out a bottle of Grey Goose and poured a shot. “Well, right now you need a roommate, and I think you should bunk with me until you find someone who isn’t going to desert you again.”
She shook her head. “Must you try and rescue every female you meet?”
“Yes, he must,” answered Sean and then promptly stuck a celery stick into his mouth.
“At least think about it,” Gabe said. “And if you’re thinking about bunking in the storeroom until your find a place, think again, Tessa. It’s against the law.”
“In what state?”
“In my
