Hobbes was home. Saved by the doc.
Or maybe not. Sam took one long look at Hobbes—the slightly hangdog face he had, like he’d just been scolded for leering at a waitress or something, the thick groomed beard peppered with gray… the lollipop still tucked into the pocket of his scrub top.
Jax was so incredibly busted.
Oh my God, Sam mouthed at him. George turned his face away to disguise a laugh, and Jax sighed resignedly. “Hey, Hobbes.”
“Oh my God,” Sam whispered, out loud this time.
“Shut up!” Jax hissed back. This whole arrangement depended on Hobbes remaining blissfully ignorant of Jax being even remotely capable of sincere romantic attachment. If Hobbes started feeling guilty, it’d ruin everything.
Hobbes looked at Jax—raised his eyebrows at Alice, which, fair; Jax did not strike most people as the comfortable-with-children type, except in the sense that they thought he still was one—and then got a look at Sam.
Those hazel eyes widened and then—
“Hey!” Jax said reflexively. “Eyes up here!”
“Oh my God,” Sam said loud enough for everyone to hear this time.
Hobbes ran a hand over his face in obvious and deserved mortification. “Hi. Sorry. Dr. Calvin Tate, Jax’s roommate. You must be Sam?” He held out his hand to shake, drew it back, offered it again. “Wow, I made that awkward. Jax’s told me a lot about you, although he didn’t mention the uncanny resemblance.”
Sam shook his hand and accepted his explanation. “Nice to meet you. This is my husband, George”—they shook too—“and the little barnacle hiding in Jax’s sadness beard is Alice.”
Jax felt rather than saw Alice turn her face out, then back in toward him. He hoped his beard didn’t give her a rash.
“She does really seem to love the stubble,” Hobbes commented, taking off his shoes. “That’s nothing, though. You should’ve seen it in the winter. Thought the birds were going to nest in it.”
Almost overnight, Jax had gone from a near complete inability to grow facial hair to the kind of guy who could use a shave again at five o’clock, so he didn’t think it was fair of Hobbes to pick on him for wanting to experiment. Especially since—“You could scrub pots with yours, old man, so don’t be casting stones.”
“Speaking of pots. Did you offer our guests a drink?”
Jax started, guilty. “It’s possible I got hung up on baby cuddles?”
Hobbes’s expression softened. “Yeah, that’ll happen. Can I get anybody anything?”
Sam and George exchanged glances. George said, “That’d be great, actually. Let me help.”
Then he abandoned Jax to Sam’s less than tender mercies. Rude.
“Well, at least now I know why you never bothered looking for your own place,” Sam said lowly.
Jax hid behind Alice, who wouldn’t judge him. “It’s not like that.”
“Oh, so you didn’t intentionally attach yourself to someone who could never want you back, thus saving you from experiencing the potential disappointment of a failed relationship?”
God. Now Jax was mortified. “Nothing about this was premeditated.”
“Uh-huh.” Sam bumped his shoulder. “You always did fall in love at the drop of a hat. But he seems nice anyway. By which I mean he seems like an asshole, but in a way that’s good for you. Aside from the obvious.”
“He is.” On all counts.
“However.” And her eyes were sparkling, which meant Jax was about to catch even more shit. He couldn’t wait. God, he’d missed her. “Word is there’s more than one tall, dark, and handsome in your life.”
Thiswas more stable ground. Given the choice of examining his feelings for his roommate or his obvious hard-on for a guy he barely knew…. Hell, Jax would’ve talked about Ari voluntarily. He wasfascinating. “Truly it’s an embarrassment of riches,” he agreed.
“Embarrassment my—butt,” Hobbes said, returning from the kitchen with George and a tray of glasses and iced tea. “You’re medically incapable of that.”
Mostly true, so Jax let that slide.
