Lord, no wonder his real girlfriend understood the situation. His real girlfriend had probably developed the program designed to make Eve Bennett into a normal person.
“Are you serious? Get in here, baby. Come on—come here.”
He put a hand out to her, and dear Lord she wanted to take it. He just looked so big and warm and comforting, not to mention fully dressed. Maybe the sex he’d been having was just some newfangled tame kind, that didn’t really count.
Even though she knew it kind of did.
“No, really. It’s fine. You go back to…your girlfriend.”
Ugh, it sounded even worse on the outside. And Van’s face creased too, as though the idea was crazy—which only gave her unnecessary hope.
“Girlfriend?” He paused, obviously considering. “You mean my roommate, Tim?”
Words automatically flooded up through her body. She couldn’t have stopped them if she’d tried.
“You’re having sex with someone called Tim? Oh God, I don’t know if that’s worse or bette—”
“Evie, Evie—no.” He was laughing, but by that point she’d disappeared into some state beyond panic, and it wasn’t a comfort. She covered her face with her hands, just to keep some of the humiliation in. “Tim is currently—” He paused, to throw something at someone she couldn’t see. “Breaking our ‘no screwing around in the living room’ rule. Jesus Christ, man, get some clothes on.”
She heard Tim somewhere beyond him, complaining that Van had driven his date for the evening away. Tim sounded…well. He sounded like Van, only smaller.
Which proved true, when Van finally managed to haul her in through the window. Tim was a foot shorter than Van and a whole lot skinnier, with a shock of half-blue, half red hair.
And a completely naked body, covered only by a tiny round cushion.
“Oh, um, I guess…” she tried, but no other words would come. Too much had happened in the last five minutes for them to successfully form, and the action was made doubly difficult by her extreme need to look anywhere but at Tim.
“You must be Evie.”
Oh God, he knew her name. Van had told him her name. And Van was also doing other stuff, like holding her hand really, really tightly in one big fist—like a reassurance, she thought.
While her heart tried to sing in her chest.
“You’re even lovelier than he said,” Tim said, and she couldn’t help it. Her face flamed red, despite the deep freeze she still seemed to be in. What did he mean, exactly? She knew what she looked like, right at that moment, and it didn’t seem anywhere near lovely.
Though she garnered one important fact, from his words. Van had not only shared her name with this guy, but what he thought of her too. And apparently, the word was positive.
“Are you seriously hitting on my girlfriend right now? Put some goddamn clothes on, you look like a maniac.”
She went rigid all over. The redness on her face reached apoplectic proportions. Had Van just said hitting on? As in, trying to get sex?
Dear God, she couldn’t give this man sex. She could barely give it to Van, and he currently smelled so good she just wanted to shove her face under his t-shirt and eat whatever she found there.
“Dude, I wasn’t—”
“My terrified girlfriend doesn’t want to hear it. Get out of here.”
She got the vaguest impression that Tim was holding up his hands, out of the corner of her eye. Though she hoped to God she was wrong, on that front. Hands plural meant he no longer had anything to hold up the cushion.
“Sure, okay, we’re cool, we’re cool—sorry, Evie!” he said, and she had the strangest urge to laugh. After everything that had happened tonight, this weird other person with his multicolored hair and his obvious fear of Van was making her laugh.
Plus, he said her name as if he knew her. Not as if he’d just heard it, but like he knew. Van had spoken of her. Extensively. And he almost definitely wasn’t having sex with any other women.
Her heart sung for real then.
“Can’t believe you thought I was cheating,” he said, as they watched Tim disappear into what looked like his bedroom. She couldn’t feel guilty about the assumption, however—not even when he looked at her with something like hurt in his eyes.
“I’ve had a long night,” she said, surprised when it came out all tremulous. She’d thought the up-and-down feeling had gone the moment Tim made her laugh, but apparently not.
It was still there, and boy did it change his expression. Now he looked so wrecked by concern that she wanted to cuddle him. Nothing should ever make Van feel like that, nothing.