“Did you photograph them already?” He pops the top on his bottle and leans up against the peninsula. He’s back in his standard uniform of jeans and a nerd tee, but his shirt is fitted through the chest and arms, showing off his lean muscles, and his hair is slicked back off his face, like he’s been running his hands through it and it finally just stayed that way. He’s got a day or two’s worth of stubble that makes him look a little gritty, a look I’m totally into. Or I would be, on anyone else.

“Yup.” My phone is resting right next to him. In order to grab it, I have to cross over to him and get all up in his space, which is totally fine because Jack is my friend and my roommate and standing near him is definitely not a big deal. At all.

He smells like cologne again. And his biceps tenses when I brush up against him.

Not that I notice.

I swipe open my phone and show him the photos.

“Damn. These are even better than the first one. Gorgeous work.” He taps on my screen for a few seconds.

I reach for my phone, but he holds it high above his head, still typing, out of my reach. “What are you doing?”

“Sending these to myself.”

I jump up and down, not making any progress, until he finally finishes and hands me my phone back. “Why are you doing that?”

He shrugs, taking a long swig from his beer. “Because they’re beautiful and I might want to look at them again.”

The words zing me. Right in the heart.

It’s a better compliment than if he told me I was beautiful.

That’s something I kind of already know.

But his validation of my work means something else entirely. It hits me right in the center of all my feelings. Hard.

“Thanks, Jack-o’-Lantern.” I make a concerted effort to remove all traces of sarcasm from my voice, because I mean it, and it’s suddenly important he know that.

He clears his throat, pulling his gaze from mine. “You okay with an early dinner? I’ll order the pizza if you go cue up the DVR.”

“Sure thing.” Grabbing my beer, I head to the basement, plopping down in my corner seat and turning on the TV.

Jack comes down a minute later, a second round of beers in his hand. He doesn’t sit right next to me, but he also doesn’t slide to the opposite end of the couch like he has in the past.

I bite my lip to keep from grinning and turn my attention to Bravo. Where it belongs.