Covet Thy Neighbor

of my neck. “I’m not sure, to be honest.”
    “Neither am I.” He shifted his weight. Then did it again. “Listen, I’m not after a long-term commitment or anything. Don’t get me wrong. But I’m not going to keep doing this yo-yo thing. We can’t keep our hands off each other, and then we sleep together, and then it’s awkward, and . . .” He exhaled hard. “And we just keep going back and forth from ‘just friends’ and neighbors to dragging each other into bed.”
    I couldn’t face him. Speaking was out of the question.
    “I’m not going to keep playing this game and just having a string of one-night stands together.” He paused for a few long seconds. “I won’t push you into something you don’t want, but quite honestly, I don’t believe you when you say you don’t want it.”
    I managed a quiet, nervous laugh. “Didn’t you once say something about not being the aggressive type?”
    “With most people, I’m not. But I told you it’s different when I see something I want.”
    Glancing at him, I gulped.
    He inched closer, and his tone softened. “Why do we keep fighting this so hard?”
    “I . . .” Can’t be with someone like you no matter how much I want you? “I told you. I’m not in a good place for a relationship.”
    “Okay. I can accept that. But . . .” He held my gaze so intently it was unnerving. “Where does that leave us? I mean, are we friends? Is this”—he gestured down the hall toward my bedroom—“something you want to keep doing?”
    I chewed the inside of my cheek. “I guess that depends on whether or not it’ll make things weird.” Or if it’s already made them weird . “Or if it’s something you aren’t comfortable with. The casual sexual thing.”
    “I’m not sure how I feel about it, to be honest. It’s never something I saw myself doing. Whatever this is, it . . . I guess it just happened, and there’s only so many times it can keep happening before I have to figure that out. If I’m comfortable continuing like this, I mean, or if I want us to take things seriously.”
    I didn’t know what to say to that.
    “And to be perfectly blunt,” he said, “whenever I do think about that, I just can’t help thinking whether we continue this casually or more seriously, we’re going to end up in the same place.”
    My heart jumped into my throat. “And that place is, where?”
    “Only one way to find out.” His eyes locked on mine, and my stomach somersaulted, especially when he added, “Personally, I’d like to skip the games and take the direct route.”
    But does all of this terrify you like it does me?
    “Listen, the truth is . . .” I paused, chewing my lip.
    Darren’s fingers tapped against the door, a gesture that I hoped came from restlessness and not impatience. “The truth is, what?”
    “Not something you’re going to want to hear.”
    “Try me.”
    I rubbed some stiffness out of the back of my neck. “As much as we get along, and as much as we rock in bed together, I really don’t think we’re cut out to be in a relationship.”
    “Oh.” He was quiet for a moment. “Why?”
    “Well.” Here goes. No turning back . “It’s . . . I’ll be honest. It has to do with our beliefs.”
    “What do you mean? The fact that you’re an atheist and I’m a Christian?”
    “And that you’re a minister.”
    “What does that have to do with anything?” He wasn’t hostile. Not even a little put off, from the sound of it. Which only made this that much harder, and set my teeth on edge. Damn you for being so fucking easygoing!
    “I told you I was raised in a fundamentalist household, and I was disowned by my family and excommunicated from my church. And I—”
    “And I don’t condone what they did,” he said. “You should know me well enough by now to know something like that would horrify me.”
    “Maybe so, but it was their beliefs that led them to do what they did.”
    Darren shifted his weight. “So, if you took my beliefs out of the equation, would we be having this conversation? Is that the only thing keeping you from seeing if we can make this work?”
    “It’s not exactly a small thing.”
    “No, it isn’t.” He narrowed his eyes. “But it’s one of those things we could work around if we thought it was worth it.”
    “I never said it wouldn’t be worth it,” I snapped. “But some obstacles just can’t—”
    “Obstacles?” He forced out a breath. “So what if we have a difference in