Chapter 1
Callie
The sound of drilling woke me up.
Add Melissa’s saccharine voice trying to fuck the handyman, and even suffocating myself with a pillow wasn’t enough to end my misery.
That is, until I heard his voice.
Our landlord and neighbour—Alistair Graves.
I lifted the pillow to breathe and chuckled. He was far too much of a miserable bastard to fuck Melissa. Or anyone else, for that matter.
The man was in his thirties but acted like he was pushing sixty. No parties. No noise. Stay on your side of the garden.
I didn’t even like parties or noise, but I hated his rules more.
A sudden sound made me gasp and jerk upright—only to find Dottie sitting on the bed, blinking at me like I’d disturbed him. He lifted a paw and began licking it, unbothered.
He was our communal cat, rescued from the street. We’d unfortunately named him Dottie before discovering he was, in fact, a he. He didn’t seem to mind, as long as we fed him and cleaned up his shit.
More importantly, we weren’t supposed to have pets at all. We’d hidden him well for the past year.
At least Daisy and Belle were responsible. Melissa, on the other hand, had to be handled with care. I honestly didn’t know how she was going to survive working life—or life in general.
There was movement outside before I heard his voice—low, growly, and so, so sexy.
I glanced at Dottie, wondering if he’d judge me for flicking my bean to the grumpy neighbour’s voice. I sighed and tried to go back to sleep.
I didn’t need him to judge me when I was already judging myself.
Melissa’s high-pitched, fake laugh began to fade down the stairs.
What a wonderful start to my day.
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I couldn’t prove it unless I set up a camera, but Melissa was definitely still stealing my butter.
I’d kept it in my bedroom for a month, tracking every smear I used. This was pure Irish butter—from Irish cows, Irish cream, and the depths of my dwindling student budget. I bought three blocks for ￡5 from Farmfoods.
I went out of my way to bulk-buy there just to save money.
108 rolls of toilet paper for ￡20.
Those stayed in my room and were reserved for my ass only.
Student life wasn’t glamorous; it was pitiful if you didn’t have a rich mum or dad.
I stared at Melissa’s well-lubricated slice of toast, then glanced behind me at Daisy, crunching through her muesli. Belle had already left for class—she never ate breakfast.
She always had money for makeup, hairspray, and clothes—but never for food. I was convinced she stole from all three of us; we were just too polite to call her out. We moaned about it from time to time, but we all knew who the thief was.
I carefully lifted my egg and placed it on my buttered toast.
Melissa’s eyes locked on my egg, probably wondering why she hadn’t found them in the fridge.
That’s because they were locked away in my room.
“Why was Graves over?” I asked.
“He wanted to see me,” she said, taking another bite of toast.
“He came to fix her shelf,” Daisy said without looking up from her phone.
“You could’ve let us know. If he finds Dottie, we’re doomed.”
Daisy’s eyes flicked up from her screen for half a second. “She’s got a point.”
Yeah. Don’t be a dick, Melissa.
This was my final year—thank God. Then I could unleash my accounting powers on the world during my placement year and finally start earning some real cash.
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The lecture hall smelled faintly of instant coffee and the usual stale stench of crushed dreams, compounded by poor ventilation.
I scanned the room—half the students bright-eyed and scribbling like they were auditioning for The Apprentice, the other half hollow shells staring into the middle distance, pens dangling loosely between their fingers.
The girl two rows down had perfected the art of sleeping with her eyes open. Across the aisle, a mature student in a wool cardigan nodded thoughtfully at every sentence, the kind of enthusiasm that made me question my own life choices.
Professor Bains shuffled to the podium in brown trousers and a matching jacket that might once have been a few shades darker, topped with a knitted green vest that could double as camouflage in a mossy forest. He clutched a stack of papers like they were the last remnants of civilisation.
“Today,” he began, clearing his throat, “we’ll be covering updates to the Corporation Tax Act.”
A collective groan rippled through the hall—not loud, but palpable. The sound of countless souls quietly wilting.
He pressed on with the kind of grim determination only a man who’s given the same lecture every year since 1994 could muster. “You’ll note the adjustment to marginal relief…”
I underlined a few key phrases to look engaged. The truth was, I was more interested in the way the fluorescent light flickered against the ceiling. By minute twenty, I was calculating how long I could hold my breath before passing out—purely for research purposes, of course.
Two hours later, I left with a head full of tax law and an existential crisis. It wasn’t that I hated accounting—I just wasn’t sure I wanted to live and die by spreadsheets.
Daisy was heading into teaching, Belle was involved in drugs—or the legal term, the pharmaceutical industry—and Melissa was studying media and communication. I still had no idea what that even was. Their lectures surely couldn’t be as dull as mine.
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I emptied the last bag of popcorn into the plastic bowls before heading back into the living room. The girls had paused the movie and were chatting. I was halfway to the couch when I realised what they were talking about.
“You shagged Nathan, Daniel, and Callum in their dorm room?” Belle asked, eyes wide, while I mentally tried to calculate what went where.
Melissa nodded, her perfectly plucked eyebrow raised in triumph. The smug look was well deserved. I sighed—not in judgement, but disappointment in myself. I wished I had even a fraction of her confidence.
“Wasn’t it… awkward?” Daisy asked, eyes razor-focused on Melissa. “You know with all that man meat?”
“I mean, there was a little bit of fumbling in the beginning,” Melissa said, laughing lightly, “but we all found our groove. Total dickfest though. I have no regrets.”
There she was, three dicks in one night, and I’d had one and a half my entire time at uni.
She just oozed sex appeal. I, on the other hand, probably looked like a nerdy boy with long hair.
I shoved the bowl of popcorn onto Melissa’s lap and sat on the corner of the couch next to Belle.
I was not jealous of her sordid cockfest.
“Well, to be fair, she had one for each hole,” Belle sniggered.
“Ewww,” I said, elbowing her as Daisy hit play on the movie.
“Actually, Callum and Dan fit in one.”
I nearly choked on my popcorn. Trust Melissa to turn movie night into a horror.
Yet I began to wonder which orifice.
Lucky bitch.