Chapter Three #2
Roxy let her gaze run discreetly through the apartment.
Good God, the place was a veritable palace by Manhattan standards.
Massive common area, renovated kitchen complete with stainless steel appliances.
The décor was modern industrial with a homey twist. She’d bet .
.. twenty bucks that it had been decorated by a professional.
Exactly zero IKEA furniture assembly had taken place here.
At least until she’d move in with her ragtag possessions.
What would these girls think when they saw how few items she called her own?
She pushed that worrisome thought aside and decided she would do whatever it took to call this place home.
It felt like a home. Not just some place to crash, like she’d been doing off and on for the last two years.
“Well.” She reached into her backpack’s front pocket and pulled out her checkbook. “No need to search any further. Two girls here, two rooms. I’m shitty at math, but it seems like a good fit.”
When Converse took her cue, Roxy decided she liked the blonde already. “Do you take cash? I got a whole heap of it.”
Then again, maybe not. “The first order of business might be to delete the ad,” Roxy suggested. “Before the police arrive in riot gear.”
“I already did that,” CP burst out. “It was only up for five minutes. They just keep coming.”
Roxy strode toward the window, winking at the polished brunette as she passed.
“Let me take care of that for you.” She yanked open the window and stuck her head out.
Christ, it looked like an episode of The Walking Dead out there.
Accurately enough, she had a feeling some of them would chew off another person’s arm for a chance at the ridiculously low rent.
“ Hey, ” she shouted. “ You weren’t fast enough, shitheads. Room’s gone. Beat it .”
She closed the window on a chorus of B-words screeched in her honor. Honestly, if one more person called her a bitch today, she might take it to heart. Maybe, but not likely.
“Thank you,” CP sighed, wilting down onto a dining room chair. “The super already hates me because I called him the wrong name for two weeks.”
“What’s his name?” Converse asked.
“Rodrigo.”
“What were you calling him?”
“Mark.”
Converse made a sympathetic noise. “Easy mistake.”
Oh, boy. There might be two pairs of crazy pants being worn in this room. Hoping to restore some sense of sanity, Roxy held out a hand toward the brunette. “Well, I’m Roxy Cumberland. If you call me the wrong name, I promise I won’t wait two weeks to let you know about it.”
“I’m Abigail. Abby for short.” They shook hands. “I live here.”
“I put that together.” Roxy raised an eyebrow at the blonde. “And you are?”
The teeth that were revealed by her smile might have been the whitest pair Roxy had ever seen. That was saying something, considering actresses whitened their teeth regularly. “Honey Perribow. Pleasure.”
“Same,” Roxy murmured before turning back to Abby. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to your last roommates?”
“I’ve never had any.” Abby looked around the apartment as if seeing it through fresh eyes. “I’ve been here by myself for five months.”
She’s effing loaded. “Really.”
“Yes. Except for the ghost.”
“Ghost?” Honey squeaked.
Abby grinned. “Just kidding.”
Roxy actually found herself laughing under her breath. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. She just needed to guarantee her spot in the apartment, then she’d figure out the money situation. In her pocket, the slip of paper with the strip-o-gram rates glowed hot.
Before she could say a word, Honey put a hand over her heart, Pledge of Allegiance– style, and spoke up. “You know, I feel honor bound to inform you that these rooms could be rented out for a heck of a lot more than two hundred dollars.”
Roxy shot the blonde a look. “Can’t put a price on good company.”
Abby held up a hand. “I’m aware of what the rooms could go for. I work in finance. Also, duh.”
“So what’s the deal?” Roxy asked, genuinely curious. And a little suspicious. “Is there something wrong with the place? Rats ... bad plumbing ... neighbors with rifles and a grudge against the youth of America?”
“No, none of that.” Abby raised an eyebrow. “Where have you been living?”
“It’s a jungle out there.”
“Amen to that,” Honey piped up. “I’ve been to three apartment showings this morning. One was a dirty old man who offered free rent in exchange for naked maid service. I barely fit into the other two rooms. I’m pretty sure one of them was a broom closet.”
Abby stood up and started to pace across the Persian rug–covered floor.
Based on the worn-out section down the center, Roxy decided this chick must pace a lot.
“I could have offered the rooms to some of my colleagues. Or listed them at a higher price. But my colleagues are, well, they’re assholes.
I get enough of them at the office.” She blew out a heavy breath.
“I’m bored, okay? I’m bored and lonely and I have no friends. ”
Roxy rocked back on her heels, finally seeing the big picture. “So you thought you’d buy a couple friends to entertain you?”
“And yet still not the weirdest thing that happened to me today,” Honey muttered.
“When you say it like that, it sounds horrible.” Abby shrugged. “Okay, it’s a little horrible. But mostly, it’s a cry for help. I’m starting to talk to myself. I’m talking two-sided conversations, here. It would be nice to say ‘pass the orange juice’ to someone other than the ghost.”
Honey shifted on her feet. “I’m going to need the ghost jokes to stop here.”
Abby’s mouth tugged at the corner. “So? In or out? I’m throwing caution to the wind. I’m not going to do credit checks because, honestly, I don’t need the money bad enough to care. You both seem relatively normal in a way that tells me I won’t be fearing for my life. Move in today?”
Roxy tapped the checkbook against her thigh.
A minute ago, she’d been ready to do whatever it took to live in this apartment.
Now she wasn’t so sure. Abby had thrown down the one requirement Roxy didn’t feel comfortable offering.
Friendship. Not that she didn’t have friends, per se, but they were mostly girls she ran into at auditions who only had five minutes for conversation before they took off on their next theatrical quest. What passed as communication with her old roommates had consisted of a palm being held out on the first of the month, looking for that elusive rent check.
But this? This would be different. She’d be expected to interact.
Drop character. She hadn’t done that in a while.
Especially since she’d been on her own. In high school, she’d brought antisocial to a whole new level, and after facing so many setbacks in New York, she’d grown even more comfortable in her me-against-the-world cocoon.
Despite Abby’s assurances to the contrary, Roxy could see this for what it was.
A rich girl looking to rebel. She wanted companionship, someone to talk to and possibly confide in.
Roxy had never been anyone’s confidante save her own.
Against her will, she felt a spark of sympathy for Abby.
In the brief moments since entering the apartment, she’d kind of started to like her.
But she wasn’t what Abby was looking for.
She didn’t do girly chats. She didn’t share giant bowls of popcorn while a New Girl marathon played in the background.
For two years now, she’d been on her own.
Something told her that if she wrote this check—this bad check—that would change. Was she ready?
Screw it. What choice did she have? She took a pen out of her backpack, wrote a check for two hundred dollars, then handed it to Abby. “Can you, uh, wait a couple of days to cash that?”
Abby watched her closely, too closely, before nodding. “Sure.”
To her left, Honey approached with a fist full of twenties. “I’m in, too.”
“Well.” Abby shoved the cash and check into the front pocket of her blazer. “Shall I cook dinner for us tonight?”
“Don’t push it,” Roxy said, just as Honey answered, “I’ll make the salad.”
Roxy headed toward the front door, shaking her head. “Catch you girls later. Don’t wait up.”
When she closed the door behind her, she stood in the silent hallway for a beat before grabbing her cell phone from the side pocket of her backpack.
Cursing once under her breath, she dialed the number on the slip of paper, just beneath the strip-o-gram rates.
No other way she’d be able to bank two hundred dollars in time for Abby to cash the check.
She supposed she could scramble and try to find a waitressing job, but she knew from experience that restaurants usually required at least a full shift of training without pay before they let you take home tips.
She’d never been trained in bartending. No, on short notice, this was all she could come up with.
Looked like she’d be using Louis McNally the Second’s twenty-buck tip to get a cheap wax.