44. Chapter 44
Chapter 44
“What do you mean you don’t have any rooms left in the graduate student dorm? I sent in my deposit months ago.”
A harried man in his fifties with glasses and a combover sighed. “Exactly what I told you, Miss Fitz. This is the only room left on campus. We’re at capacity.”
I rubbed my fingers over my forehead. At this rate, I’ll have wrinkles before I turn twenty-five. “I can’t stay in the undergrad dorms. I need quiet so I can study.”
“I’m sorry. The only thing I can suggest is that you fill out the form online requesting a room change. If anything becomes available, we place students in the order in which the forms are received. If it makes you feel any better, we often have a few dropouts after the first round of examinations.”
“And how many people have filled out forms so far for this semester?”
He clicked the keys of his computer for what seemed like an eternity before answering. “Ninety-two.” My hope plummeted. Sliding a card toward me with a sympathetic smile, he said, “The web address for the form is on here. Best of luck to you. ”
Turning away, I exited the student housing office and quiet-screamed while stamping my feet in frustration. A girl with a bright-purple bob gave me the side-eye and cut a wide berth around me.
“Fuck off,” I muttered under my breath, taking the stairs down to the first floor. “What a nightmare.” I trudged across campus to fucking Manning Hall with my dorm key card in my pocket.
The sounds of music and partying drifted down the hallway as I found my room on the first floor. Great, it’s started already. My eyes flitted around the room. It was a double, one twin bed on each side of the room, with two dressers and two closets. A small bookshelf sat in the corner, but there wasn’t even a damn desk. And we had to share a bathroom. The dorm room I was supposed to be in had a shared living space, but each student had their own bedroom and bathroom for privacy.
“This sucks,” I told the empty room as I sank onto one of the tiny beds and set my backpack on the floor beside me. I pulled out my laptop and quickly filled out the dormitory change request form before anyone else got in front of me. Just as I hit Send , my phone rang, and I pulled it out to see that Cam was calling.
“Hey, we’re pulling into the parking lot. Did you get your room key?”
I tried not to sound as weary as I felt. “Yes, but there’s a change of plans. There was a mix-up or something, and I’ve been placed in Manning. It’s near parking lot 34-A.”
“Okay, hold on a sec. Hawk, we need to go to lot 34-A.” Even the sound of his name made my heart thump with excitement. I heard rustling and knew he was looking at the campus map. “Let’s see, that’s down that road and to the left.”
“On it,” I heard Hawk’s deep reply.
“I’ll meet you down there,” I said, standing and placing my card in the back pocket of my jean shorts before heading outside again.
An hour later, Cam and Hawk had carried all of my storage bins inside, and I was unpacking so Hawk could store them in his garage. This room was really fucking small.
My cousin was in the tiny bathroom, putting away my towels and toiletries while Hawk was helping me store my clothes.
“Mal, you want your shampoo and shit in the shower or on this shelf?” Cam called as Hawk grabbed a handful of my underwear and put them in the top drawer of the dresser.
“The shelf is fine,” I called back, widening my eyes when Hawk picked up my purple thong and stuffed it down the front of his pants. I hissed, “What are you doing?”
“I don’t have any purple ones in my Mallori collection.” His grin was pure wickedness. “I prefer ones you’ve already worn, but this will have to do.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “And how many collections do you have.”
He tilted my chin up with gentle fingers, his lips almost touching mine. “Only yours, baby.” Fuck, why is he so hot? We jerked apart just in time as Cam walked back into the room.
“So where’s your roommate?” he asked.
“They staggered the move-in times so everyone wouldn’t be trying to get their stuff moved at the same time. She should be here this afternoon. ”
“Do you know her name or anything about her?” my cousin asked, attempting to sound casual. He probably wanted to run a damn background check on her or something.
“I know nothing because I wasn’t even supposed to be in this dorm.”
“Huh.” He stuck his hands into his pants pockets and rocked back on his heels. “You about done? I thought I’d take you to lunch.”
My heart swelled with happiness. I didn’t want to be here alone. I was already missing Hawk, and he hadn’t even left yet. “Yeah, all done.”
Cam nudged his friend. “That okay with you, or do you have plans?”
Hawk’s eyes held mine. “I don’t have any plans.”
I had just arranged my textbooks on the top shelf of the bookcase when I heard the door click open. Standing, I put on a smile to greet my roommate. I’d had a good cry after Hawk and Cam dropped me off, and then I gave myself a kick-ass pep talk that did little to improve my mood. But I was trying.
“Hi, I’m Mallori,” I said cheerily to the girl who entered. She had an asymmetrical haircut, completely shaved on one side of her head and pitch-black locks hanging just below her other ear.
She gave me a once-over and then rolled her eyes. “‘Starla,” she muttered, placing a camo duffel bag on her bed.
A guy followed her in, sporting a matching haircut and several piercings on his face. He looked me up and down before toying with the ring in his bottom lip with his tongue. His gaze creeped me out a little, but I gave him a smile.
“And you are?”
“Donner.”
I smiled. “Like the reindeer?”
His lip curled up into a sneer, and he snapped, “No.”
Well, isn’t this nice? I made a friend.
I made it through my first two weeks of physical therapy school, and I absolutely adored my classes. What I didn’t adore was my roommate. Or her not a reindeer boyfriend. He was here. All. The. Time. He literally spent every night in Starla’s bed, and they were very… active, sexually speaking. With me in the room.
It was Friday afternoon, and I was running on fumes when I entered my dorm room to find Starla sitting alone on her bed. The TV was turned up to full blast, and I was pretty sure my blood pressure was nearing a dangerous level.
This was the first occasion that she’d been here without her boyfriend, so I decided to take advantage of his absence to have a little chat. I motioned for her to turn down the television, and she did with a roll of her eyes. She did that any time I tried to speak to her, to the point that I became concerned she might have some kind of extraocular muscle disease.
“Starla, hi. How has your week gone?” I asked politely.
She stared down at her laptop. “Fine.”
“Are your classes going well? ”
She inhaled and blew it out like I was annoying her. “Fine.”
“Where’s Donner?”
Starla kept her gaze on the screen when she answered. “Went to get us some food.”
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about some things,” I said, flipping through my mental list. “I was wondering if we could establish some quiet times each day. My coursework is very rigorous, and I need to do a lot of studying.”
My roommate was majoring in something called Ethical Hacking, whatever the hell that meant. I hadn’t seen her crack a book since we’d started classes.
“I like some noise when I’m studying or relaxing,” she replied in a bored voice.
“Yes, well, I don’t, and I live here too.”
“Then go study at the library. They have a couple quiet floors there.”
I gritted my teeth and resisted the urge to throw my shoe at her. “Since you enjoy spending time with Donner so much, I thought maybe you two could stay at his place sometimes. That would give me some time to study and maybe get a good night’s sleep without all the… noise.”
Starla was a screamer.
Her eyes flicked up to me briefly before going back to her magazine. “He doesn’t have a place. He got kicked out, so he’s staying with me until he finds another place to stay.”
What the hell?
“So, he’s living here,” I stated, and she shrugged.
“No. He’s just staying here. ”
Searching deep inside myself for a shred of patience, I said, “Starla, this room is small even for two people. With three, it’s pretty cramped.”
“Then go stay somewhere else,” she retorted.
“No, I paid for my housing here. Donner did not. I don’t mind if he visits, but he can’t live here.” She didn’t say anything, so I went on. “And when he does come for visits , could you please ask him to put the toilet seat down when he’s done?” And possibly try to improve his aim.
In response, she picked up the remote and turned the TV back up to full volume before going back to her computer.
This bitch…
Starla was seriously at risk of ending up with my hands around her skinny throat. Picking up my backpack, I stormed from the room, seeing fucking Donner headed toward me in the hallway.
“Hey, hold that door for me,” he requested, and that was literally the first time he’d spoken to me since move-in day.
Ignoring him, I slammed the door closed behind me and headed down the hall in the opposite direction. Let Starla get off her lazy ass and let him in.
“I’ll see what I can do, Mallori,” my dorm’s resident advisor, Rebecca, told me a few minutes after I’d told her the entire story.
“Thank you,” I said, sighing with relief. “I’ve tried to talk to her, but she and her boyfriend are both really hostile toward me. I’m not even supposed to be in this dorm. I was assigned to grad student housing, but when I got here,” I did ironic jazz hands, “surprise!”
Rebecca laughed. She was really sweet. “That sucks. Maybe another dorm will open up soon. You’re in a bad situation, but there’s just not much available.” She patted my hand. “I’ll speak with Starla, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll file a formal report.”
“I feel bad about reporting them,” I said, which was only about half true. “I just don’t know what else to do. I tried wearing noise-canceling headphones to bed one night, but then I didn’t hear my alarm and almost missed my first class the next day.”
When I left, I headed to the cadaver lab in the PT building to practice. We had a practical next week, and I needed to ace it.
“Hey, Mallori,” Scotty P. said as soon as I entered, and every cell in my body felt weary. I didn’t want to deal with his shit today.
I waved and headed to one of the cadavers laid out on the other side of the room, but he followed me. Today is not the day, Scotty P., and I am not the one.
Just as I was about to tell him off, he said, “I wanted to apologize for how I acted before, Mal. I was a real douche.”
Huffing out a laugh, I said, “Yeah, you kinda were.”
“I didn’t know you were dating anyone, but that’s still not an excuse. Do you think we could be friends?”
I lifted one eyebrow. “You mean real friends and not I’m going to trick you into going on a date with me friends?”
He laughed and held out a hand. “Real friends.”
With a reluctant smile, I shook his hand. “Okay, you got it. You want to practice with me for the practical next week? ”
He nodded enthusiastically. “Hell yes. Let me grab my notebook.” Returning a minute later, he dabbed some menthol beneath his nose to help with the strong odor of formaldehyde in the room and handed the container over to me.
“Thanks,” I told him, sticking my finger in and smearing some beneath my nose before donning a mask.
“No prob. This lab really fucking stinks, bruh.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that as we got started.