Chapter 8 – Tessa
Chapter Eight
Tessa
Iwake up to screaming.
Not normal screaming. No, this is blood-curdling, horror movie, final-girl-discovering-the-body screaming.
And unfortunately, it’s coming from my side of the room.
“Tessa. Tessa! What the— What is that?”
I sit up so fast I almost pass out. My heart pounds against my ribs. And for a moment, I honestly don’t know what she’s talking about.
Then I turn my head.
Oh.
Right.
Waffles.
He’s curled up beside me, snoring peacefully, with his face smushed into my pillow. Which is now partially wet.
Oh, good.
One of us was slobbering.
“It’s a dog,” I mumble.
“You brought a dog into our apartment?” Tiffany’s voice hits a pitch that could shatter my last nerve. “Like, a live animal? In here?”
Waffles stirs, lets out a tiny sigh, and resettles.
Okay, yes. Technically, this is bad.
It’s against the rules and the housing agreement I definitely threw away.
But, I mean, look at him.
He’s tiny and precious and 100 percent cute as a button. Unlike Tiffany, who is currently staggering backward like she’s going to catch rabies through the air.
“Do you even realize how unsanitary dogs are?” she gasps, gesturing wildly at Waffles. “They carry diseases!”
“You probably do, too,” I mutter, immediately regretting it.
Her eyes narrow. “Excuse me?”
This conversation is going downhill fast. “I’m just saying, I couldn’t leave him.”
Tiffany blinks.
“And you thought your bed was the answer?”
“I didn’t have a crate or anything,” I say defensively.
She glares at the pillow. “He’s literally shedding dirt.”
“It’s fine. I’ll wash everything, including the dog.”
It’s not even that bad. Just a few paw prints and something suspiciously leaf-shaped.
“Tessa,” she says, voice suddenly low and scary, “you have brought a possibly unvaccinated animal into our shared residence. This is the opposite of fine.”
I open my mouth. To say what, I don’t know. Maybe that Waffles has a great personality?
But before I can summon anything remotely coherent, she grabs her phone.
And that’s when the panic truly sets in.
“Wait,” I say, scrambling upright and holding out a hand. “Tiffany, just don’t call anyone yet. Please.”
She’s already scrolling. “What exactly do you expect me to do here? Pretend I didn’t wake up to a roommate cuddling a street animal?”
“He’s not a street animal,” I say. “He’s a dog. A small, well-behaved, incredibly quiet dog.”
“With fleas?”
“He does not have fleas!” Hopefully.
Tiffany lowers her phone, but her glare sharpens. “You have thirty minutes. And then I’m calling the front office.”
“Please—”
She holds up a finger. “No. This is your mess. I am not getting evicted because you had a hero moment in the middle of the night and adopted a feral animal off the sidewalk.”
“He’s not feral!”
“Thirty. Minutes.”
And with that, she spins on her heel, snatches her Hydro Flask, and storms out, radiating the righteous fury of someone who has never once violated an apartment lease.
Okay. Cool. Great.
I need a plan.
Preferably in the next thirty minutes.
I scoop Waffles off the bed, zip him into my hoodie the same way I did the night I first rescued him, and bolt across the street toward campus with the gut-sinking realization that I might’ve just torched my entire future for a creature with four legs and a questionable bladder.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m still walking with said creature zipped into my shirt. Waffles squirms. And I realize sweat has soaked through my bra.
Every passerby looks suspicious.
Waffles wriggles again, and I whisper into my own neckline, “I swear to all that is holy, if you blow our cover, I will cry.”
This was not the plan.
Well, to be fair, there was no plan. The plan was “save the dog, figure it out later,” which has backfired spectacularly.
Where do I even go?
Option A: The library. Quiet. Warm. Full of judgmental grad students who hate noise and love reporting things. No.
Option B: The med building. They’ve got couches in the student lounge and strong Wi-Fi. Also, cameras and bioethics majors who would absolutely not approve of me hiding a contraband canine under a layer of fleece.
Option C: My last resort. My most desperate, dignity-destroying, chaos-inviting option.
No. Nope. Not happening.
I’m not going to Rowan King.
He already has leverage. Walking back into his space uninvited, holding Exhibit A of my inability to function would be handing him ammunition and begging him to use it.
Besides, it’s not like he’d even open the door...
Would he?
Waffles lets out a tiny whine and nuzzles closer to my chest, and my heart clenches. Stupid dog. Stupid, perfect, soft-eared criminal.
I glance at the time on my phone.
Tiffany’s Pilates class ends in ten minutes.
My window is closing, and I am not taking him back to the shelter. I’m not. I can’t. I’ve made a lot of questionable decisions this year, but putting Waffles back into a concrete cage is not going to be one of them.
Which leaves me with one option.
A terrible, pride-annihilating option.
I don’t even remember making the decision.
One minute, I’m walking across campus. The next, I’m standing outside Rowan King’s building, staring up at it.
It’s tall, with exposed brick and likely soundproof walls. Which is honestly ideal for a guy who traffics in secrets.
Waffles shifts inside my hoodie. I tighten my arms around him, and he rests his chin on my chest.
I stare at the intercom panel for a long, painful moment.
R. King. Apartment 4B.
You know what else lives in 4B? My blood pressure. Because it’s currently four beats away from a full-blown breakdown.
I stand there, frozen. Maybe someone will swoop in and offer me a better option.
Nope.
Nothing.
I press the buzzer.
The intercom crackles.
“Yes?”
His voice is calm and slightly bored.
I clear my throat. “It’s me.”
“I know.”
Of course, he does. He probably installed a facial recognition program. Or has some ancient sixth sense for when I’m about to humiliate myself.
“I need help.” The words taste bitter on my tongue.
There’s a pause. A long one.
Then—
Bzzz.
The door unlocks.
No questions. No smug comments. No “Oh, how the tables have turned.” Just… access.
And that’s somehow worse.
The elevator ride to the fourth floor is the longest thirty seconds of my life. Waffles is too still, and my pride is hanging by a thread.
I reach his door and stop.
What am I even going to say?
Hey, remember that time you caught me committing a felony and then bandaged my arm without asking? Cool. So now I’ve escalated that by smuggling the evidence into my pet-free apartment, and I need your apartment as a temporary hideout.
He’s going to kill me.
Waffles lets out this soft little huff that I take as encouragement.
I lift my hand.
And knock.
Because sometimes rock bottom has cheekbones and a coffee addiction and lives in a fourth-floor corner unit.
And sometimes you’re so out of options, you’re willing to knock anyway.