Chapter Seven
Danika
“I’m so sorry, Dani,” Sydney cries on the phone. “I know I promised you we’d live together, but my…family needs me. I have to stay home, at least for a while.”
I sigh, plopping onto the chair in the cafe. “Of course, Syd. You need to do what’s best for you and your family. I completely understand.” After a few more tearful pleasantries, we hang up.
After graduation, I spent the summer bouncing around the East Coast, spending most of my time with Margot at Alex’s apartment or staying with Sydney’s family, making any excuse to not go home to my own.
While Margot was planning her big move to Boston, Sydney and I agreed we’d find a smaller apartment off campus and live together for a few more years while I’m in medical school and she’s figuring out what she wants to do.
But this phone call just changed everything.
Of course I want Sydney to be there for her family.
She said on the phone that her little sister is sick with something serious so of course, she should be with them.
I don’t fault her at all, but it puts me in a position of being totally homeless the weekend of my first semester of medical school. As if that wouldn’t be hard enough.
Pulling out my laptop, I search up “seeking female roommate” on craigslist and begin scrolling through the bleak options. I’m on my sixth big-fat-nope when a familiar voice from behind startles me.
“Craigslist? Are you trying to get murdered?”
Arden slides in the seat next to mine, sipping his coffee.
It’s the first time I’ve seen him since graduation.
I didn’t spend much time in South Carolina during the summer, but I’m pretty sure he stayed in his apartment near campus most of the summer anyway.
Margot had mentioned he was working somewhere nearby.
His dark hair is buzzed close to his head, letting his prominent dimples shine through his cheeks.
His green eyes, distractingly similar to his little sister’s, dance with mirth as he looks at me over the lid of his to-go cup.
The slight stubble on his chin is new and his muscles, well it’s clear he’s been working out this summer.
He’s always been fit but damn. Snap out of it, crazy.
“Hi, Arden.”
“Hey, brat.” I roll my eyes at the nickname he gave me when I was ten years old. Somehow it stuck and I never really cared enough to make him stop using it. “How was your summer?”
“Pretty uneventful. Spent most of it with your sister.”
“Ah, so you’re the reason she didn’t come see me at all.”
I tsk. “Pretty sure you were too busy working all the time for any visitors.”
One of those pesky dimples appears on his cheek as he grins. “Did you wanna visit me, brat?” He’s toying with me, as he sometimes does. Too bad I’m not in the mood.
“Nope. And if you don’t mind, I’ve got something going on so—”
“I see that,” Arden nods toward my computer screen. “Working on your death wish.”
“Plenty of people find roommates on craigslist and don’t die.”
“Plenty, huh? Sounds like a great statistic.”
I huff, really needing him out of my space so I can focus on the task at hand.
If I don’t find a roommate by the end of the week, I’m toast. I’m gonna have to move back home and give up this dream all together.
I’ll probably have to work at that stupid factory that everyone works at and I am so not into manual labor.
And I can’t even think about living with my parents again—
A snap in my face breaks me from my frantic thoughts.
“Danika. Did you hear me?”
“What?”
“I said move in with me.”
For a moment I’m stunned into silence. Just for a moment though because in the next one I’m laughing the deepest belly laugh I’ve had in a long time. If I were drinking anything right now, it’d come straight out of my nose. What an absolutely comical idea.
“Oh man, thanks for that, Ard. I really needed a laugh,” I say, wiping a tear from my cheek. When I look at him though, expecting to see the same joke in his expression, he’s stone cold serious.
He remains quiet as I pull myself together and realize he’s not kidding. He genuinely wants me to move in with him.
“Have you lost your ever-loving mind? In what world would I move in with you? What happened to your roommate?”
I never met him but I know Arden was living with a senior engineering major.
“Dale moved out after graduation. I worked all summer to make up the slack but now that classes are starting again, I need someone to take that extra room. It’s kind of a perfect situation actually.”
“It might be perfect on paper, but, peepants, we’re going to kill each other.”
“Okay rule number one of living together: ‘peepants’ is out.”
I laugh incredulously. “I haven’t agreed yet! You can’t be making rules already.”
“Come on, Danika. This is stupid.” Arden sighs. “I need a roommate. You need a room. Just move in.”
I think for a moment. It really is a perfect situation. I won’t have to live with a total stranger while starting med school. And Arden works so much that he probably won’t even be home that often. As long as we have separate bedrooms…Duh, of course you’ll have separate bedrooms.
Closing my laptop, I look up at him. “This is the absolute worst idea you’ve ever had.”
“Worse than the time we snorted pepper up our noses to see who could sneeze the most?”
“Oh yeah, that was a pretty bad idea. But yeah, I still think this is worse.”
Arden laughs.
On the table, my phone lights up with a text from Nico.
He reached out a few times over the summer but I always ignored him.
I really should block his number, I’m not sure why I haven't yet. I think a little part of me enjoys the obsessiveness. Not enough to get back with him but, it’s nice to feel wanted.
Rolling my eyes, I turn my phone over without looking at the message.
All I saw was “baby” and that was enough for me.
When I look back at Arden, the playfulness has disappeared from his face. He glances from the phone to me before grabbing his cup and standing up.
“I’ll text you the address and get you a copy of the key.
Come by anytime after three,” he says, rather harshly.
I have no idea where the hostility came from but already it’s making me regret saying yes to this arrangement.
But he’s right. It makes perfect sense. He needs a roommate, I need a room. It’s not like we’re strangers.
Although, as I watch him walk out the cafe doors, I can’t help but think he’s more of a stranger to me now than he’s ever been.