Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Len
No girly shit in communal spaces.
That’s what he wants to add? I put real issues into the contract and he wants to tack on that I can’t put any girly shit in the communal spaces? I don’t even know what constitutes as girly shit, nor do I know if I own any.
I pull up the school app on my phone, my heart fluttering in my chest like a raging hummingbird. Is this a joke? He wrote down something just to be an ass, didn’t he? I search his name in the message directory, and when I click on it, I find an old message thread from back when he and Trish were together. From the sound of the thread, Trish had left her phone, and he’d messaged me to find out where we were.
I remember this night and I don’t want to.
This is all a terrible idea.
I hesitate, tapping my foot on the floor. Isaiah James and I should not be roommates. For one, he plays hockey. Dear God, why?
My only consolation is that the hockey team here is nothing. It’s not constantly thrown in my face like back home, but ugh . I’ve already written in the contract that he can’t have his equipment all over the place. I wanted to put in a clause that he couldn’t talk about hockey either, but I can’t censor someone’s words. That would go against everything I believe in. If he talks about hockey, I’ll leave the room.
My thumbs hover over the on-screen keyboard, poised to ask for examples of girly shit, but will it change my mind? I’m not the girliest person ever, anyway. I can’t think of one thing I own that would be labeled girly shit, so there’s no chance of it being left in the communal space.
If he wants to add this in, he can sit with his own anti-feminist verbiage and be the quintessential jock he is.
Girly shit. Ugh.
I bite my lip. If this one statement has me annoyed, what will having a jock—full-time, in my space—be like? Horrifying. It’ll top the cannabis lover or the girl who spoke loudly on the phone at all hours of the night.
However, he’s doing this contract for my benefit, and we both know it. He has the points racked up to live in Knightley. That’s obvious. If the Housing lady called him, it’s him. I don’t have a say. He’s being nice by talking to me first.
Instead of calling him out for his anti-feminist words, I pull my laptop toward me, sign the contract, and send it back. I don’t even have time to berate myself for my life’s choices when my laptop dings with a new email, and it’s his signed contract back with “Calling Housing now. Thanks, Len.”
At least he remembered to call me Len. I peer around the suite, specifically looking for…what? Pink glitter? Then I do a second scan to make sure none of my personal items are out. The place is bare compared to the dorm room I shared with Trish that had art and inspirational quotes on the walls. Our shared space was like everything else with us. On the surface, it had a full face of makeup, but when you wiped that away, what was underneath wasn’t always something nice to look at, let alone live through.
I open up the picture app on my phone and scroll until I get to some of the last pictures of Trish and me. She was so fun, so quirky. But she had a venomous bite like a King Cobra, and when she struck, she struck hard.
The picture on my phone vanishes, switching to an incoming call. I stare down at the word Dad , my body deflating. I can’t with this right now. I don’t want to talk about his future plans for my degree or coming back home or anything else he wants me to do that I don’t.
Tossing the phone aside, I decide to work in the living room to soak up as much alone time as I can before Isaiah moves in tomorrow.
God, my dad would find my living with a hockey player super ironic, wouldn’t he? He would laugh and laugh…
The door to the suite bounces off its hinges, and I’m startled awake. My heart hammers, and I shoot to my feet only to see a wide-shouldered body walking backward down the hall, followed by two more wide-shouldered bodies. The first two carry a TV, while the third carries a large tote.
I don’t recognize them, and when they stop to ask where Zaiah’s room is, I point in that direction on autopilot. Finally, the man himself strides through the door holding a small box.
“What is this?” I nearly shriek.
He grins. “I contacted Housing before they closed. Actually,” he appears smug for a second, “Karen and I have become good friends, and she kept the office open for a few minutes until I could get there. I signed the real contract, was handed the key, and I’m here.”
“Tonight?”
He shrugs. “Nothing specified I couldn’t, and it is my room now.” He peers around, grinning. “This is fucking awesome.”
The wide-shouldered guys come walking out of the room, and I point at them like they’re on display. “And who are they?”
“Freshmen.”
I blink at him. “You grabbed any old freshman on campus to help you move in?”
“No, freshman hockey players doing their lowly duty.” He shoves one of the guys playfully, who flips him off, and then he follows them to the door and locks it behind them.
A bout of stubbornness rears up, but what am I going to say? He can’t actually move into his room? It’s his . We have two contracts that have established that.
He saunters back, this time standing nearer. He’s taller than me by about a foot, and this close, it’s easy to see the cut of his jaw and wide shoulders. “Hey, Roomie. I want you to know how much this is saving my ass. I really appreciate it.”
Oh … “O-kay,” I stammer out, not expecting that.
He leans in, and my heartbeat skyrockets. His brown-eyed gaze narrows. “You have some crusty stuff on the corner of your lips.”
My face heats. Immediately, I reach my hand up and rub it away, mumbling how I fell asleep. Oh my God, it’s dried-on drool. This clock tower article is really taking it out of me. I’m exhausted.
The corners of his eyes crinkle. “You drool? If you’re going to take a nap on the communal couch, you should use your own pillow.”
“I don’t— Ugh . How are you here for only a minute and already annoying?”
“You’re the one drooling on shit. What if I had guests over and they sat on our drool pillows?”
Oh, fuck me . He already had guests over, and they looked straight at me. I peer down, still wearing my dancing gummy bear pj’s, and my hair is probably a freaking mess. Plus, he’s now had more visitors than I’ve ever had. Within seconds!
“I’m messing with you, Len.” He drops his enormous athlete hand onto my shoulder, making me jump. “It’s your place. You can look however you want.”
I frown even more at my choice of attire. “I don’t usually have drool on my face. I didn’t know you were coming or…or—”
“None of that matters.” He shakes me by the shoulders. “We’re about to get super close, Lenore… Wait, what’s your last name?”
“Um, Robert…son. Robertson.” I close my eyes briefly as dread rears its head. The urge to lie is strong, but no way he would put two and two together of who my dad is, anyway.
“We’re about to get super close, Lenore Robertson. Just you wait.”
I kind of want to opt out of the closeness right now. An awkward buzz creeps over my skin. Shrugging away from his large hand, I tell him I have work to do because already I feel the weight of the two issues I was worried about: hockey and Trish. And something tells me this eager beaver attitude of his means he feels it, too, but he’s intent on sweeping it under the rug.
He checks his watch. “Yeah, and I should get my room together.” Turning, he walks toward the spare bedroom like he’s been living here for months instead of a few minutes. I stand in place for a moment, wondering if I should ask him if he needs help. I did with everyone else. Start things off on a good foot and all that. Quickly, I run to my bathroom, redo my hair, and double-check there are no crusties on my lips before I head to his room.
I reach out to knock on his open door to let him know I’m here, but I pause as he takes out a couple of framed pictures. The first he puts back immediately, and I’m almost one hundred percent sure I spotted Trish, but the other, he places on the stand near the bed. A picture of his family—a smiling older couple with their arms around a younger version of Isaiah and an even younger girl.
The floor creaks underneath my feet, and he whips his head around. Damn . I didn’t even have time to knock. “J-just wanted to know if you needed help unpacking.”
The olive branch has been extended. When he says no, I can go work on my article.
“Actually, do you mind helping with the fitted sheet? I don’t know what wizard came up with the idea, but its usage eludes me.”
“Oh. Yeah.” I take a hesitant step forward. “Sure.”
Seems a little strange to touch his sheets, but okay. He points to a tote on the floor labeled bedding . At least they don’t look gross.
“They’re clean,” he says. “I see you over there eyeing them. I wouldn’t shove used sheets in your face on the first day.”
“Oh, is that a second day kind of thing?”
He thinks for a moment. “Maybe like a second month kind of thing.”
I smile, though it comes slowly to my face. He was always funny. That I remember. Trish would look at him with contempt every time he cracked a joke, like she was exasperated that he even talked. God, she’d be so pissed to know he was moving in here…with me.
That thought brings an even bigger smile to my face.
After getting the tote open, I bring his pale-gray sheets over to the bed and start to make it when I frown. It doesn’t fit. On a hunch, I peer down at the label. “Well…” I turn toward him, “I’ve found your problem. These mattresses are twin XLs. Not twins.”
“Wait, are you serious?”
“As a heart attack.”
He stares from the mattress to the sheet hanging from my fingers and back again. Then he starts to laugh. “I haven’t figured that out this whole semester.”
“How have you been sleeping?”
“I drape it across the mattress the best I can. Sometimes I use two of the other sheets.”
“Sounds like you’re in desperate need of a fitted sheet. It will change your life.”
“I’ll order one, thanks.”
“You know, I might have an extra. Let me look.”
“Really? Yeah.”
I walk from the room, shaking my head. He’s a senior and didn’t realize the beds were twin XLs. Like, what ?
I rifle through my closet and smirk when I pull out my spare sheets. It was the first sheet set that I came here with.
Pink polka dots.
He’ll love it.
Walking back with a pep in my step, I flourish the sheets. “Ta-da.”
His face drops. “Are you serious?”
I shrug. “Those with incorrectly sized sheets shouldn’t complain.”
His lips thin. “I can’t. This is ridiculous.”
“Oh, come on. You can use your own comforter and no one will even know.”
I start to make the bed while he sighs next to me. A smile pulls at my lips when I tug on the fitted sheet, waving like Vanna White when I’m finished.
“Looks girly,” he grumbles.
I bark out a laugh. “What was the rule about having girly shit out?”
He beams. “I thought you might like that.”
I study his smirk. Conniving. Teasing. “I knew you did it on purpose, you jackass. I’ll stack up all the pink and purple shit I have wherever I want.”
His chest rumbles with a laugh, his shoulders moving up and down like his body can’t contain it. Being this close to him again, I remember how in awe I was that his body dwarfed mine. Well, more like Trish’s because he was only ever close to her. He was a marble statue among normal men. As if an artist took his time chiseling at his face to make his perfect features.
The memory of the first moment I saw him shoots through me, but I quell it. It can’t be good to think these things about my new roommate and my ex-best friend’s ex-boyfriend.
Plus, none of what initially happened mattered. He ended up being a stupid hockey player, anyway.
Without another word, I pull the flat sheet on, then throw his pillow on the bed along with his steel-gray comforter, turning down the corner. “That actually looks good,” I muse, admiring how the pink and gray play off each other.
“It looks like I’m having an identity crisis.”
“It looks like you’re embracing your feminine side, which is hot as fuck.” I smooth a wrinkle out of his sheets, then freeze. Did I say that out loud? I press my lips together and peer up at his waiting gaze. “I didn’t mean you were hot as fuck. I meant that for a man to embrace that part of himself is super sexy. Any man. No one in particular. He could be, you know, a mad scientist intent on blowing up the world, but if he sleeps in sheets like these, at least he has a sexy side going for him.”
“All I heard was that you think I’m hot as fuck and sexy, and I have to tell you, Len, if we’re going to be roommates, you can’t let your deep, dark feelings for me interfere. This is strictly a platonic relationship.”
My face burns.
His lips twitch, then he bursts into a laugh. When I don’t join in, he abruptly stops. “Don’t look like I kicked your puppy, I was joking.”
“I knew— I know that.” Defiance laces my words, and I wish I’d taken the time to strain the vinegar out of them because now I sound like I care more than I actually do.
It’s silent between us for a moment while he continues to place his things around the room. I stand there, running my fingertips along his comforter. It’s going to be weird sleeping in the other room knowing he’s in here. I hope he doesn’t snore. Or invite girls over and be loud. Or—
“What are you writing your article about?”
I settle my nerves with a deep breath. “The clock tower.”
“Oh yeah? Interesting.”
“Yeah…” I hover there for a second longer before a familiar, uncomfortable feeling fills me. “I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll be working in my room and will head to bed after.”
“Okay. I have an early workout in the morning, so I might not see you, so see you…whenever.”
“Whenever,” I echo, then walk from the room as fast as I can, tension suddenly sliding off me once I hit the living room.
That wasn’t so bad. Weird and uneasy at times, but that’s to be expected with any new person moving in. We’ll get into a routine and it’ll be fine.
I hope.
I mean, I sincerely wish this won’t turn out to be a huge mistake, but because I know Zaiah, it feels like there’s so much more on the line.