2. Rose
Rose
“I don’t want to pry and be that mom, but I need to know you’re doing okay,” Emmaline said. The muffled voice coming from her end of the phone told Rose she was talking on speaker, likely from under a car as she worked. “I really wanna be the cool mom.”
“You are a cool mom, and you call every week. I don’t think anyone would consider pre-arranged, agreed-upon check-ins to be prying.
” Rose wedged the phone between her shoulder and her ear, ignoring the sweat that covered both sides as she unlocked the back door and climbed the stairs to the second-floor apartment she shared with her two roommates.
“I’m doing well. Harper and Ainsley keep me sane, just like Aunt Paulie hoped they would. ”
“I owe that woman a case of beer and maybe a few hundred hugs for giving you a safe place to land,” her mom admitted before some clanking came through the phone.
Her mom and her aunt, Paulie St. James—a skilled pastry chef and the owner of a few cafés—looked nearly identical, even though they had close to twelve years between them.
Rose was the only one of her sisters who ended up with the deep auburn mane of curls, brown eyes, and freckles from the St. James side of the family.
“I doubt Aunt Paulie would accept it. Have you heard from her?” She let herself into the apartment and locked the door behind her, waving at one of her roommates as she passed the living room. “Is she going to make it to Christmas?”
“I think she said she was going to be in Indy? She was a little vague about the details. I think she worked another forty-eight-hour shift trying to get that place set up in Chicago,” her mom grumbled.
“She didn’t seem thrilled about missing out; she asked about you.
Wanted to be sure you hadn’t murdered the girls. ”
“Well, she warned me when I moved in that Ainsley and Harper are worse than Josie and Elle; I can confirm they are more dramatic.” Rose winked at Ainsley as she shot up off the couch, her purple-streaked blonde hair flying around her face where the protest was clear.
She stopped any outburst with a quick, “But I love them; they’re the best roommates I could have ended up with. ”
Ainsley relaxed, a blinding smile splitting her girl-next-door face as she flopped back onto the couch and lifted her textbook above her head again.
Rose dropped into the corner seat, untying her laces as she kept the phone wedged in place.
Their apartment wasn’t big like those mansions she was running by out near the lake, but it took up the space of the two storefronts Aunt Paulie owned beneath them, a prime position that sat across from the freshman dorms on the edge of Montgomery University’s campus.
She really owed her aunt a few dozen hugs for letting her have the spare room when she transferred from Westmont.
Finding anywhere better outside of the dorms would have cost her a third of her liver and maybe a kidney.
Plus, the apartment came with assigned parking on the street, so she had her restored Bronco parked within spitting distance of the massive wall of windows that showcased the lit-up campus on the other side of the street.
She must have been quiet for too long because her mom’s voice was hesitant when she asked, “Are you okay?”
The question had her remembering a set of gray eyes in a handsome face with wavy dark hair.
Kirin Callaghan.
She’d have to be dead three times over not to know who owned those eyes after a summer on the Montgomery campus.
Though she knew who he was from her time at Westmont, Kirin was one of the two players that made her ex-boyfriend’s life hell.
The tight end was the best in their conference, and when he and Leon, the quarterback, were on the same wavelength, they had a special skill for getting around the Westmont defense.
She’d been to enough college parties to know Leon and Kirin were cursed to the high heavens constantly.
Plus, he was the older brother of her captain, Laurel Callaghan.
She blinked, shoving the face that had trouble written all over it to the back of her mind as she refocused on her mom’s voice.
“I’m good.” She said it with the same forced enthusiasm she used every time they talked.
There was no doubt in her mind she would be good eventually, but she’d been faking it for long enough that she knew “fake it till you make it” no longer applied to her situation.
For now, she just needed to keep her parents calm enough that they didn’t drag her home, and part of that was keeping her head down and avoiding more drama.
Her mom hummed. “Care to explain why they ejected you from your game tonight?”
“No, it was a mistake and misunderstanding that won’t happen again.” She shifted and gnawed at the corner of her thumb.
Tonight’s ejection was almost expected. Westmont had always played just shy of dirty.
She knew that better than anyone. But now that she was on the opposing side, she wondered if they had been crossing the line all along.
Maybe they doubled down because she used to be one of them.
Either way, multiple players yanking on her hair, stomping on her ankles while driving their elbows into her ribs, and taunting her definitely wasn’t a mistake.
She’d dealt with that, but when they went after the freshman, she snapped, and getting ejected was worth it to protect her teammate.
In the silence through the phone, she could imagine her mom’s brows furrow, her mouth opening like she wanted to object.
Fortunately, the door to the apartment burst open, the odd Post-it fluttering through the air at the sudden shift before a tumble of grocery bags and a neon striped backpack made their way through the door with a loud huff.
A brunette popped up a second later, red cheeks and bright eyes visible around her smile.
“Honey! I’m home,” she crowed, and Rose grinned. “Who the fuck locked the door? I almost walked into it!”
“I’ve gotta go. Looks like Harper went food shopping. But I’m good. I’ll talk to you next week. Give my love to the fam, please.”
“Always.” Her mom’s voice was sweet when she said her usual goodbye. “I love you, my sweet girl.”
“I love you too, Mama,” she said and hung up.
“Are you just going to lie there? You promised you’d help,” Harper said as she used her feet to shove the heavier bags from the doorway into the kitchen.
Ainsley groaned and rolled off the couch, landing on all fours before she stood up and crossed to the kitchen. “We should be at the Jackson house party tonight.”
“I told you to go without me,” Harper objected. “I had to show my face at game night or they were going to kick me out of the group. And we were out of so much crap, I needed to stop by the store.”
“I can’t roll up to a party without a wing woman. It’s awkward as hell.” Ainsley gave them both wide eyes, as if it explained everything.
“That’s true,” Rose said while rifling through the bags for whatever needed to go in the fridge.
Harper snatched the errant Post-its off the floor, humming under her breath as she stared at the back of their door.
Neon Post-its covered many of their walls; some were roommate notes, while others were reminders and shopping lists.
Harper’s obsession with them was one quirk Rose had to adjust to when she moved in.
“I think the blue ones go on the left. That’s supposed to be scheduling, right? ”
“Right,” Harper agreed, sticking the blue one back on the calendar they shared.
“See?” Ainsley said, ignoring them as she pointed at Rose like she just made the point of the century. Harper rolled her eyes. “This is the only party Harrison will for sure attend. You just wimped out!”
Rose put the strawberries and blueberries in the drawer, sliding the Cool Whip onto the shelf as Harper crushed the emptied grocery bags into the storage under the sink.
“I told you I had to go to game night and then the grocery store, and my stupid brother called so that took time,” Harper grumbled before sending Rose a pleading look.
“We already agreed to go to that soccer party next week,” Rose cut in, raising an eyebrow.
She hoped it would distract Ainsley long enough to keep her off Harper’s back about her crush on what’s-his-face Harrison, the kicker for the football team.
“Yes, we are going. You both promised. Your brother is dumb—no point wasting time on him when he doesn’t listen. He’s always bitching about how you can’t make a living. It only proves how ignorant he is. And don’t think I’ve been distracted,” Ainsley stated, pointing an accusatory finger at Harper.
“I didn’t say which one it was,” Harper grumbled.
“They’re all dumb. I’ve met them. Idiots, the lot of them,” Ainsley raved, waving her finger around as Rose chuckled, earning a sharp look from Ainsley.
She quieted down, lifting her hand in surrender as the blonde continued.
“My point is, you need to do something about this crush, and talking to Harrison is step one.”
“A crush doesn’t need to be acted on. What if he’s some awful troll and I’ve built him up in my mind?” Harper widened her eyes and tilted her head like it was an alarming and obvious concern she was considering.
Rose threw her roommate a look that had Ainsley grinning. “I’m going to take a shower. Please order some food, I don’t trust either of you to cook.”
The last time Ainsley tried to cook it ended in their fire alarm going off and having to evacuate half the block.
She was almost to her room at the other end of the apartment when she heard Ainsley whisper to Harper, “You just need to rip the damn Band-Aid off. He was nice to you in your humanities class.”
“We spoke five words. ‘Here you go’ and ‘thank you’ aren’t exactly the grounds for a classic love story,” Harper argued. “I doubt he knows my name, and it’s not like that would give me any idea of him as a person.”
“But—” Ainsley started, and Harper hissed.
“What do you want to eat?” Harper’s tone offered zero chance for Ainsley to think they could keep talking about this.
“Tiki Todd’s?” Ainsley offered after a second.
While Rose was new to their little threesome of apartment inhabitants, Harper and Ainsley had known each other since freshman year, when they were assigned as roommates.
And the struggle between the bubbly Ainsley and the more reserved Harper was one that took up a lot of the conversations in their shared space.
Odd as their friendship seemed, love and respect were strong enough that Rose could see it, even in the ribbing they gave one another now and then. She missed that aspect of her own relationship with her best friend, Kenzie. And as pushy as Ainsley could be, she knew when to back off.
“Hell no, did you see the reviews? They lost their cook last month, and it’s gone downhill fast. I vote Wok and Roll or Jade Dynasty,” Harper said. “Plus, leftovers will last us through most of the week if we order strategically.”
“Jade Dynasty it is!” Ainsley clapped, and the uneven beat of her skipping across the kitchen followed it, then the sound of her rifling through a drawer, no doubt searching for the menu.
“What do you want from Jade Dynasty, Rose?” Harper asked, her head popping around the wall, a smile at the ready.
“My usual, please.” Rose forced another smile, then stepped into her room, closing the door behind her and leaning against it. The smile slid off her face.
She shouldn’t have agreed to go to that party next week.
She’d been dreading stepping into the world of casual drinking and crowded rooms again after nearly a year away from that life.
It made her skin feel two sizes too small and her heart pound hard enough she worried it might give out.
Though it might be okay, she would have Ainsley and Harper with her.
It only made her miss her best friend more, but Kenzie was half a world away in the middle of a war zone.
Rose pulled her phone out and opened the ongoing thread of memes and messages between them.
Rose
Miss you.
Rose made it through her shower and was drying her hair when her phone lit up. She swiped at the screen to find Kenzie’s response.
Kenzie
Miss you too. Why aren’t you partying? It’s Saturday there, isn’t it?
Rose
I was party-adjacent during my run. Does that count?
Kenzie
No, why didn’t you drop by if you were close?
Rose
Other than the sweat and smell, I didn’t feel like partying.
Kenzie
You’ve gotta live your life. Don’t let that ass win.
Rose
I can’t go back into that atmosphere on a whim, especially not in enemy territory.
Kenzie
You’ve gotta trust someone sometime, babe. You’re one of them now.
Rose
I doubt anyone sees it like that.
Even as she typed it, she could hear her best friend’s raspy laugh. Kenzie didn’t take no for an answer, and she’d encouraged that in Rose from the moment they met in junior high.
Kenzie
Make them.
Rose snorted.
Kenzie
It’s that easy. Own it.
Rose
What do you expect me to do?
Kenzie
Attend a party, girl. For me.
Talk later. Love you, Ro.
Rose
Love you, Kenz. Be safe.
Kenzie
Promise.
“Rose, food!” Harper called from the kitchen.
Spinning her hair into a topknot, Rose tucked her phone in the pocket of her joggers.
Maybe it was as easy as deciding to make them believe she was one of them.
But that meant showing up at parties instead of hiding in her apartment and the library like she’d done all summer, and that still seemed like a bad idea.
The soccer party next Saturday would be her test.