I hung my hands on my hips, staring at all my stuff crammed into Holden’s room.
My room, now.
It was smaller than mine across the street, but still more than adequate. It had built-in bookshelves I could use for my tattoo machine, along with the needles, tips, tubes, and grips. The rest would be used to display my art. There was a small desk against the wall facing away from the window. I’d set up my gaming system there. The closet was actually larger, which was the biggest blessing of all. And though I was downgrading from a queen bed to a full, at least it was dry in here. I also had an en-suite bathroom and a window that overlooked the garden out back, one Holden had nurtured when he lived here.
I wondered who took care of it now.
“This isn’t terrible,” Giana said, startling me as she slid past me and right into the room. Her arms were full of my clothes that I was certain weighed more than she did, and she plopped them down on the bed before sitting next to them and catching her breath. She mopped her curls out of her face with one swipe of her hand and shoved her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. I marveled at how she’d shown up to help me move in a plaid skirt and thigh-high socks with whiskers at the top of them.
Riley came in after her, two boxes balanced in her arms. One of them had my textbooks and tattoo books in them, and the other was everything from my bathroom. The fact that she carried both of them like they were just a couple of pillows reminded me of all the strength packed into that tiny package.
What was it that her boyfriend called her?
Mighty Mouse.
She was in her usual athleisure, sporting NBU Football across the chest of her crop tank top. I wondered if she’d had that specifically made for her, since she was the only female on the team, and I doubted the staff had a crop top on the menu for team swag.
“I think you have more makeup than the entire Kappa Kappa Beta sorority house.” She huffed once she set the boxes in the corner of the room.
“Makeup is to me what football is to you,” I said.
“Wouldn’t that be tattooing?” Giana argued.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, they might be tied for first place in my heart.”
I met Riley and Giana through Julep last year. Riley was the North Boston University football team’s kicker and Giana worked for the team’s Public Relations department. They were both dating football players, and I half-blamed them for not helping me talk sense into Julep when she was falling for Holden.
Then again, Julep was engaged now, so I guess it was me who was in the wrong.
I couldn’t help it, projecting my own feelings toward football players onto my roommate when I saw so clearly that she was falling for the guy. Football players had ruined my life in high school, and as far as I was concerned, they were all assholes.
No matter how my three friends tried to prove that theory wrong.
I laughed internally, not missing the joke of me now living with three football players.
“I’m glad you took Leo up on his offer,” Giana said after a moment. “I would have forced you to sleep on mine and Clay’s couch otherwise.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Yeah, no, thanks. I don’t want to know the smutty book scenes that couch has been used to reenact.”
Clay was the safety on the team, and he and Giana had been dating two seasons now. Of course, that first season, they were technically only pretending to date, but it still counted.
“You think the couches here are any better?” Riley popped a brow.
I buried my face in my hands. “I’m already regretting this.”
“Regretting what?” a deep voice called behind me, and then Kyle Robbins was sliding into the room. He flopped onto the bed next to Giana, making her bounce into the air like she weighed nothing. “This is going to be the best time of your life.”
“Ew, Kyle, you’re sweaty! Get off,” Giana said, pushing him away.
Kyle Robbins was the definition of a douchebag — at least, in my experience with him. He made the most of the Name, Image, and Likeness opportunities he had as a college athlete, signing every deal offered to him no matter what the brand was. I had to unfollow him on social media because I swore if I saw one more sponsored post that he tried and failed to make seem natural, I was going to roll my eyes so hard they fell out of my head.
Sometimes I wondered how he was even on the team after all these years and all the shit he’d pulled — including ostracizing Riley her first year and nearly fighting Holden over Julep last season.
But when he got on the field, it was easy to see why he never had to worry about losing his position on the team. He was a beast — tall, strong, and freakishly fast with hands that never missed a ball thrown within ten feet of him.
“Oh shit, is that… a PlayStation?” Kyle asked, his gaze on my console before he arched a brow at me. “You game?”
“Hell yeah, she does,” Giana answered for me. I smirked a little at how proudly she said it, her chest puffed and chin high. “And she’s a bad ass, too. I’ve watched her play.”
“Huh,” Kyle mused. “We need to get you on Xbox, then we can really see how good you are.”
“Xbox is for twelve-year-old boys or grown men who live in their parents’ garage who don’t know how to play anything but First Person Shooter games,” I shot back.
He chuffed. “Let me guess, you’re more into RPG?”
“Games that require a little brain power instead of just a happy trigger finger? Yeah, I am.”
Kyle smiled, leaning back on his palms. “If you were a dude, I’d rag on you. But I’m honestly impressed you game at all, so I’ll let it slide.”
“Gee, thanks. My whole life has been made with your approval,” I deadpanned.
“I think we got the last of it,” Braden Lock said, and he somehow managed to fit himself into the room with the rest of the zoo.
He had his arms full of clothes, too, and instead of tossing them on the bed, he moved to the closet and hung them all up as if the two-dozen hangers full of dresses and jackets and jeans didn’t weigh more than a pound. He leaned his hip against the wall then, folding his arms and looking around.
Where Kyle was a clown, Braden was a teddy bear. He was short for a football player, five-eleven if I had to guess, and he spent his free time volunteering at our local homeless shelter as opposed to making deals with sneaker companies.
“I’m glad you got this room,” he said, his eyes washing over the space. “Holden was the cleanest of us all when he lived here.”
“Speak for yourself, Lock. My room is immaculate,” Kyle argued.
Braden snorted. “Immaculately clouded with cologne. Hate to tell you, bro, but you can’t cover up your farts no matter how much of that shit you spray.”
Giana and Riley laughed as Kyle grabbed my pillow and threw it at his roommate.
Our roommate?
“Hey, uh, Mary?” a new voice said, and I closed my eyes on an internal groan because I’d know that voice anywhere — even if it had aged and deepened from when it used to fill my headset years ago. “Where does this go?”
I turned toward the hallway, the rest of the crew craning their necks to do the same. At the end of it near the top of the stairs stood Leo.
He was leaning against the wall, one leg crossed over the other and a casual indifference in his stance. His lips were curled up on one side like he knew every secret you never told. One hand was in the pocket of his joggers, his arm relaxed, and yet his bicep bulged like he’d just finished working out. And in his other hand…
Was my fucking dildo.
My eyes nearly popped out of my head as panic and embarrassment ripped through me, but I didn’t let either one of those emotions latch on before I was storming the few steps toward him and yanking it out of his hand.
“What is wrong with you,” I whisper-yelled through my teeth.
“Hey, you told us to get everything out of the nightstand. I figured that was the most important item.” He nodded at the device clutched in my fist, and my neck heated even more as I tucked the thing behind my back and out of his view.
“What is it!?” Kyle asked, and then I turned just in time to find him and everyone else in the doorway, one head popping over the next like a bunch of fucking nesting dolls. All their eyes caught on the neon pink sex toy before I could turn and put it out of their view.
Kyle whistled at the same time Giana and Riley laughed. Giana’s laugh was a little shy, her cheeks turning pink. Riley seemed impressed. Braden was the only one kind enough to pretend like he didn’t see it as he dipped back into my room.
“Damn. Wouldn’t want to be the man to compete with that,” Kyle said with a smirk.
“Does that have multiple rotating levels?” Giana asked with an arched brow. “I think I read about one of those in a motorcycle club series last year.”
I let out a frustrated growl before slapping Leo’s shoulder with the only weapon in my hand before I realized what I was doing. “See what you did now?”
“What I did?” His mouth was hanging open. “You just hit me with your dildo.”
That made everyone down the hall burst into a fit of laughter, but my cheeks only burned more. Normally, I’d have something to shoot back at him and deflate his ego, but I was currently going against every fiber in my being and moving into the same damn house with the one boy I hated. Add in the fact that, although I knew this teasing was harmless, it also poked the very sensitive bruise left behind after years of being bullied in high school.
My nerves were frayed. My brain was scrambled.
I was quite possibly making the worst decision of my life.
It was an easy one to make when the alternatives were so depressing — live in a hotel until I ran out of money, sleep on someone’s couch, or, the worst of all, move home.
I swallowed, not even wanting to consider that a viable option.
But this…
This didn’t feel like the right one, either.
“This was a mistake,” I said, my voice a bit too quiet, and already I was marching down the hall. “I can find a hotel. I—”
My sentence was cut short when I was wrapped up from behind, and I squirmed in Leo’s grip pointlessly as he carried me back toward the bedroom.
The fact that he could even lift me like this made it hard to say a word — I was not tiny the way Riley and Giana were — but the fact that I was pressed up against every inch of him with his arm porn wrapped around me sealed the deal. I felt those biceps like a straitjacket and a warm hug all at once, his chest and abs pressed against my back and ass in a way that made it impossible not to blush.
“Relax, roomie. We’re just giving you a hard time.”
His voice was right in my ear, his breath warm on the back of my neck, and I hated how chills broke out over my skin at the combination.
“Not as hard of a time as that guy in your hand, I imagine, but— oof!”
I cut his smart-ass remark short with a drive of my elbow into his gut.
“It’s how we show love,” Kyle added with a grin when I was carried through the threshold of my room against my will.
“Put me down,” I said through my teeth.
Leo carefully set my feet back on the ground, my backside running down the length of him in the process. I ignored the heat crawling over me as I put distance between us and crossed to where my new nightstand was. I opened the top drawer and shoved the hot pink monster in there before slamming it shut and turning to face the room.
“If this is going to work, we need rules,” I said.
“Rule number one: No hitting roommates with supersized sex toys.” Leo held up his pointer finger with a mischievous smirk on his lips.
I ground my teeth, fingers curling into fists. I was ready to pull my toy back out and hurl it at his head before calling a moving company regardless of whether I could afford it or not. There had to be a seedy hotel in this city that could serve as a makeshift home for a couple of months without bleeding me dry.
Anything was better than this.
It was a mistake, one I made in a moment of desperation when it seemed like there were no other options. I was already moving to grab the first box off the floor and hike it back across the street when Braden put a hand on my shoulder, stopping me.
I looked up to find his soft blue eyes under bent brows, and I couldn’t explain how or why, but just that one look made me release a slow, easy exhale.
“Hey,” he said, squeezing where he held me. “Don’t let these clowns get under your skin. Their humor off the field is almost as bad as their game on the field.”
That earned him a snort from both the guys.
“We want to help,” he said loudly enough to drown them out, and at that, he stood and pinned his roommates with a glare. “And if setting some ground rules will make you feel more comfortable, we’re all ears. Right, guys?”
Kyle’s cocky grin faltered a bit, and he nodded. “Of course. He’s right, Mary — we don’t want to make this any more difficult for you than it already is.”
I relaxed a bit, and then all eyes were on Leo, who was watching me with an unreadable expression. It was almost like… studying me.
Like he just realized I looked familiar, but he couldn’t place why.
“Leo,” Braden scolded.
Leo shook his head, like he’d been snapped out of a daze. But his eyes wouldn’t leave mine. He cleared his throat and then swept his hand over the room. “The floor is yours.”
I straightened, smoothing my hands over my jeans. Then, I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose as I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry. I know you guys were just joking around. And normally I’d be firing it right back, but I’m just… a little stressed.”
“Understandably so,” Riley pointed out.
I nodded, dropping my hand to my thigh. “We don’t need rules. Well,” I amended. “Maybe a couple. Like… just don’t come in my room without my permission. Don’t touch my stuff. Don’t hit on me, even if it’s a joke. Clean up after yourselves, especially in the common areas.”
“Looking at you, Robbins,” Braden chirped.
“Fuck off, I pick up after myself.”
“Tell that to the pile of clothes by the front door that’s started growing its own habitat,” Riley chimed in.
“Hey, this is a roommates-only discussion, Novo,” Kyle snipped. “Why don’t you go play with your boyfriend.”
“Gladly,” she said, hopping off the bed. She crossed the room and wrapped me in a hug. “Please call me if you need help wrangling these guys. I’ve had plenty of practice the last three years.” When she pulled back, she leveled her stare with me, dropping the joke. “Seriously. I’m here if you need me.”
“Me, too,” Giana piped in, and then her arms were around me and Riley both. “I left some new books for you on the shelf. They’re my favorite comfort reads. Thought they might be nice for the adjustment period.”
I sighed on a smile, hugging the two weirdos back. I wasn’t really used to having friends — at least, not more than the ones I made playing games online. But I was really glad in that moment that Julep had changed that, and had introduced me to Riley and G.
“I’ll be fine,” I assured them.
“Yes, you will be. And this will all blow over soon. You’ll be back across the street in a fixed-up house before you know it,” Giana said.
Riley nodded toward the room. “Until then, feel free to use whatever means necessary to set these guys straight.”
“We are still here, you know,” Braden teased.
Riley smiled at him and leaned up on her toes to kiss his cheek before looping her arm through Giana’s. They waved goodbye with a few more digs at Kyle on their way out.
My gaze snagged on Leo, who was unusually quiet, his arms folded as he watched everything take place. When the girls were gone, I cleared my throat.
“I think I just want to start unpacking.”
“No more rules?” Kyle teased.
“Basically, she’s saying be a decent human being. Think you can manage?” Braden asked, socking Kyle’s arm as he passed. Kyle jumped up and started chasing after him. They were barreling down the stairs when I heard Braden call out, “Welcome to The Pit, Mary!”
And against all the stress wound through my body, I cracked a smile.
Until I remembered Leo was still in the room.
He pushed off the wall to stand, crossing the room and tucking his hands in his pockets. I resisted the urge to look down at where his pockets were in those dark gray joggers because they should have been illegal, for what little they left to the imagination. Why was he even wearing joggers, anyway? It was seventy-five degrees outside. He was sweating.
Don’t think about his sweat, Mary.
“Hey, I’m sorry if I made this harder on you. I meant what I said the other day when all this went down. You’re our friend, and we want to help.”
I snorted a bit at the word friend, which only made Leo furrow his brows more.
“I’m serious.”
I hated the sincerity in his eyes more than I hated him teasing me with my bright pink dildo.
“It’s fine,” I said, waving him off and crossing my arms over my chest. I looked around at the room so I didn’t have to look at him. “I just want to get started unpacking.”
“Want any help?”
“No.”
I answered a little too quickly, a little too aggressively, but I didn’t redact the sentiment. It was already going to be hard enough existing in the same space with Leo, I didn’t want him thinking I wanted any kind of friendship.
“Alright,” he conceded, running a hand back through his hair. “Well, when you’re settled, I can show you around a little, give you the lay of the land. The washer and dryer are pretty old, need a little TLC when you want to use them.”
“I’m sure I can manage.”
He nodded. “I’ll just leave you alone, then.”
“Finally, I get my wish.”
Leo smirked, but that damn question was still in his eyes as he turned and left me to it.
When I was alone, I flopped onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling.
I probably needed to call my parents and tell them what was happening, but just the thought of it made me want to pitch myself off the roof. I could hear Mom’s condescending remarks already, could hear the way she’d belittle me and my choices before crying on my dad’s shoulder to get his sympathy, as if to ask what did I do to deserve a wild child disappointment like Mary?
Dad wouldn’t be mad. He’d likely barely react other than to ask if I was okay and if I needed anything. He’d probably wire money into my account without a word and then I’d have to pay the fees to wire it back to him because I’d refused to take anything from them since the day I moved out. Mom would then demand I come home, and he’d calm her, assuring her that I was an adult who could make my own choices, who knew what I was doing.
That was almost worse.
Because my father gave me his trust even when I didn’t deserve it, and the truth was, I had no idea what I was doing.
All I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to do anything Mom had pictured for me. I didn’t want to go to college, or be in a sorority, or marry the first guy with a promising career path who came from good money. I didn’t want the house and the yard and the two-and-a-half kids.
Still, I didn’t necessarily want to be rooming with three smelly football players because I could barely afford gas in my car and a can of tomato soup, either.
I sighed, closing my eyes.
Temporary, I reminded myself. This is all temporary.
Then, deciding I was technically an adult and my parents didn’t need to know everything, I peeled myself off the mattress and got to work.
