‘Is it the house on the right?’ My Uber driver asks, as though I should know. I don’t. All I do know is that my new neighborhood is a hell of a lot better than my last one. It’s a quiet residential street only a five-minute walk from campus. A far cry from where I was.
Transferring late has had its hurdles, the main one being finding accommodation that worked. When I first met Gary and Rachel, they seemed super chill and I could overlook the fact that they had mouse traps in the kitchen. The rent was cheap, and I had nowhere else to go. It took me three days to realize they were super chill because they were always smoking pot and letting sketchy people sleep on the couch.
I stayed far away from any of them, preferring the solace of my room and it kind of worked. I had to get a safe when my stuff went missing but that wasn’t a big deal. The moment I knew I had to get out though was the day I woke up and there was a dude standing above my head, just staring at me. He was as high as a kite; had no idea where he was, and he freaked the hell out when I tried to politely ask him to leave. He thought he was an orange, and I was going to peel him. I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure that something stronger than pot was in his system that night.
After that, I went straight to the hardware store and bought the heaviest duty lock I could find because I had three months left on my lease. I found this place two months ago and I have no idea how I lucked out. I met the other two girls, Alyssa, and Laura, fully expecting something to be wrong with them but they seemed like perfectly normal English Majors. Granted Alyssa or Lyss for short was a little OCD, but nothing seemed as bad as living with Gary and Rachel.
‘Umm,’ I stall, looking for the house number on the front door. ‘It’s number 56. Is that 56?’ I should have probably come to look at the place, but after meeting the two other girls I was going to live with, I wanted to snap it up before someone else could.
The Uber driver rolled his eyes, taking his time to look at the screen next to him. ‘Looks like it.’
‘Okay great.’ Hoping out of the car, the driver pulled my two suitcases out of his trunk with a thud. He’s driven off before I could even mumble out a thank you.
Staring at the two suitcases which are nearly my height, I’m saddened to think this is all my life has amounted to. Twenty-one years and all my possessions are in these two suitcases. I guess that’s what happens when you run from your problems. I left everything behind, and my Aunt dealt with the sale of the house when I was seventeen. Keeping memories at that time was too painful, now I wished I’d saved more than my dad’s watch and my mom’s pearl earrings.
A wolf whistle echoes through the neighborhood and a booming obnoxious voice yells, ‘Fresh Meat!’ If I moved next to a frat house, I’m going to kill Laura and Lyss for not telling me. I loathe jock parties. I can’t deny noticing the topless men as we drove past, but I was too busy checking house numbers to give them my full attention. I ignored the jeering and coughing coming from behind me and contemplated how I would get these two suitcases up the drive by myself. I’m 5 foot 3 and they are nearly my height. That combined with my backpack is going to make my walk up the drive look less than graceful.
Grappling both of the handles, I suck it up, rolling them up the rickety drive and doing my best to keep them straight, praying I don’t roll over a stone or something else that will throw off my balance.
Someone takes control of one of my suitcases and just as I’m about to scream for help, a soothing smile breaks through. It’s one of the guys from next door. I know because he’s ripped and topless, a requirement apparently. ‘Let me help you with that.’ His soft voice is smooth like butter as he flashes me a dashing smile.
His dark blue eyes winked, probably noticing my ogling and smiled as he rolled one of my bags. I cursed myself because my eyes flicked down to his bare chest and I found myself comparing it to Cole’s. Both are just as chiseled, but this guy is leaner.
‘Thanks.’ Is all I manage to muster when I feel the other suitcase taken from my hand. It’s another one of them. They’re popping up like flies to crap. This one though has caramel skin, glistening with sweat. I force myself to look at his face instead of his arms which I noted are the size of my thighs.
‘No problem,’ The blonde one butts in on my thoughts and says, ‘I’m Adam by the way, and this is Jackson.’
‘Nice to meet you guys. I’m Reign.’
They look between each other. I know what they’re thinking. ‘Like the weather?’ Jackson asks. If I had a penny for every time, I was asked that, I’d be a millionaire.
‘No, my mom had a fascination with the British monarchy. I’m not the biggest fan of it.’ Mainly because I have conversations like this all the time.
‘I think it’s cute.’ Adam says. Something about his stare makes me feel flustered and I can’t help but gravitate towards him. He’s got a genuine smile and his eyes glisten in the light.
‘Thanks,’ I could feel myself blushing and as we walked to the front door, I glanced at their house, surprised at how close it is. Although the houses are detached, they look connected. I can only hope they don’t have any loud parties.
As I raise my hand to knock on the door, Jackson asks. ‘So, you’re our new neighbor then?’
‘I guess so.’ My knuckles bang the door, waiting for answer.
‘You know,’ Adam says after I’ve knocked for the third time. ‘Lyss’ car isn’t in the drive. I don’t think they’re home.’ Laura did mention they would be coming back from a study group. Maybe they’re stuck in traffic. ‘You could always hang out at our house until they get home?’ He offers. I look between them, both giving me a genuine smile and even though these guys seem nice, there is no way I’m just going to hang out in a house full of shirtless dudes I don’t know. I’ve read too many reverse harem novels to think that’s a good idea. How do the girls in those books handle it? I also refuse to believe that there just always happens to be five hot guys who are best friends. Surely there’s got to be at least one dud in there. Then it begs the question, do you take one dud so you can have 4 hotties, or do you take one hottie and miss out on the other 3? Anyway, I digress.
‘It’s okay, I’ll just wait here.’ Plopping down on the concrete step, two other shirtless guys come walking over. Maybe I was too hasty on my reverse harem decision. These two are just as hot as the last two.
‘Guys! Are we gonna play or what?’ The one with jet black hair and steely blue eyes that could cut me with one look asked as he trudged over.
‘We were just trying to get to know our new neighbor here,’ Adam says and the words come out casually, but I can tell from the other guys faces that there was some kind of implication there.
Leaning over, Adam points in their general direction. ‘The guy with the black hair is Aiden and the one with the blue cap is Matty. They also live with us,’ he explains.
‘How many of you are there?’ I ask, bemused.
‘Five. Devin is sleeping upstairs. He had a late night and is still recovering.’
Jackson sniggers, ‘Don’t you mean an early morning? He didn’t come home until this afternoon. He hasn’t left his room since.’
I know how Devin feels, my thighs still ache from Cole’s touch. Just thinking about all the positions he took me in makes my belly burn with need. ‘Either way, sounds like he had a good night.’ I deadpanned.
‘I’m sure he did.’ Jackson continues, ‘Come to think of it, when was the last time Devin was with a chick.’ He asked Adam, I interrupt before I find out the answer.
‘Don’t you think it’s weird that you’re talking to a girl about your roommate’s sex life? I haven’t even met the guy.’
Nodding, he stifles back a chuckle. ‘Oh, don’t worry, you’ll get to know him very fast,’
‘What does that even mean?’
‘You’ll see.’ Adam chuckles and his lips curl up. Light freckles dot across his nose, I can’t deny he’s absolutely gorgeous. He looks like those old Abercrombie and Fitch models.
‘I don’t think I like that smirk.’ Squinting my eyes, I study his. There’s a glint of mischief behind those ocean blues.
He catches me completely off guard. ‘So, Reign,’ He says loudly even though I’m sitting next to him. As I look at him, he gazes down at his feet, shuffling them slightly with the hint of a smile on his face. ‘Can I take you out sometime?’ Well, that’s forward. I’ve only just met the guy, but he is hot and confident. Doing it in front of all his friends though just screams pissing contest and I’m no fire hydrant.
‘I…Uhh…’ Trying to think of a witty answer when Matty cuts in.
‘You’re going to have a fight on your hands, you know?’ He’s directed that comment at Adam. So yup, I was right, he was marking me like a dog… romantic. ‘She’s got Devin written all over her.’
I grimaced and stood up, trying to get face to face with Matty, hoping that it would make me seem more intimidating. ‘Excuse me?! What’s that supposed to mean?’
He looks like a deer caught in headlights glaring between me and Adam, trying to figure out what to say next. ‘Devin has a type. Hot, tiny, and tanned brunettes. You obviously fit that.’ Aiden responds behind me, with no hint of humor in his voice.
Glancing at Jackson, ‘Weren’t you just questioning the last time Devin had a girl?’
Before he can answer, a BMW parked on the drive. Lyss’s face is as red as the cherry color of the car she’s driving. She’s pissed and that scowl is weirdly aimed directly at me. I’m not left wondering what the hell I did wrong for long as she jumps out of the passenger seat before the cars even stopped moving.
‘Uh Oh, the devil is back,’ Aiden says in a playful tone, sniggering and jeering Matty.
‘Reign! What are you doing?!’ She screams. The guys don’t move as though they’re used to this sort of thing.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask genuinely confused raising my hands like I’m being interrogated by the police.
‘You can’t fraternize with the enemy!’ She glares at Aiden ‘Get away from our new roommate!’ She pushes Adam away from me. ‘I hope you didn’t tell them much.’ My eyes go wide. What have I gotten myself into?
‘Ummm.’
‘Oh god you did, didn’t you?’
‘Don’t worry Lyss, she didn’t tell us anything…’ Jackson teases her as he walks past.
The guys leisurely go back to playing football with Adam lingering, but he moves once Lyss gives him the once over. There’s a small moment when I wish I could join them. It’s specifically when Lyss turns to me, her face red as a baboons ass.
‘What did I do?’ I lifted my hands in defense and finally her body relaxes.
‘Urgh sorry,’ She sighs. ‘It’s not your fault. Just those guys are annoying, and we don’t get along.’
‘Why? They didn’t seem that bad?’ I look over my shoulder to see they’re throwing a football between them. Laura joins us and we all just watch them for a minute. Knowing they have an audience, Adam smiles and waves, bringing us all back to reality.
‘It’s a long story,’ Laura says quietly coming next to me. She takes one of my bags and lugs it into the house. As I go to pick up the other one, Lyss grabs the bag to help me. Just as we enter the house Laura is already bringing one of the suitcases up the stairs.
‘Are you sure you don’t want help ladies?’ Aiden hollers over to us.
‘Shut up Aiden!’ Lyss screams, her anger seems to be irrationally directed at him. I really want to laugh at how absurd this whole thing is but I feel like Lyss isn’t someone you want to get on the wrong side of, especially so early in living with her.
After bringing all of my stuff in, Laura stands outside a door that I can only assume is my bedroom. Laura’s hand hangs on the door, hesitant to open it as she looks to Lyss for confirmation. ‘So,’ she drawled out and looked at me with puppy dog eyes mixed with an apologetic face. ‘There is something that we need to tell you before you go in your room,’ I knew there was a catch to this place.
‘What?’
‘Your window kind of looks into one of the guy’s rooms.’ I mean that’s not like the worst thing that could happen I suppose. I can just shut the curtains. Easy Peasy.
‘How much?’ I asked to prepare myself.
‘Well, the houses are replicas of each other just flipped, so they kind of face each other directly.’ My eyes go wide at the thought of my room essentially being viewed like TV for those guys. ‘Don’t worry you have big thick curtains that you can draw at night and Devin is usually at football practice during the day so it shouldn’t be too much of an issue.’ So that’s what Adam and Jackson meant about getting to know Devin.
‘Is this why the room was available and so cheap?’
‘Yup.’
‘Okay, I guess I should have a look to see how bad it is.’ I can’t back out now. I have nowhere else to go and again nothing could be worse than living with my crackhead roommates. When I open the door, it’s a big, beautiful room with wooden floors and double aspect windows. There is a set of bay windows facing the front of the house and then to the left, there is a large window that converts to a juliet balcony. That, with the king size bed makes this room really appealing. I walk over to the juliet balcony and gasp. There is literally another juliet balcony less than 2 feet away and I can see the guys entire room. Well, I could if he had his curtains open. He doesn’t, but now I see what they mean. ‘Umm… We could literally have a conversation it’s that close.’ I say to Laura.
‘Yeah, it’s not so bad once you get used to it and at least you have the nice front windows.’ She points to the other side of the room and I cocked my eyebrow. She gave me a sheepish look in return, knowing she’s grasping at straws but she’s right, it can’t be that bad. I will make it work. Just keep the curtains shut.
‘We, uh, also recommend that you lock your window before you leave…’
‘Why?’ Not sure I really want to know at this point.
‘Just umm we are kind of having a prank war with the guys and if you don’t lock it, they come over and set up pranks around the house.’
‘What do you mean a prank war?’ Could this be worse than crackheads?
She waved her hand, nonchalantly looking out the juliet window. ‘Well, you know, we prank each other. It started last Halloween when the guys gave us what we thought were caramelized apples. When we bit into them, it turned out they were onions.’ I wince, my mouth tasting bitter at the thought. ‘Took us a week to get the smell out of our breath! We got them back though. By relabeling some bait spray as air freshener and spraying it all over their house. Their parties didn’t last long that week because the house stank of fish. All harmless but slowly, it’s starting to get more extreme. So yeah, just make sure that you lock your window.’
OK, it doesn’t sound that bad. I mean it could definitely be worse. My old roommates are worse and I can probably help with these pranks. The guys won’t see it coming.
‘I’ll leave you to organize your things but if you want any help just call us up.’ Laura smiles. Yeah, it won’t be that bad. At least my roommate smiles at me. As Devin’s curtains are closed, I decided to open the window to let some air in. It’s a little musky in here, probably because they locked up this room so those guys couldn’t get in.
Resting my backpack on the bed, I pull out my laptop, tablet, and phone, placing them on the desk. I checked my phone and noticed there was a notification from that dating app. I smile when I notice it’s a message from Cole. In all my hassle of moving, I hardly had the time to look at my phone.
Cole: Had a great time last night. Was hoping I could get your number. You know, just in case you’re interested in another round.
His message makes me smile and as much as I had a good time with him. A great time with him. I can’t give him my number. I like him too much. If I give him my number, I could get attached. I already can’t stop thinking about him, and if I see him again then that no strings attached, one-night stand I had planned for would go straight out the window. I placed my phone back on my desk and then headed to one of my suitcases. I open it with a sigh. Hopefully, this time I won’t have to move again. I start taking my clothes out and putting them in my dresser by the juliet window.
‘Reign?’ A confused male voice says, and I lift my head up in shock because I can’t forget that voice.
