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“Motherfucker.”
Okay, not so quietly. Or politely. Or professionally, which is a problem considering the only reason I’m in Chicago at all is to keep on killing it at the PR firm Giles, Hall, & Wren. To prove that I’ve got the stuff to move up to the New York office. Something I’ve been so focused on that in the chaos of these last few days, I somehow screwed up this one not-so-insignificant thing.
I read the text from Piper Boerboom again, her shouty caps turning my insides to knots.
Piper: OMG!! YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE MOVING IN WITH ME???!!! I AM SO SORRY!
There are a dozen more texts, sent in rapid fire. Explanations about an out-of-country vacation, an apartment that opened up in the building, and how she and Grant Bowie— I did not see that relationship coming! —had to move on it quickly. She’d been distracted and rushing, and when she offered me the room in the apartment her brother owned, she wasn’t clear about the fact that he was the one I’d be living with. Not her.
Thumbs shaking so hard my keys are rattling, I’m all LOL with my own shouty caps reply, hoping she’ll take them to be extra hard laughter rather than the panic-laced, not-enough-air, what-the-fuck-did-I-just-do kind of manic laughter it truly is.
How is this happening? I’m the girl who gets shit done, on time, every time. I’m the one others turn to in a pinch. I’m not the girl who lands herself in an apartment with a guy she traded V-cards with after prom… for God only knows how long.
Ugh.
Until two days ago, everything was on track. I’d handed off all my projects in Denver. I’d closed out my apartment, donated my furniture and housewares, and turned in my keys before flying home to see my dad while my clothing and personal items were shipped to the apartment GHW had lined up for me.
And then I got the email.
A pipe burst and my should-have-been apartment was unlivable for the foreseeable future. HR had no place to put me, and unless I could figure something out myself, my start date would be pushed back three weeks.
After an indulgent moment of hyperventilating, not too far off from this one, I emailed back, letting them know I’d be starting on time. Because that is the kind of employee I am. And then I’d whirled into action, putting out an ask for friends of friends living in Chicago looking for a roommate. Somehow, I got to Piper, and for a minute, I thought everything had fallen into place.
Wrong.
Because there is no freaking way I can live with Ben.
I hiccup and, sucking another shaky breath, tell myself to get it together. I can turn this around. It’s what I do. I just need to get the heck out of here, find some coffee shop to message him that I’ve found another place but thank you, etc., etc., etc.… wait for the thumbs-up emoji of neutral acknowledgment, and then go max out my credit card on a hotel for two weeks.
Which is not how I roll.
I don’t carry debt. I don’t live beyond my means. And I never leave myself in a position where I don’t have a bed to sleep in at night.
Call it a carryover from middle school when my family hit a rough patch and we spent two weeks living in the back of our minivan. That stuff sticks with a girl… even when it’s a million miles behind her.
That said, if ever there was an emergency that justified financial recklessness, this is it.
Grabbing my bag, I start back down the hall and?—
“Change of heart, roomie?”
I freeze where I am. Then, head dropping, turn back to the now open doorway, and the one guy I kind of hoped I’d never have to see again standing in it.
Filling it.
To capacity.
Oomph. The sight of Ben Boerboom in the flesh knocks the air right out of me.
He’s big. Bigger than I remember. Hard cut from head to toe, muscles upon muscles stacked and bulging beneath the stretch of his tight white T-shirt and worn jeans that hug his massive thighs.
His mouth is hooked in a version of the same slanted smirk I saw every day back in high school. Only it’s not quite the same. Like the rest of him, it looks harder. Less invitation to mischief and more… guarded. Accusing, maybe. Or maybe that’s just my own guilt talking, and all I’m seeing is indifference where it never existed before.
“Boomer.” I shake my head with a sigh. “I apologize. This was a total misunderstanding. I thought?—”
“That you were moving in with Piper?” He raises a brow, blond and thick with the smallest gap where he got stitches in the tenth grade.
“She texted?”
