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He looks around to survey the damage. “Well, because of all the smoke and water, they're going to have to gut the entire thing. I'm going to say at least eight to twelve weeks.”
Great. Hopefully the housing office has a solution for where we can stay in the meantime.
SPOILER ALERT—THEY DON'T. We stand in front of the woman who looks woefully sympathetic, but her face gives away the fact that she doesn't have good news. She looks between Kennedy and me and sighs.
“Well, girls, I'm very sorry for what happened to your room,” she tells us. “And we've already got a call in to a contractor to repair the damage. It seems there are three other rooms that are inhabitable as well, and they were all re-roomed last night.”
“So, there are other rooms available?” Kennedy questions hopefully.
The woman frowns. “There were, but I'm afraid we only have one spot left. You'll have to decide between you two.”
She walks away to give us a moment to talk about it, but there's no thinking involved for me.
“You take it,” I tell her.
Her eyes widen. “What? Are you sure?”
I nod. “Absolutely. Chances are, we wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for me. I can figure something else out.”
She wraps her arms around me and squeezes tightly. “You really are the best friend a girl could ask for, you know that?”
I snicker. “You're awfully grateful to the girl who made it so all your stuff is ruined.”
“Oh shush,” she says as she playfully whacks my arm. “You know I don't blame any bit of this on you.”
“That's fine. I'm blaming me enough for the both of us.”
I WALK BACK INTO the house to find Easton and Zayn sitting on the couch, each with a beer in their hand. I drop my purse on the ground and walk over to the empty chair. My whole body falls into it in a way that isn't graceful at all and shows what kind of day I had.
Zayn and Easton share a look before Zayn gestures to me with his eyes. Easton flips him off and turns to me.
“I take it things didn't go well today?”
My head lolls to the side. “You could say that, though they could have gone worse, I guess.”
Zayn takes a sip of his beer, and I try not to watch the way his Adam's apple bobs. “What did the fire marshal and housing have to say?”
I sigh heavily. “That it will be up to twelve weeks to fix, and housing said they only had one more spot available.”
“But there's two of you,” Easton says, as if I didn't already know this.
“Thanks, Gilligan,” I quip, and Zayn laughs. “I gave it to Kennedy.”
“Really?” my brother asks.
Zayn grins, unsurprised. “That was nice of you.”
I shrug. “It was the least I could do. Our room burned down because I chose to date a total psychopath.”
That makes the both of them cringe, but it's Easton who speaks up. “No one blames you for what happened.”
I roll my eyes. “That's what everyone keeps saying, but that's not what it feels like. I should have run the other way the second Zayn told me to.”
Zayn shakes his head. “Don’t beat yourself up over that. You can't change it now.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Easton goes into the kitchen to grab me a beer, and hands it to me when he comes back out. “So, what are you going to do without a dorm room?”
