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Harpy looked from them and up to me and said to them through gritted teeth, “I didn’t think I would be cleaning it up all by myself.”
“Well, first floor problems, right?” That was Screechy. She had a horrible sound when she laughed, and it made me cringe a bit. I indicated to Cassidy she needed to grab her crew and get to work, to someone’s room, or get the fuck out of there because I was not in the mood for this.
Harpy flipped them off, never taking her eyes off me. This meant I could not react the way I wanted to, which was laugh, smile. Something. I remained stern as I said to her, “Do not miss a game.”
“I thought you’d rather come home to a clean house than for me to sit in the stands doing nothing more than cheer.” She stepped out further and looked behind me. “Where is—”
“With his parents.” I was not going to tell her about Tituss and his newest drama. “Come on. I hear you understand how to work a knot out of a shoulder.”
She followed me to my room. Once there, I undressed and went face down on the bed. I had already showered and changed over. She asked, “Do you want me to shower first? I’ve just spent the past three hours cleaning.”
“Less than five minutes. Grab one of my shirts, a pair of boxers. I’m not fucking you, Harpy.” She needed to know I expected her to do even more work tonight, not get rewarded for cleaning the house. It was the right call, but she should have asked instead of making it independently. At least then, I could have told Dougie she was where she was supposed to be rather than not knowing where she was or what she was doing. Worse was the fact that I worried after a week of doing nothing but dealing with the first-floor drama in that kitchen, she might have quit without telling either of us.
I picked up the phone and texted Tituss: She was here, cleaning up the mess they left.
He responded: Figures. Better she was not there anyway.
Because his parents would have seen her, and that might have been really bad since they brought his future with them. Probably not as bad as our game, but until the coach took Dougie out and put Tituss in, we were going to look like a second-rate team. I hoped this was Dougie’s last chance to prove he could be the QB we needed him to be. We lost by fourteen points.
“I’ll start at your shoulders.” Harpy returned in my t-shirt and probably my boxer briefs under there, but this shirt was about to her knees. She had a ponytail tie and said, “Do I need to ask, or can I just put it up for now?”
“Temporarily.” I actually forgot all about that condition since I was really just ready to sleep.
She picked up the bottle of lotion she brought back from my bathroom and said, “It looks expensive, but it’s what you got, so.”
About five minutes into her rubbing my back, I realized I was not going to sleep just yet because she was good at this and, in a therapeutic massage sort of way not the put me to sleep way I had expected. “Aggh. Right there.”
“It’s going to hurt for a ten count.” She pushed in really deep, and I clenched my teeth and every other portion of my body in an attempt to not let her know just how much that was true. It did hurt for eight…something popped…nine…she rubbed lighter then worked the area before saying, “Ten.”
I blinked back what might have been tears. Still, it felt a lot better. That spot had ached for months now. We were only on our second game of the season, but we had been practicing since returning to campus. I didn’t say anything. Harpy continued her work, and by the time she was at my feet, I said, “Finish tomorrow.”
“What?” she asked.
I motioned for her as I shifted in my bed and said, “You’re staying with me tonight. Finish tomorrow.”
She pulled the ponytail loose, put the lotion back in the bathroom, locked my door, and then turned out the light before sliding into the bed next to me. I had adjusted, so I was under the blankets by the time she got there. She seemed stiff, awkward. I smiled. Good. She didn’t know what to do. Unfortunately, I didn’t either. I had planned on sending her home, but Tituss was right. The commute was time she could be doing other things. She needed to move into the bunny house. Harper was not going anywhere, and maybe if we situated her there, the other girls would step up. Not our girls. Sophomore bunnies seemed to be doing just fine. The freshmen were down to four, the juniors, three, and the seniors two, and we hadn’t been at this a full week.
The problem with our house having a full staff was simple, the junior and senior houses could try to take them from us. We might have to compete to keep them. Did I want to go through that? Just to keep a staff of hot girls here to clean the house? We could just outsource that to some real housekeepers no one would want to fuck.
It was really less about the girls than it was about the property aspect of it. They were ours. We start letting them take our things because they have seniority, who’s to say they don’t fuck up their house and then try to move us out. No. I was not getting bullied by the woman in my bed or the two houses of upperclassmen in my frat. Hell no.
“What?” she asked.
“Hmm?” I was so fucking tired.
“You said hell no.” She turned to face me. I could only hear it and then feel her breath as she spoke. “Are you okay?”
“Tired.” I could admit that. “We lost.”
She touched my shoulder. She didn’t say anything people normally said, and I was grateful for that. I played hard, and I hated losing.
Chapter Ten
Harpy
The mattress on this bed was so good I slept like the dead. I was exhausted from cleaning up the house. I opened my eyes and looked at the man next to me in this bed. He was a beautiful disaster over there. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what was wrong with him in the emotional sense, but for that matter, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what was wrong with me these days either.
I wondered how long it would take for me to flip the script on them. How long before they would give me a massage? I needed to be extra good to them and lure them in for that to work. I reached out and touched his chest. His brows knitted a bit, and he wiped at that spot, absently brushing my fingers aside. I was not going to seduce him at this rate. I tried again with a firmer touch to his shoulder and pushed a little.
