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We were the only students from our high school who chose to go to university in Melbourne. Our hometown, Maryford, is in South Australia, and everyone else applied for universities in Adelaide.
I didn’t realise Lucas applied to my university too. I hadn’t talked to him much in Year 12, though he was nicer than he’d been in previous years.
Anyway, the day university offers came out, Mum got a call from Lucas’s mum, Natalie. The pair of them were still friendly even though Lucas and I weren’t close anymore, and they suggested we live together for our first year. That way, even in an unfamiliar city, we’d have someone from home as an anchor. We could look out for each other, Mum reasoned. It’d reassure her, to know I was living with someone rather than by myself.
I said sure, only half-listening to Mum’s reasoning. I didn’t think it would actually happen. Lucas would never agree to live with me.
But he did.
The strange thing is that he was actually pretty friendly when we arrived in Melbourne. Sure, during Year 12 he wasn’t a dick anymore, but it’s not like he made an effort to talk to me. In fact, I’d gotten the impression that he was avoiding me. He never sat near me in class. If I was studying on one end of the library, he’d study on the other end. There was more than one instance where we saw each other at the local supermarket and he pretended not to notice me.
But other times, I’d catch him watching me. Sometimes, in English class, the hair on the back of my neck would prickle and I’d turn around to see him sitting a few rows back, looking at me with his pen in his mouth. Chewing on pens was something I could never do — it was gross as soon as you hit fourth grade and I knew my peers would make fun of me. But Lucas still did it, even in high school, and somehow, he made it look cool.
Anyway, in our newly rented Melbourne apartment, he let me have the bigger bedroom of the two, though it was only slightly larger. A few days after we moved in, he organised a trip to the beach, and we had fun, swimming in the ocean and splashing each other. He even bought me a sprinkle-covered soft serve.
He’s a good roommate too. He cleans up after himself, keeps quiet late at night, and does his half of the chores without complaint. He doesn’t even bring girls over when I’m around. I don’t know how he manages it, because my daily schedule changes all the time, but I’ve never seen him with a girl in our apartment. I know he must be hooking up a lot because duh, but he’s very discreet about it, which I appreciate.
Sure, every now and then he gives me shit. He says something that makes my stomach twist, makes me wish that he liked me a little more, respected me a little more.
But when he says those crappy things, I give him shit right back. So, it’s okay.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Now
The cursor blinks at the start of the search bar. Before I can think better of it, my fingers fly over the keyboard. Classicbooksecrets.
The top result takes me to an online shop selling classic books repurposed as discreet safes. Our books act not only as elegant home decor but also function as a discreet and secure place to store valuables, the website reads.
Is that what Lucas’s safe is used for? To store valuables? But what valuables, exactly? Cash? Weed? Is he doing something sketchy?
I click on a page that shows me the selection of books they have available. There’s not only Jane Austen’s works, but also Charles Dickens, the Bronte sisters, Shakespeare, George Eliot, Henry James… If it’s British and in the public domain, it’s there.
My bedroom door opens, and I slam my laptop lid closed.
Lucas raises a brow from where he stands in the doorway. “Oh,” he says. “Was I interrupting?”
“No!” I say, too quickly. “No. I wasn’t doing anything.”
He scans me, from where my head is resting on my pillow, to the laptop on my stomach, to my feet flat against my bed. “No, that’s not how you wank, is it?”
My skin turns blistering hot in a second. “What do you mean?”
He ignores me, instead walking up to my bed and sitting on the end. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Nothing.”
He leans back, brushing my legs. “Let’s go out. I’m hungry.”
“We have a fridge full of food,” I tell him. I’ve been trying to save money by cooking as much as I can, because my dates with Cleo are starting to add up.
“Yeah, but this new place opened on Swanston Street,” he says. “It’s supposed to be really good.”
“Go with someone else.” Knowing him, he’ll have an endless list of friends to ask. Or an endless list of girls to take.
He raises the corner of his lips. It’s his signature smug smile, and I’m going to ignore whatever he says next, as a matter of principle.
“It’s Thai,” he says.
