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I chuckle, imagining her tossing it at the wall in frustration. My dad was always the calm one in the house. The McCreary marriage flips every hockey-family stereotype on its head. Mom? She has always been the hard-ass. She’s the Irish temper, and definitely the enforcer. Dad, he was a softy. He let us get away witheverything.
“You remember when you caught Dad smoking out in the shed?” My lips pucker into a grin at the memory.
“Oh, good God, yes. That man! He stunk like cigars, but in he came trying to tell me someone in the neighborhood must be smoking meat or something. Took me all of a minute to find his stash!” She laughs at the memory, and it makes my smile grow. I love these small talks with her. I know my brothers think I do it to show off being her favorite, but honestly? I think I get more out of it than she does.
“Hey, I’m out of the house, by the way. I set up some movers to take the rest of the stuff and put it into storage. I’ll worry about that over the winter break. Maybe we can sell the things none of us wants.” I mentally make a list of everything in that place still—years of accumulated junk. The important stuff is still at my mom’s house, but I’m sure there are a few things she’ll want to save.
I pull into the driveway but stop short when I realize I’m not sure who’s parked in the garage. I back out and instead park at the curb while my mom continues to go through the list of things in the old house by memory. I don’t want to tell her the stuff I’ve already donated or thrown away, so when she tells me just to keep it, I say thanks and move on.
She must be feeling good today. It’s refreshing since the last few times she’s gone through treatments she’s been pretty flat in the days afterward. Apparently, she felt good enough today to drive herself to the grocery store. Of course, I hate that I wasn’t there to help with that, but she seems proud of being able to pick out her own produce rather than ordering online and waiting for someone to dump it in her trunk.
I tuck the phone between my shoulder and chin so I can sling my gear bag over my shoulder and make my way inside. My legs are toast and I’m desperate for the shower. I hope I won’t have to fight Laney for it.
“I know it’s bad timing with the house, but I’ll make it up to you with a home-cooked meal. I’m making the stuffed peppers you like. So you’ll be here, right?” My mom thinks she has to bribe me over to the house with her cooking. I’d come regardless, but I’m not about to turn down stuffed peppers.
“You keep talking to me like that and I’m coming over right now,” I say as I step into the bedroom and come face to face with Laney. She’s holding a fat roll of blue painter’s tape, and as my eyes scan the room, I realize she’s literally marked the space in half.
“Well, you could fix the remote then if you do,” she says.
“Yeah, see you Sunday,” I confirm with my mom before ending our call and tossing my phone on the bed. I drop my bag to the floor and slowly spin to take it all in—the dresser taped down the center, all the way to the small drawer in the middle. The closet shelves are marked in half, along with the bar and the set of hooks I will never use. The bed frame is rationed into halves with blue tape, and my curiosity can’t handle not flipping the covers off the mattress to see what her solution was there. A thick, black elastic band stretches the length of the mattress. I lift it with my fingers and let it snap back before huffing out a single laugh and meeting Laney’s gaze.
“Holy crap! You’re nuts!”
She grimaces and proceeds to kneel and press a long strip of tape on the carpet from the foot of the bed to the edge of the dresser.
“Was that one of your adoring fans talking dirty to you?” she grumbles as she tears the tape off and presses the end into the carpet fibers with her thumb.
“Uh, no. And more importantly, you do realize we can’t cut the door in half, right? One of us has to get in to get over to this side.” I hop over her line, assuming she’s pushing me to the far side.
She stands and blows up at some loose hairs tickling her forehead and face as she considers my critique. Her eyes flit to me a second before she nudges a sweatshirt I left on the floor to the other side of the tape.
“Guess you’ll have to jump. Might make it hard for you to leap out the door to get to whoever is talking to you like that, though, and making you want to rush over right now.” She rolls her eyes and turns her back to me before putting the roll of tape into the drawer of one of the night stands. I smirk, amused that she insists I was having a flirt fest with some girl on the phone.
“Right, well. I’ll be sure to let mymomknow that the reason I’m late for dinner Sunday is because my crazy-ass roommate insists I complete an obstacle course every time I want to leave the house.”
Laney glances at me sideways. Her red cheeks make me pretty certain she’s a tad embarrassed by her assumption.
“I suggest you practice it then, so you’re never late,” she says, turning her attention back to her own side of the room. “For your mom or any other . . . whatever.”
She waves a nonchalant hand over her shoulder, and I cough out a laugh as I wait for her to engage more. She doesn’t. Instead, she snags her laptop from her backpack and hops upon the bed with her blanket, stretching out her long legs and covering up with the bright floral quilt before resting her laptop on her thighs and flipping it open to begin typing.
“Practice.” I nod and hold my mouth in a tight-lipped smile. “All right then. Practice it is.”
I pique her interest enough to glance at me briefly over the top of her screen as I tiptoe to the edge of her tape line.
“This is my half, then? This . . . right here?” I point down at the tape and she shuts her laptop and sits up as if she actually has to check it.
“I mean, I didn’t measure, so you may have an extra inch or so that you don’t deserve.” Her lips form this annoying, arrogant straight line and her head tilts slightly to one side.
“Believe me, Laney. I have plenty of extra inches.”
Her gaze darts up as she breathes out an annoyed sigh. I take that opportunity to leap from my side of the tape to the open doorway. Because of the angle, I have to grab the door jamb to maintain my balance. A quick glance back at my enemy lets me know she’s still watching, so the balancing act is worth it.
I pull up the bottom of my gray practice shirt, bunching it in a fist at the center of my chest so I can flex my abs with every ounce of energy left after skating for four hours. Her eyes dart lower and I smirk, pulling my shirt up over my head then tossing it into the room—on my side of the floor. I run my hands through my sweat-dampened hair and hold my elbows out so I can flex my biceps and forearms. Yeah, I feel like an asshole with the whole Magic Mike routine, but Laney isn’t laughing so I know on some level, it’s working on her.
I reach up and grab the top of the door jamb and lean my head to one side, pushing my tongue in my cheek before stretching my mouth into a faint smile.
“Should I keep going?” I quirk a brow.
