We walk to the end of the block and cross the street, our pace unhurried. I follow Aster’s lead, though I don’t think she has a destination in mind. She’s just thinking. Seeing how this feels. Seeing if it’s still something she wants, if it’s a risk she can take.
“T.J. and Wes were arrested,” I say, when we’ve covered another block without speaking. “Things don’t look good for them.”
“I heard,” she replies. “That sucks.”
“Yeah.”
“What about your friend who got married? Was he involved?”
I shake my head, but she’s watching the pavement in front of us, not looking at me. “No. They didn’t ask him. They knew he had a lot to lose if things went wrong.”
“We all do.”
“I know.”
She picks at an imaginary hangnail, stalling. “I went to Chester,” she says. “To my dad’s house.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. Shamus called to tell me you hadn’t shown up for the tournament, and I knew you’d gone home to do...it. So I figured it was time to just get everything over with.” There’s a pause, then she adds, “Jerry drove me.”
The words are three pointy daggers, driven straight into my gut.
Jerry.
There for Aster when I wasn’t.
When I was on a bus home to steal cars to pay for drugs.
Seems like an easy choice for her to pick him, when you think about it like that. Like words on a page, a pros and cons list. Steals stuff, doesn’t steal stuff. Pre-med, not pre-med. Here, not here.
“I told him everything,” she continues. “About my family, prison, all of it.”
“How’d that go over?”
“Well, it’s Jerry, so he apologized for not having asked about it sooner.”
I laugh even though it’s not funny. Even when he’s such a fucking dimwit, he’s still a better man than me.
But.
But he’s not here, and she is.
So maybe he’s not the right man, either.
“How do you feel about everything?” I ask.
“Better,” she answers. “It was easier than I thought, being back in that house. He hadn’t changed anything. He still had the piano, the china, the hardwood floors. It had a lot of nice things, but it was never a home. Never felt like one.”
We’ve wound our way around several blocks, and now we’re nearly back at the apartment.
“I’m selling it,” she adds. “It’s just a box that holds a bunch of things that have no meaning to me, but at least it’ll pay for law school. That’s what it’s good for.”
We stop at the short walkway in front of the building.
“So I guess you don’t care about the flat screen television and the king bed and the fridge that makes ice cubes, huh?” I cringe inwardly, thinking about how much I thought that stuff would impress her. Look what I have, Aster. But that’s not what she values. She cares about who I am. That’s the only reason I ever got as far with her as I did. Because she liked me.
“No,” she says matter-of-factly. “I don’t care about those things at all.” I have my keys out and now she stares at my hand, reaching out to carefully snare my fingers in hers. “What happened here?”
I follow her gaze to my knuckles, still red and raw from my first session at the dermatologist.
“I’m getting the tattoos removed,” I say, feeling squirmy and embarrassed.
Her thumb strokes my index finger, stopping before it reaches the sore spot. “All of them?”
“Just my hands, to start.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Oh, fuck yeah. It hurt more than getting it done.”
“So why are you doing it?”
“Because that’s not who I am anymore. It never was.”
“I like your tattoos.”
“But they’re so...bad.”
She rolls her eyes. “Aidan. I’ve been to prison. You’ve got nothing on those girls.”
The words make me laugh, ease something inside my chest, transforming that ever-present bubble of hope and fear into two-parts hope, just one part fear. A healthy ratio.
“Do you want to come in now?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says. “Give me a tour.”
I open the door to the lobby. It’s only two floors up, but we take the elevator, mimicking the day we met, the day I wanted her to be my roommate, not Jerry. My girl, not his.
“Here we are,” I say, waving her into the apartment before me. I watch her move, liking the way it feels to see Aster in my home.
“This is the living room,” I point out, resisting the urge to demonstrate how the couch reclines. I’d spent a good hour testing it out the night I’d moved in, thrilled by my discovery.
We walk through the rest. “Kitchen, guest bath, master bedroom.”
Aster stops at the entry to the bedroom, brow furrowing as she looks inside. I don’t know why she’s disappointed. The room is huge, the bed is huge, the nightstands match the dresser and there’s a ceiling fan. It’s awesome.
“Where’s your stuff?” she asks, glancing at me. “Where are you?”
“Ah...” I blush a little bit. “It’s out here.”
I back into the hall and nudge the door to the guest room. It has an unmade bed and a chest of drawers, and in the middle of the floor sits my duffel bag and my milk crates of belongings. Rent for this place is cheaper during the summer when there’s no competition for space, but when the price goes up in September and Aster moves back into residence to be an R.A., I’ll have to use this room for an actual roommate to cover the cost. But until then...
Aster scratches her shoulder. “Are you sleeping in here?”
“Um, no. Just storing things.”
She gives me a scrutinizing look. “What? Why?”
“It’s too nice,” I mutter, glancing away. “For my stuff.”
Aster laughs.
And laughs.
“Aidan,” she wheezes. “You’re ridiculous.”
“How so?”
“That’s what you thought about me, isn’t it? That I was too good for you? And we know how that turned out.”
“It turned out pretty good, if I’m remembering correctly.” I take a breath and summon the nerve to address something that’s been rattling around in the back of my brain since our fight. “You even said you could love me,” I say quietly. “If I deserved it. And I know you don’t care about any of this stuff, and I can’t give you anything you can’t get for yourself, but that night we fought, I wanted to tell you I loved you. I wanted to tell you so that if things went wrong, you’d know how I felt. But now I just want to tell you because you should know that there’s someone who loves you, all the versions of you, and is pretty sure he always will, no matter what you decide.”
“Aidan.”
I kiss her before she can say anything, before she feels like she has to say something just because she’s supposed to, because it’s expected. I also kiss her because I want to, because she smells like laundry detergent, like the day I moved in, and if we’re recreating that scene, I want it to include a kiss. I wanted to touch her hair, so now I do. I wanted to feel her breasts against me, and now I do. She’s everything I could possibly want.
“Aidan,” she says, holding up a hand when I reach for her again.
“What? You don’t—”
“I love you,” she says.
Then she kisses me, tired of the talking, ready for the showing. Our clothes come off, T-shirts in the guest room, pants in the hallway, bra and underwear in the master bedroom, the one I haven’t felt comfortable in until now. Until I’m lowering Aster onto the 1000 thread count sheets, covering her with my body, my hands, my mouth, rediscovering every part of her and committing them all to memory.
Eventually I’m inside her and she’s inside me, her words, her sweetness, her sincerity. All the things I thought I’d never have and never deserve. It goes on forever and not long enough, Aster trembling beneath me as she co
mes apart, fighting to keep her eyes open to watch me do the same. I let her see it, see me, showing her everything I have, all the flaws, all the truths. She doesn’t even flinch.
She smiles when we’re finished, her hair messed and cheeks flushed. I’m lying on the biggest bed I’ve ever seen, with the smoothest sheets I’ve ever felt, the plushest pillows I’ve ever touched, and the most beautiful girl I’ve ever kissed. And that’s not even the best part.
The best part is what we have between us, the promise and potential that’s always felt like a myth, but is now clear and present. It doesn’t feel like something as whimsical as hope anymore, it feels like possibility. Like clean sheets and blond hair and new sneakers. Like stepping stones that reveal themselves after each brave move, paving the way to the future. And for the first time in a long time, I know I’m not walking that path alone.
I reach over to find Aster’s hand, linking her soft fingers through my rough ones, and hold on for the ride.
Thank you!
Thank you for taking the time to read My Roommate’s Girl. The idea for this book came to me as something of a joke, but the more I laughed at it, the more it unraveled itself and became a story I had to write. Then it turned out the joke was on me, because not only could I not stop writing it, I fell in love with it.
Because I started out thinking this book would never see the light of day and my enthusiasm would probably peter out around page twenty, I wrote it with a much more carefree and open mind than is my typical process, and it was so much fun. I hope the joy I found writing this story translates to the reading experience, and I thank you again for choosing to spend your reading time with me.
Before anyone asks: this is a standalone story and I have no plans to turn it into a series. I had actually outlined an entirely different book before this idea came to me, and that outline is sitting on my desk, patiently waiting its turn. (Soon, outline, soon.)
If you enjoyed My Roommate’s Girl, I’d be very grateful if you would leave a review on Goodreads or wherever you bought the book. Positive or negative, reviews help other readers find my books and I appreciate them all.
If you would like to know when my next book is available, you can sign up for my newsletter at www.juliannakeyes.com/newsletter.html.
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Email: [email protected]
Books by Julianna Keyes
New Adult
BURNHAM COLLEGE SERIES
Undecided
Undeclared
Contemporary Romance
Just Once
Going the Distance
TIME SERVED SERIES
Time Served
In Her Defense
The Good Fight
About Julianna Keyes
Julianna Keyes is a Canadian writer who has lived on both coasts and several places in between. She’s been skydiving, bungee jumping and white water rafting, but nothing thrills—or terrifies—her as much as the blank page. She loves Chinese food, foreign languages, baseball and television, though not necessarily in that order, and writes sizzling stories with strong characters, plenty of conflict, and lots of making up.
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