by Kristy Marie
Which. Is. A. Fucking. Problem.
I need those rumors. I need fear. My life depends on them.
“Six fucking minutes!”
I know she can hear me over that deranged singing she’s doing.
My watch buzzes. I know, I know. I need to walk away and calm my ass down.
I march through the living room and jerk open the balcony door. Yes, this is precisely what I need—fresh air. A beer would be nice too, but I’ll open one of those later when the guys get here.
I set the timer on my watch for five minutes and take the chance to call Pops.
“Yell-O.”
His old Southern greeting puts a smile on my face. When I was growing up, he didn’t speak this way, he was always so professional on the phone, but since his stroke, words have been harder for him to form—hence the Southern slang he adopted.
“Old man,” I return smoothly.
“Maverick! How you doing, my boy?”
My boy. My father never called me his boy or his son. Only Maverick. “I’m good.”
“School going well?” I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been in a few weeks. “Getting good grades?” I better be, or someone will pay the price.
“Yep. All good up here.”
I can hear the question in his voice before he says it. “Have you been sleeping? You sound tired.”
I take a seat in one of the plastic chairs, pulling the deck of cards from my pocket along with a marker. Checking my watch, I note Ainsley has three minutes. I think that deserves three IOUs just for pushing her luck.
I begin scribbling the letters on the cards with the phone pinched between my shoulder and cheek. “You don’t sound so chipper yourself, old man.”
He grunts. “You didn’t answer my question.”
I shuffle to the next card. “I’m sleeping fine. I just had a late-night studying.” Is it exam time? Maybe I should ask Rowan. I like to take those exams myself.
“Uh-huh,” he says in a tone that tells me he knows I’m lying.
“You know it kills me that even after a massive stroke, you still think you know better than everyone.” I walk back into the house and shove the three cards under the door, feeling better already.
“I do know better than everyone, boy. Especially you and your sneaky brother.”
Oh hell. What did he do this time?
Walking back to the sofa, I plop down, landing on something hard. I dig through the cushions and find not one, but two, stuffed sea lions. Seriously, Ainsley? The least she can do is adequately cover her tracks by stowing her walruses or sea lions—whatever—in her room if she wants to keep pretending she sleeps in there every night.
“He thinks I don’t know what he’s doing when those girls come over for tutoring. They don’t bring books! You need books to study.”
I grin, rolling one of the sea lions over, and spot writing on the tag. Lawrence. She named him? This girl never ceases to shock me.
“I told you, Pops, everything is online. The schools use online books now. As long as the students have a phone or a tablet, they can study.”
True, but not in Cooper’s case. He’s fucking those girls or at least the one, Melissa. His girlfriend. The others probably are there to study for a little while.
“Uh-huh.”
My watch vibrates, letting me know Ainsley’s time is up. “I gotta go, Pops. Lay off the sodas, yeah?”
“I told you I just have one after supper!”
“Yeah, yeah. Now who’s lying?”
“Get some sleep, Maverick.” His voice turns serious. “I mean it. I will come up there.”
Yes, he will, and no one needs to see my pops knock me down a few pegs. “Yes, sir.” My mother didn’t raise a disrespectful shit.
“Call your brother later,” he says just before hanging up on me. He probably didn’t mean to. His fine motor skills aren’t what they used to be.
I stride back down the hallway, the warm breeze from the balcony invigorating me with excitement. Nah. It’s not the breeze. It’s fucking with Ainsley.
“Time’s up!” I raise my hand to beat one last time when it wrenches open, and I’m met with stunning blue eyes and a wet head.
“Something is wrong with you,” she says, brushing past me and not gently.
I feel a smile tugging at my mouth. “I will shove you off the balcony, Ainsley,” I call after her, the door to her room slamming before I can finish. “You will be out of here before the guys get here.”
I don’t care if she’s upset at having to clear out. Any other day, she can veg out on my couch and consume the Wi-Fi, but not tonight. Tonight is poker night, and no girls—or distractions—are allowed. And the whole keeping her a secret thing . . . Let’s just agree that I have more than one reason to need her gone. I need some privacy, like yesterday.
Knowing she ignored me, I open the bathroom door and let enough steam out to power a train. She must have had the water that hot. I’m surprised she doesn’t have third-degree burns.
Not your problem, Maverick.
Wiping off the mirror, I snag the stupid amount of hair ties and scrunchies on the counter and stuff them in my pocket. Why does she need so many—something floats in the toilet, catching my eye.
Squatting, I lean over for a closer look and see that it’s the three IOUs I slid under the door, each one with the letters FU written in what looks to be lipstick.
And . . . my dick is getting hard.
Why must her fight turn me on?
I snap a picture—it was funny and brave—before flushing the cards and yanking open the shower curtain. There I round up the eight almost-empty bottles of shampoos and conditioners and—her fucking toothbrush? Who brushes their teeth in the shower? Never mind. Of course she brushes her teeth in the shower. Opening the hall closet, I shake my head and dump all her shit in before slamming it closed.
Do I care if they spill or she can’t find them later? No, because she didn’t bother to hide the shit like I had asked her.
Maybe it’s about time I follow through with my threat to Mike. He needs an IOU for every day Ainsley stays here and not in her apartment. It’s not enough that I don’t have any privacy, but it’s getting harder every day to hide my secrets. I’m tired of living in my bedroom. I want my space back.
Finally, the door slams, and I look up to see Ainsley standing in a bikini—a very tiny bikini.
“Where the hell are you going?”
She puts a hand on her hip, cocking it out just enough to draw my eyes lower than they need to go. “Since you’re banning me from your little sleepover, I’m going to hang out by the pool.”
The hell she is.
“Not the pool here, people will notice you. Go somewhere else to soak up the sun.”
She narrows her eyes. “Fine. I thought you were finding me a forever home. I’m tired of living here.”
The feeling is mutual.
“Why did you say it like you are one of those abused dogs they try to guilt people into adopting with sad music?”
“I’d just like to have a place where I’m not kicked out every Wednesday so my roommate can throw down a spade and belch out a victory jingle.”
She’s in a mood today.
I like it.
“That’s not how it works. We—”
She waves me off, clipping my remark.
“I don’t care, Maverick. I’m not going to let you get to me today. I’m just going to take my boxed wine to the gym and drink it in the car.”
I rear back. “Why the gym?”
“Why not?”
I have no fucking clue how to respond to that, so I go with “I’m not bailing you out of jail,” and walk away.
I need a fucking shower—a cold one.
Sebastian breezes through my door like he lives here, heading straight for the balcony and hanging over the ledge as if he’s looking for something. “Dude, did you know there’s a chick floating in our beer pool?”
I sigh, closing my laptop, a
nd rub my temples. I knew I shouldn’t have left her alone. When I came out of the shower, she was gone. I assumed she heeded my warning. Evidently, not.
“Where?”
He doesn’t look at me. “On the sidewalk. Her feet are propped up on the hood of your car, and I’m pretty sure she’s chugging wine from a box.”
I’m going to kill her.
“A brunette?” My tone borders on indifferent, but I’m anything but. I want to be damn sure who I plan on killing.
“Hell yeah. All that silky hair is piled up into this sloppy bun that just begs to be yanked.” Told you it was notable. “Want me to shoo her off?”
I bet he would like that. He’d shoo her off with his number programmed into her phone and then he’d leave the game early to celebrate his loss, balls deep. Too bad that won’t be happening. Ever. My new roommate is off-limits and still very much a secret to Sebastian. Guess that’s about to end.
Let the rumor mill flourish with this new information.
“No, I’ll take care of it. Get the table set up while I’m gone.”
“Maybe you should wait a minute, push the game back an hour or so?”
“What the fuck for? Just because you lose money, doesn’t mean the rest of us want to delay our payday.”
Sebastian turns his head, speaking to someone outside before facing me. “Because we all want to enjoy the show a little longer.”
We all?
You’ve got to be shitting me. I walk the few steps to my balcony and look out. Half of the terraces are occupied with men staring down, directly in front of my parking space. A front-row parking space I’ve had since I moved in. Renters want it, but no one dares park in it. But leave it to my disobedient roommate to indeed be floating in two feet of water in the plastic pool we use for chilling beer, propping her damn feet up on my car.
When I told her to go soak up some sun, I meant for her to go to a sorority house or a club or something. Not drag the pool down to the parking lot and use my hood for a fucking footrest.
I take the steps two at a time, ignoring the audience on their balconies, until I come face first with the biggest pain in my ass. Ainsley is sprawled out with only the scraps of fabric covering her breasts. Never mind the straw connected to her reddened lips as she slurps at what I assume to be more wine in her tumbler.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I drawl lazily as if her oiled skin glistening in the sun is doing nothing to my dick.
“Can you move a little to the left?” Her voice is bored and slurred. “You’re blocking my sun.”
I’m going to block something else of hers if she doesn’t get her ass upstairs in the next 2.3 seconds.
I stay rooted to the ground, never moving. After a few awkward seconds tick by, Ainsley raises her ridiculously round shades and sighs. “Can I help you, Maverick? Did I leave the toilet seat down or something?”
God, help me. It takes all my patience not to snatch all one hundred and so pounds of her out of the pool and push her inside. “I told you to make yourself scarce.” I take a slow look around as if it isn’t obvious that the parking lot of the complex is not scarce.
She takes a long pull from her straw. “I am scarce.”
An incredulous snort escapes my lips. “The sidewalk is still in the complex.”
“You didn’t specify the parameters. You only said I needed to be out of the apartment.” She grins as if she’s won this debate and swipes a hand through the water before letting the droplets drip into her navel. “It looks to me like I’m outside of the apartment.”
My teeth grind, and the muscles in my jaw work to keep me from shouting at her. “You’re drawing a crowd,” I grit, enunciating each syllable.
“Am I?” She feigns concern, and my patience lowers to negative seven. “Well, we certainly can’t have that.” The water sloshes as she pulls herself up, her tits bouncing with the waves, and tosses the tumbler at my feet. My pants are doused with water. It’s not amusing. But then, she extends her hand, and like a fool, I take it, allowing her to pull me closer, nose to nose. “Tell me something, Maverick.” I hum out a nonanswer, trying to keep my eyes from drifting lower. “Look closely. Do you see two shits or a fuck anywhere in my eyes?”
I rear back at her words. Did she—
“I don’t give a shit that I’m drawing a crowd,” she lashes out, shoving me away. “This is my apartment”—she eyes the vacant spot next to my car—”and my complex. I am not moving just because your little friends can’t focus on their game of Go Fish.”
She wobbles on her float, and I realize she’s drunk. And not only that, she’s a mean drunk. “How much have you had to drink?”
I snatch my hand from hers and grab the now empty box of wine. No wonder she tossed the tumbler—she was out.
“Get up,” I growl.
Her pupils are wide, but her glare is firm. “No.”
This cannot be happening.
“Get up. I won’t ask you again.” I’m not known for my hospitality.
She laughs, a throaty sound that shoots straight to my dick. Now is not the time, dude. “You don’t scare me, Maverick. You men can’t hurt me anymore. I won’t let you!”
I’m going to carve my initials into Tucker’s skin until the only thing he sees in the mirror is the horror of my name.
“Is that what this is all about? Fucking Tucker?”
I can feel the weight of the stares on my back.
“Are you honestly drinking yourself into a stupor because cocksucker Tucker upset you? Again. What did he do this time?”
Her eyes turn glassy, and her lip begins to quiver.
“Don’t you fucking cry over that asshole,” I demand. “He’s not worth it.” And frankly, I can’t take much more crying. Never in my life have I lost so much sleep worrying over someone. And she’s only my roommate.
“He proposed to her,” she finally mumbles out through tears.
I release a harsh breath and run my fingers through my hair. The game is about to start.
“Get out of the pool, Ainsley.”
At my stern tone, she snaps out of her crying and levels me with a look. “No.”
I can’t very well leave her out here drunk and in a bikini. God only knows what would happen. College guys are creatures of convenience. A pretty girl, wet and crying? Yeah, she’s like a bloody heart tossed into a den of wolves. “I’m not going to ask you again.”
She turns her face away and slides her glasses back over her eyes. “Leave me alone, Maverick. Go back to your game.”
I hear chuckles above me.
That’s it. Fuck it. I asked her nicely and look at where that got me—pissed off.
I crack the bones in my neck and take a deep breath right before I stomp on the edge of the plastic pool, sending the water rushing through my legs.
“Are you fucking crazy?” Ainsley shrieks, trying to stop her float—and her body—from going with the current and right into my clenching hands.
“Am I crazy?” I mock. “I’m not the one shitfaced, floating on an innertube in two feet of water out in the goddamned parking lot.”
“It’s the sidewalk,” she screams, grabbing onto my pants leg and trying to stand. She wobbles and takes two steps back before I’ve had enough and grab her arm and haul her over my shoulder.
“Put me down!” Her screams don’t come close to masking the laughter from the balconies. “I’m serious, Maverick!”
Ignoring her, I make the weighted steps through the front lobby and punch the button to the elevator. I refuse to carry her kicking and screaming up the stairs.
“I’ll scream,” she threatens.
“You already screamed, but be my guest and do it one more time for the people who haven’t seen your ass cheeks yet.”
Her wiggling stops. “Is my ass really hanging out?” It’s the first time since I found her that she’s sounded sober.
I debate lying to her but decide I’d rather she learn this lesson the hard way. “Yes.”
She sucks in a breath and pounds a weak fist into my back. “Put me down!”
“No.”
I’m not letting her down. She is coming inside the apartment and sobering the fuck up.
“I’m sorry, okay?” Her voice is strained. Battered. Not the badass it was a few minutes ago when she asked me to look and see if I saw two shits or a fuck in her eyes—something in my chest clenches.
“I’m sorry I took it out on you.”
I figured she would be eventually. She doesn’t like to be mean.
“Apology accepted, but you’re still not getting down until you’re inside and clothed.”
I feel her stomach concave over my shoulder as if she’s accepting defeat, and I relax a little.
“Fine. Will you at least fix my bathing suit? I don’t want your friends seeing my butt cheeks.”
That’s one thing we agree on.
I nod, clearing my throat. “Fine.”
But it’s anything but fine when my finger skims up the side of her leg, over the wet and scalding flesh. She’s silent, and not even her breathing can be heard when I slip a finger under the elastic of her bathing suit bottom. Slowly, I pull the material from the middle, my knuckles grazing the soft and supple skin, before letting go.
Her hands relax against me, and she strokes down my back. “Thank you.”
I don’t acknowledge her. I’m seconds from slamming her against the wall and seeing what the rest of her feels like.
Finally, the elevator dings and opens. I readjust Ainsley and open the door to our—my apartment.
“Get out,” I bark at a wide-eyed, grinning Sebastian. He throws his hands up in a placating manner. “I was on my way out anyway.”
He attempts to pass by, and I grab his shirt, forcing his eyes from Ainsley’s ass to meet mine. “Tonight’s game is canceled. Let everyone know. I don’t want any visitors.”
Sebastian’s tongue snakes out over his smirk and wets his lips. “I’m sure you don’t.”
A noise rumbles through my chest, and it isn’t until Ainsley says, “Bye,” that I realize I still have a fistful of his shirt. I shove him away, and he laughs.
“See you tomorrow.” He winks. “Goodbye, waitress.”
Fuck. He knows.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!