by Emma Hart
“He’s a hedgehog. I really don’t think we’re going to have a lot in common.”
“He likes to eat.”
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing. I’m just pointing out what he likes.”
I pulled my now-full mug from the machine and turned around. “You know what I like? Personal space. Serial killer documentaries. Reading history articles on Wikipedia. Wine. Nachos. And sleep. Does your hedgehog like any of those things?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think he can read or work the remote for Netflix.”
I shot him my best withering look and peered over his shoulder at the sofa.
The spiky pig was gone.
“Your spiky pig has left the sofa.”
Ethan jerked around, seeing what I’d just told him. He darted over there and got down onto the floor, where he stretched his arm under the sofa and scooted a bleach-blonde animal out from the darkness. “Got him.”
“Mm.” I leaned back against the counter, lifting my mug to my mouth.
He stood, holding up the hedgehog triumphantly.
I simply glared at him. I really had nothing to say. I was aware I came across as a bit of a bitch, but I didn’t have pets for a reason. I didn’t have the time to look after one, especially not one as high-maintenance as a goddamn fucking hedgehog.
I knew how this would go. I’d be asked to feed it, then play with it, then clean it. There was no way that was happening. I didn’t know the first thing about looking after those prickly little fuckers. I didn’t even know what to feed it. I’d give it breadsticks and bananas if left to my own devices.
I sure as hell wasn’t cleaning it out.
I’d had a hamster as a teen. If hedgehogs stank like those little bastards, there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going near its cage.
No matter what Ethan said, I was not going to change my mind.
He wasn’t going to like it, so he’d have to lump it. Like I had to lump living with what was, in effect, a spiky rodent.
My dark look obviously did the trick, because Ethan carried the hedgehog through to his bedroom and re-emerged a minute later without it.
“Okay, listen,” he said, flattening his hands on the island. The stretching of his arms made his biceps pop, not to mention the veins that appeared on his forearms thanks to the strain of holding his weight. “I was wrong to hide the hedgehog, all right? I should have told you before I moved in.”
“Yes, you should have.” I put the mug down on the island and stood opposite him, still glaring at him, but this time it was over the rim of my glasses.
“Why are you looking at me like that? I just apologized.”
“No, you didn’t. You said you were wrong. That’s not an apology, that’s an admission of wrongdoing.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jesus. Okay, I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted.” I supposed I had to. It wasn’t like I had a choice, really. We had to live together, and that meant compromising on a few things. “So do you agree? That the hedgehog won’t be free in the apartment unless you’re there, too?”
“That’s fair.” He shrugged a shoulder. “But I still think you’ll grow to like him.”
“Doubt it. I don’t like small animals.”
“But Halley can feed the raccoons, and that’s okay?”
“That’s Halley’s business. I don’t sit there and hand feed them peanuts, do I?” I shuddered. “No, thank you. If it’s smaller than a kitten or a puppy and stays that small, I’m not interested in making friends with it.”
Ethan raised his eyebrows. “Do you know anything about hedgehogs at all?”
“No. What part of ‘not interested’ are you failing to understand? Would you like me to Google you a definition?”
“I know exactly what it means,” he said dryly. “I just think you should use Google, but to research the hedgehogs.”
“Ethan, if I go on Google, I’m going to end up in a Wikipedia hole, and I’ll be an expert on the French Revolution by lunchtime tomorrow.” I finished my coffee and put the mug in the sink. “I will tolerate the hedgehog—I mean, hell, I’m already tolerating you—but I’m not going to be friends with it, okay?”
“It’s good to know the tolerance is mutual.” He smirked.
“Hilarious,” I muttered, picking up my laptop. “I’m going to check my emails. Make sure you turn off the television before you go to sleep.”
“Yes, Mom.”
I tucked the laptop under my arm and gave him the finger before I went into my room and kicked the door shut behind me. Not only did I have a roommate I disliked, but I also had a prickly one I disliked.
This wasn’t what I’d signed up for.
Then again, I wasn’t really sure what I’d signed up for at all.
***
I rubbed the towel over my wet hair as I walked into the kitchen. Sunlight streamed in through the windows in the living room, and a shuffling noise made me turn around.
The hedgehog was on my windowsill, and it was playing with my candles. Ethan was nowhere to be seen, which meant it’d barely been twelve hours, and he was already breaking his promise to not leave the hedgehog alone.
“Ethan!” I yelled.
Mr. Prickles jerked at my shout, turning his beady little eyes my way.
I stepped back into the stool at the island and almost tripped over my own feet. The stool screeched against the floor, and I grabbed it to steady myself, then tucked it back under the counter.
“Ethan!” I shouted again when he didn’t appear.
Where the hell was he?
The front door opened, and I jerked around. “Ethan!”
He froze. “What?”
I pointed at the windowsill.
“Oh. I thought you were in the shower.” He stepped inside and shut the door. “Forgot my phone charger. The lead was in my truck.”
“Ethan!” My voice was almost shrill now.
“Yes, that is my name.” He walked right past me, undoing a knot in the charge lead.
He did not just walk right past me.
Oh, my God.
I pushed off the stool and stormed after him. “Ethan!”
“What?”
“The hedgehog!”
“Is not eating your face or is anywhere near you.”
“It’s messing up my candles.”
“It’s messing up your candles? Dear fucking God, Ava.” Shaking his head, he turned around to plug in his phone. “You’ve lost your mind.”
“No, I haven’t. There are three candles on my windowsill, exactly the same width apart, and that’s how I’d like them to stay.”
Ethan stood and met my eyes. “You are insane.”
“No, I’m particular. There’s a difference.” I folded my arms across my chest and shook my wet hair out of my eyes. “You left the hedgehog alone.”
“Wow. You really meant every second, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I’m not a man. I mean what I say.” I spun and stomped back into the kitchen, where I retrieved my towel from where it’d fallen on the floor. “Ethan!”
“Jesus, it’s like living with my fucking mother.” He rubbed his face with his t-shirt, flashing a hint of lightly-toned abs. “What now?”
“Your animal! It’s gone again!”
He looked up at the ceiling. His lips moved, and I could swear he counted to five before he dropped his chin and went over to the windowsill. After a minute of searching, he reached behind the curtain and pulled Mr. Prickles out.
“Let’s put you back in the cage before Maleficent over there curses you with your own spines,” he muttered, lifting the animal up toward his face. He snuggled it against his chest and took it into his room.
This wasn’t going to work. I didn’t have to be a genius to figure that out. I wasn’t sure what to do now, but it was clear that we couldn’t actually live together. It’d only been twenty-four hours since he’d hauled his shit into my apartment, and it’d already gone to the
dogs.
Or the hogs, in this case.
I turned on the coffee machine and pulled a mug down from the cupboard. I was going to have to tell Ethan this couldn’t be a permanent arrangement. It really didn’t matter that I was on the verge of being broke and desperately needed a roommate—I couldn’t live with someone when it was going to make me miserable.
Yeah. I didn’t know you could be in love with someone and simultaneously hate them, either.
I guessed that was the fine line people always talked about…
Well, if you asked me, it was a stupid line.
A stupid like that someone had probably drawn in Sharpie just to piss everyone off.
“How do you work this thing?” Ethan stepped up beside me, his chest brushing against my shoulder.
I jerked away from him, my heart skipping inside my chest. “By using the buttons.”
He eyed me as I cradled my mug and moved to the other side of the kitchen. “I’m not gonna steal yours, Ava.”
“I didn’t say you were,” I muttered, gripping the handle a little tighter. Seriously. Any harder and I was going to snap it right off.
“Are you all right?” His look became questioning as he hit the right button on the machine to make it go. “You look like you want to strangle something.”
I did.
Him.
The words I wanted to say got stuck in my throat. Instead of telling him he had to move out already, I made some kind of weird squeaking noise I was sure I’d heard Halley’s raccoons make at some point.
Ethan’s eyebrows slowly raised.
I shook my head and quickly made my way through the apartment to my bedroom. The door slammed behind me after one kick, and I leaned back against it, making it thump against the frame even though it was already closed.
The hinges were loose.
A bit like my emotions today.
Of all the weeks Ethan could move in, it had to the be the week I was on my period. Seriously. I wasn’t capable of making a rational decision about what I wanted for dinner, never mind anything else.
I’d had cookie dough ice-cream last night. It wasn’t exactly a balanced deal.
There was every chance that my frustration about my unexpected prickly roommate was solely down to Mother Nature’s monthly ‘you’re not pregnant!’ postcard.
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to figure that out for at least another three days.
Goddamn it.
CHAPTER THREE – AVA
God Bless Cocktails
I slid a beer across the bar to my brother and took the five-dollar bill he handed me. I rang his order up on the register then tossed the change into my tip jar.
Leo cleared his throat. “I wasn’t tipping you.”
“I didn't intend to live with a hedgehog, but here I am, living with one.” I grabbed a cloth and wiped down a wet spot, grabbing an empty glass someone had just slid across the surface.
I’d only worked at Lucky’s for three weeks. It was honestly a miracle I’d been hired at all after the little debacle of me dancing on the table that time. According to my boss, I was so popular after that with the regulars that hiring me was a no-brainer.
I wasn’t allowed to dance on the tables anymore, though.
I couldn’t say I was mad about that.
I think I still had a bruise on my hip from when I fell into Noah and Preston.
“Didn’t he apologize already?” Leo asked, wiping his mouth. “I admit, I should have warned you.”
“You should have. You know how I feel about tiny animals. If they aren’t a puppy or kitten and can fit in a purse, I don’t want to live with them.”
“You don’t mind fish.”
“No, because fish live in a tank and aren’t going to eat my face in the night.”
“It’s a pretty irrational fear you’ve got there, sis.”
“Okay, you’ve clearly never watched horror movies.” I raised my eyebrows at him and moved to serve someone at the other end of the bar. After delivering six beers and ringing a food order through to the kitchen, I went back to my brother. “Rodents eat people, Leo. It’s a fact.”
“Horror movies are not non-fictional. If they were, we’d all be fucked.”
I pursed my lips. I knew that, but I also knew that rats did eat human flesh, so… “I’m not going to debate horror movies with you. You’re my brother. I have a shit roommate because I was doing you a favor. You owe me like ten for this.”
“The hedgehog isn’t going to eat your face while you sleep.”
“How do you know that? It might.”
“Hedgehogs don’t eat people, Ava. That’s how I know.”
“They eat meat.”
“Yes, but it’s not going to eat your eyeballs.”
I shuddered, grabbing an empty bowl that had once held nuts to refill it. “Thanks for that imagery. Now I’m not going to sleep until I’ve installed a bolt on my bedroom door.”
“Why are you putting a bolt on your bedroom door?” Noah stepped up beside my brother with Preston.
Oh, good, the cavalry had arrived.
“Because Ethan’s hedgehog is going to eat her eyeballs,” Leo answered before I could.
I grabbed a peanut from the newly filled bowl and threw it at his face. “I don’t like hedgehogs,” I replied.
Preston raised his eyebrows. “What’s wrong with hedgehogs?”
“Don’t,” Leo said quickly. “Just… don’t go there.”
I hated having a sibling. “I just don’t like small animals. That’s all. Do you want your usual?”
They both nodded, and Noah said, “You like Poosh.”
“Poosh is a dog. Poosh is fine.” I uncapped both their beers and slid them across the bar to them. “Small animals that are not dogs or cats freak me out.” How many times did I have to say that?
Was it so weird? Didn’t all kinds of people hate rats and mice and stuff like that? Was my dislike of anything with tiny hands and claws that could rake out my eyeballs so strange?
I didn’t think so.
“You’re weird,” Preston said, handing me a twenty.
I snatched it. “Today, your girlfriend texted me a picture of the sweaters her grandmother knitted for the baby raccoons. You can shut up.”
“Sweaters? For raccoons?”
I looked up and caught Ethan’s eye. “Oh, look, it’s the fourth musketeer.”
“There were only three of those.”
“You’re still on my shit list, roomie.” I grabbed another beer, uncapped it, and set it on the bar. I rung up all three beers and handed Preston back his change. “Are you three going to watch the game or bug me all night?”
“Wow. The service in this place has really gone downhill.” Ethan smirked.
“I don’t know,” Noah said. “You haven’t seen her drunk-dancing on the tables. That’s why half the punters are here tonight. For her Coyote Ugly moves, not her ability to pour a pint of beer.”
“You dance on the tables?” Ethan stared at me like he’d never heard of anyone doing such a thing. Ever.
I held up a finger. “One time. I danced on the tables one time, and nobody will let me forget it.”
Preston snorted. “No, we will not.”
I pursed my lips. I didn’t come to work to be abused like this. “You know I can refuse to serve you, right?”
“I’ll open a suggestion box that means you have to dance on the tables once a week,” Leo said. “I’m mad nobody videoed that for me.”
Noah shrugged. “We were trying to control the betting circle Reagan and Halley had set up.”
“Yes, yes, the infamous Lucky’s betting ring. The game is about to begin, and I know you can’t see the screens from here, so scoot.” I waved my hands, shooing them away from me.
Chuckles rose from all of them, and Noah winked at me as they all disappeared, leaving me in peace.
Well, as much peace as a twenty-something woman could get in a sports bar when it was football
season.
Not a lot, to be honest.
Luckily, the game meant the bar was packed, and that meant my shift went quickly. I’d started at three, so by the time the game was over, so was my shift. I finished the order I was ringing up and pocketed my tips, then headed out the back.
The guys were all still here, and that meant I was going to have to drive them home. How did I know that?
Preston and Noah had decided that two weeks ago. Unfortunately for me, my Friday shift never changed.
I tucked my tips into the inner zip portion of my purse and dug my keys out from the abyss, bypassing two tubes of Chapstick, six receipts, an empty gum packet, a phone lead, a pocket mirror, a bottle of nail polish, a travel-sized tube of toothpaste, a sock, and a Chinese take-out menu on the way.
I really needed to clean out my purse.
My keys jingled as I made my way to the front of the bar and to the guys’ table. They were all done, and both Preston and Noah grinned at me as I approached.
“Come on, Cinderella. Your ride awaits,” I said dryly, waving my keys at them.
Ethan raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“She takes us home every Friday. It’s payback for the dancing night.” Preston grinned.
I stared at them flatly. “I’m leaving in ninety seconds. If you’re all not in my car by then, you’re walking.”
I’d barely taken five steps when the sound of four chairs scooching across the wooden floor broke through the chatter of the bar. I snorted to myself and pushed the door open to step outside.
Dim lights illuminated the parking lot off to the side of the bar, and I paused to hit the button on my key fob. The lights of my car flashed, brightening the parking lot, revealing the crumpled-up body of someone against the dumpster.
I froze.
Someone walked into my back.
I screamed, stumbling forward, and two hands landed on my arms to steady me.
“What?” Ethan’s voice was right behind my ear, and I knew it was his hands on my arms.
“There’s, um, someone on the floor.” My voice was weak and shaky. “In front of the dumpster.”
“Oh, shit,” Noah said, jerking to life. He ran past all of us, his firefighter training kicking in, and yelled, “Call nine-one-one!”