Dammit, Ma.
If guilt were a rifle, that woman would be a sniper.
“Yeah, I’ll be there.”
In hindsight, I wish I would have let Mom’s call go to voicemail. And I should have at least let Zoe know I’d be coming by the apartment.
But it’s her habit to go to CrossFit on weeknights, so I thought I was safe.
I don’t realize my mistake until my third trip down the stairs to my Jeep. That’s when Zoe pulls up into her spot, staring at me, hollow-eyed and pale.
She’s not wearing her exercise clothes.
Zoe is the kind of woman who’s comfortable running into Rouse’s or Starbucks in her active wear. Because her body is killer. She never goes anywhere—even the gym—without her hair and makeup done, bangles on her wrists and hoops in her ears.
But as she stares at me through the driver’s side window of her Hyundai, Zoe looks like she just woke up. After a bad dream.
She opens the car door and gets out slowly. She’s wearing a unisex long-sleeve T and pajama pants I’ve only seen once. When she had COVID.
“You okay, Zo?” The way her expression flattens, I could kick myself for asking. She’s clearly not okay. And I figure out too late that it’s not because she’s sick.
Mom’s words come back to me. Heartbreak and humiliation.
And it’s my fault.
“What are you doing here, Lark?”
Estrangement shapes the way she says my name. I honestly wouldn’t expect anything else, but looking at her drives home a nail of guilt I didn’t feel before tonight.
Mom was right. Zoe’s been expecting me to propose for a while now. No matter what Zoe said. No matter what I said. And a part of me knew it the whole time.
I should have broken things off long ago. Never moved in with her.
“I’m sorry,” I say, meaning it. I’m sorry for giving her hope.
Zoe sighs like this is what she expected. “What are you doing here, Lark?” And this time, I hear the edge of urgency. Like she might lose it in front of me, and I know in this moment that me seeing her like this is the last thing Zoe wants.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. I shut the Jeep’s tailgate. There’s still stuff upstairs in the apartment. Now’s not the time for me to get it. “I’ll text before I come get the rest.”
She just nods, but the way her jaw clenches and her throat bobs, I know she’s choking down a sob.
Shit.
I round the Jeep and open the driver’s side door. I make myself meet her gaze again. Her eyes brim with tears. “Take care, Zo.”
After my phone call with Mom and the run-in with Zoe, I’m hoping that I can get my stuff up to my new room without encountering any other women. But I don’t even make it as far as the front steps.
Because Stella Mouton is on the front porch giving an older man a haircut like it’s 1950.
I aim to make it inside without too much conversation, but the first thing I need to unload is the TV, and as I carry it down the front walk, I know by the way her eyes keep cutting to me that Stella is not going to let that happen.
She sets down her shears and comb on a TV tray she’s dragged outside and wipes her hands on a towel draped over her shoulder.
“Let me get the door for you,” she says.
I shake my head. “I’m good.”
She blinks at me. “You think you can open that screen door while holding a TV the size of a Great Dane?”
The man seated on the stool in front of her guffaws.
I grind my teeth.
For the record, my TV is not the size of a Great Dane. A boxer, maybe.
“Yep,” I grit out.
I catch her shrug as I pass her, but I notice she doesn’t pick up her comb and scissors. Her eyes are on me. I’m aware of little else as I balance the TV on one knee so I can unclench two fingers to grab the screen door handle.
Holy crap.
The old screen door creaks open a little, but the coiled metal spring yanks back with surprising strength. The Vizio isn’t heavy, just unwieldy. My grip slips, and I have to rebalance the TV.
Maybe it’s just the humid evening, but my face gets hot. I try again, but my pinky and ring fingers are nothing to the tensile strength of the old school coils. The door snaps back into frame with a rattle.
The asshole on the stool has the nerve to chuckle.
Fuck this shit.
I release the TV with my right hand and grip the handle while bouncing the Vizio on my right knee. But when I jerk the screen open, the damn TV pitches forward, and for one infuriating instant I’m sure I’m going to drop it. Then a hand materializes between me and the devil door and steadies the TV.
Over my right shoulder I see Stella has not only caught the Vizio, but she’s prying open the creaking screen door with a smug look on her face.
Damn.
It shouldn’t be possible, but smug looks sexy on her.
“It’s a tricky door,” Stella says, smirking.
I should find that I-told-you-so tone annoying, but all I can focus on is the scent of her hair. She smells like the Sweet Olive tree at the edge of our property. The perfume of those lacy flowers always meant I was free. I could only smell them when I felt most myself.
I shake my head to clear this nonsense. “Thanks,” I mutter and then make my way inside.
Upstairs in my room, I can hear the sound of the bathtub filling next door. It’s weird to think I’ll be sharing that same bathroom with a bunch of strangers. Then again, Summer Field Camp was close quarters, and I shared a bathroom with the whole mostly-male crew. The memory of grimy showers and the smell of urinal cakes makes me shudder.
On second thought, maybe female roommates aren’t so bad.
I need to go back out to my truck to finish unloading, but I stall and connect my TV, killing time instead.
Okay, yes. I admit, I don’t want to be a sideshow for Stella Mouton and her stupid client. Ten minutes later, I open my door and stick my head out into the hall. My mystery roommate has shut off the water in the bathroom, so I strain my ears and try to pick up any sounds of chatter from the front porch.
Nothing.
I tell myself not to be such a wuss and head back down. The front door is now locked. A good sign. When I open it up, the porch is empty. No sign of Stella’s barbering.
At my Jeep, I’m reaching into the back seat to grab the few towels and blankets I own when a car slows to a stop on the road behind me.
I glance over my shoulder and find Stella Mouton behind the wheel of an old Honda Accord, staring at my ass. The windows are rolled down. A guy is sitting in the seat beside her, Pen is watching from the backseat, a wicked grin lighting up her face.
Maisy leans forward from beside Pen and waves at me. “Hi, Bark.”
“Hi, Daisy.” I wave back.
Stella looks over at her daughter and then back to me. Is that a reluctant smile?
“We’re headed to the hardware store. When you’re done unloading, park in the back,” she says, nodding in the direction of the house. “Your car will be safer back there.”
“It’s not safe out here?”
She and Pen give me identical pitying looks. “You on the northside now,” Pen says. “The sooner you learn that, the more stuff you’ll get to keep.”
Stella nods. “Park in the back,” she says again. “The gate code is 4693 and your key will open the single door on the back porch—not the French doors. Just leave me enough room to pull in and out of the garage.”
“Got it.”
With a quick wave of her hand, they drive, literally, into the sunset. It’s full-on dark by the time I finish unloading my Jeep, and I drive around back as per her instructions. The driveway emerges on a narrow dead end. Pecan trees, ligustrums, and a tall wrought iron fence hide the back of the house from view. When I pull in, a motion light beams into my eyes, and even at the end of the driveway, the tall ligustrums help to shield my ride from the view of the side street. In short,
the Jeep is safer back here than parked at the curb on St. John Street.
Stella didn’t have to tell me I could park in the driveway. She could have just let me walk out tomorrow morning to find my window bashed in for the twenty I keep in the center console and my roadside air station.
So maybe she’s not an utter dragon.
This is what I’m thinking as I enter her house, as instructed, from the single door on the back porch. I step into a kind of mud room with old-as-dirt linoleum floors, a washer and dryer, a utility sink, and a large water heater. Interspersed with these are three other doors. One’s clearly the swinging door to the kitchen. The one to my right must go to the garage that looks to have been added on sometime in the last fifty years. The third doorway, to my left, opens to a darkened hall.
Yeah, maybe I know I should just go through the kitchen, but curiosity pulls me down the hall instead. And the first door to my left stops me in my tracks.
Just one bedside lamp illuminates the expansive room, but the space seems brighter. Except the floors, almost everything is white. Like mine upstairs, the queen-sized wrought iron bed frame is white, but this one looks much heavier. Each corner post is capped with what looks like an iron pine cone, and the scrollwork that makes up the headboard and footboard look to be knotted together with little three-pine-cone clusters.
That bed has got to be over a hundred and fifty years old.
It’s covered with a chenille bedspread of soft white. The white night stand, dresser, and vanity look just as old as the bed. And French. They stand on curvy legs that seem ready to dance as soon as you turn your back.
The bed is made, and except for a white, silky-looking robe draped across the foot of the mattress, the room is free of clothing and clutter.
Despite everything being white, the space isn’t blinding or pristine. It’s soft. And clean. It looks cool. Inviting.
This is Stella’s room. This is Stella’s room, and I shouldn’t be staring at it.
But my eyes fall to that robe. And then to the open door of a bathroom on the far corner of the room. All I can make out of it is the white tiled floor.
Stella walks across these wood floors from the bathroom to this bed, wearing that robe.
The thought tightens my balls. “Shit.”
I jerk away from the door, grateful no one’s around to hear my curse.
I pass a hall bathroom and another bedroom with pink flowered wallpaper that I’m betting is Maisy’s before the hall connects with the rear of the entryway, and I make my way back upstairs.
The closed bedroom door at the top of the stairs and the now empty bathroom remind me I’m not alone, so when I get to my room, I jam my AirPods into my ears and start rearranging and unpacking to Post Malone.
Thirty minutes later, when I have my weight bench situated in one corner with the dumbbells mostly out of toe-stubbing range, and I’ve swapped out the ruffled, tea rose patterned sheets with my own charcoal black ones, I skip “Fall Apart” in exchange for “Jackie Chan,” and that’s when I hear voices. I palm my AirPods.
“You need a shorter one.”
I’m pretty sure it’s Stella, and her voice is coming from down the hall.
“Tyler, if you use that one, you’ll drill straight through the door.”
Someone responds, but the sound is short and too low for me to catch.
“I know you can.” Her voice softens. “That’s not what I meant. You’re my brother. I’m trying to help.”
This time I catch the deep, male voice. “No… hel...p.”
“Yeah, but… “ I hear the floor creak. Stella’s voice lowers, but now it sounds like she’s right outside my door. “T, I think we’re scaring her.”
A groan that sounds like a wounded animal reverberates through the wood of my door. And then the door rattles in its frame once—before it bursts open.
“Tyler!” Stella shrieks.
The guy from the car bowls into my room, landing ass-first before catching himself on his elbows. A drill spins across the wood floors.
“Oh my God, Tyler.” Panic wobbles Stella’s voice. Now she’s in my room too, dropping to her knees. “Did you hit your head?”
The guy sits up, grips his head, and leans forward. He’s the one with head trauma.
Shit.
Stella’s lips have gone white, and Tyler hasn’t said a word. I move around him and squat next to her. She doesn’t take her eyes off him.
I look at him too. He’s covering his face.
“He didn’t hit his head,” I say, certain.
Stella’s eyes are wide with fear. “Are you sure? If he did we have to go to the emergency room—”
“He caught himself on his elbows,” I say. “I saw.”
She looks back at her brother, her pretty face still stricken. “Tyler, what’s wrong?”
He hasn’t moved. I glance behind Stella through the open door. Backed against the banister, gripping its railing, is a thin blonde with a black eye. She’s wearing a tank top and loose fitting shorts. Her hair is up in a messy bun like someone who’s just taken a bath. My mystery roommate.
At the sight of the black eye, Pen’s words click into place. Nina.
Nina’s eyes are wide as she looks back and forth from Tyler to me. But they stop on Tyler.
“Say something,” Stella begs, gripping her brother’s knee.
His shoulders hunch. “Sss..sto...p…”
Stella pulls her hand back like she’s hurt him. “Stop what?”
Beneath his hands, I see that Tyler’s face is bright red. The way he’s hiding it reminds me exactly of Grayson. When he’s embarrassed.
I stand up. “Hey,” I say, stepping closer to the door and blocking Nina’s view of Tyler on his ass. “I’m Lark.” I stick out my hand, and Nina’s eyes widen even more.
I watch her swallow, but she makes no move to shake my hand. “Hi… Nina,” she offers. It comes out like a squeak, but at the sound, I sense movement behind me.
“Whoa, slow down, T,” Stella cautions. But when I turn back for a look, Tyler is getting to his feet. His face is still red, but he’s scowling at me. Now he looks just like Grayson does when I threaten to hide his T-Rex toy.
I’m no fool. I step away from the door, spot the drill on the floor, and pick it up. I offer it to Tyler. “Here you go, man. That’s yours.”
He stares at the tool in my hand before taking it.
“What are you working on?”
He doesn’t look back at me, but keeps frowning at the five-inch drill bit like it tried to murder him. I glance at Stella to find her watching us, speechless.
When our eyes snag, she stammers. “U-um… Tyler was installing a sliding latch for Nina’s door.”
At Stella’s words, Tyler looks up, but not at me or his sister. At Nina. They lock eyes for a second before she ducks her chin and hugs her elbows.
“Cool,” I say, bringing everyone’s eyes back to me. “Maybe you could install one for my door, too, Tyler. Looks like I need one.”
Stella’s hands fly to her cheeks. “I’m so sorry. That shouldn’t have—”
“It was an accident,” I say, shrugging. But then I take a look at my door. The knob and brass plate are older than Moses. “But I’ll take a sliding latch if you’re willing.”
Tyler’s frowning again. At me. But he blinks. The grunting noise he makes sounds more like a yes than a no, but how the hell should I know?
He looks back down at his drill. “B...it,” he says, and then he’s out the door, but when he steps onto the open balcony, he hugs the wall, giving Nina a wide berth. She flinches as he passes anyway.
I look back at Stella to find her staring at me like I just turned orange.
“We’ll… let you get back to unpacking,” she says, and then she goes to Nina. “Would you like to go up to Pen’s attic while Tyler finishes? It’s really quiet up there… Unless she’s performing a spell.”
Nina blinks. “I… um…” She’s still clutching her elb
ows. She looks from me back in the direction of her room down the hall. Then she nods. “Yeah.”
As though Nina is made of glass, Stella guides her—without laying a hand on her—up the narrow stairs to the attic. She knocks, Pen calls a welcome, and the door opens.
I realize I’m still watching when I notice light dancing around them. A handful of light-catchers hang from Pen’s ceiling, painting prisms over the two women.
Nina steps inside, so then it’s just Stella at the top of the stairs. I expect her to disappear into the attic, but she looks back at me. Rainbows land and skate across her hair, her arms, her breasts.
For a moment, her blinding beauty makes me forget that she doesn’t want me living here. She doesn’t like me, and I don’t much like her.
Except for right now. I do like the way she’s looking at me right now. And the rainbow-sparkly tits. Because who doesn’t like rainbow-sparkly tits? And Stella’s are quite nice as far as tits go. Even without the lightcatcher rainbow sparkles.
It takes another couple of seconds for me to pull my head out of my ass and shut the door.
It would be better if I could lock it. That might keep me from wanting to open it again.
Chapter Nine
STELLA
Livy moves in on Saturday, and by Sunday morning, it definitely feels like I’m living in a house with five other adults and a four-year-old.
Not only is today the first day I make breakfast for everyone, it’s the first time everyone comes to the kitchen for breakfast at the same time.
Except Lark.
He moved in Thursday and doesn’t seem to eat breakfast. Other than catching him running a load of clothes yesterday, I haven’t seen much of him since the night he moved in—when he kept Tyler from having a meltdown in front of Nina.
It took me too long to figure that out. That Tyler wasn’t injured. He was embarrassed. And it’s hard for him to manage sudden emotion. Like embarrassment or fear. And he was already so frustrated. It could have so easily sent him over the edge, and that would have been upsetting for him—not to mention Nina.
And I’m already pretty sure that upsetting Nina would upset Tyler even more.
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