Jock Reign (Jock Hard 5)

Lilly: New roommate?

Me: Yeah—Jack and I sublet my room and I’m sleeping with him, LOL.

Lilly: Oooo you’re a couple now?! You should have told me!

Me: You’re so busy and we’ve been busy…

Lilly: I can’t wait to hear all about it and see your place. What’s the address? I was thinking I’d leave here in a few minutes.

I text my old roommate my new address and resume cutting the sweet strawberries into slices, stealing a few. One for them, one for me.

Two for them, one for me…

Have everything set out when the doorbell rings again, the guys both inside the house, most of Roman’s things brought into the foyer. He goes up and down the stairs, taking box after box after tote to his bedroom, grunting every so often from a too-heavy container.

“Hello?”

“In here!” I call out, hoping she’ll follow my voice because I have fingers full of juice from cutting up fruit and am washing my hands and fussing with the pizza and salad, wanting everything to look nice for the guys when they’re all finished with moving things. Lilly peeks her head into the kitchen, knocking on the doorjamb before entering.

“Hello, hello!” she calls with a smile, stepping toward me, arms extended for a hug.

She’s smiling but…

Looks tired.

Same as she did the last time I saw her, when she and Kyle were fighting.

I step into her arms. “What’s wrong?”

Her body is tense. “I’m sorry to pop over like this, but Kaylee hasn’t been home much and today I just didn’t want to be alone.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“I…ugh.” Lilly pulls out a chair at the counter and drops into it with a heavy sigh. “Kyle and I are done. Like, done done.”

“Lilly, why?!”

“He cheated.”

That stops whatever argument I was going to have for her stubbornness, and whatever speech I was going to give about communication and effort and—

“How do you know?”

“I found the texts. It’s been going on a while.” She steals a slice of pizza that’s in the center of the counter. “Why not just tell me you’re unhappy? We had that huge fight—why would he get back together with me if he was cheating? He should have just told me then.”

I fall into the chair beside her. “Sometimes people aren’t strong enough to be honest when it matters most.”

Lilly nods, chewing. Swallows. “I cannot believe I haven’t started crying, but for real, I’ve done so good.”

That makes me laugh, and I stand again so I can finish prepping linner.

“You need a stiff drink, but all we have is soda, juice, and water. What’ll it be?”

“Water—pour me another.”

I have my back to the room while I’m at the sink filling a glass with water after filling it with ice. My new roommate enters the room with a large box in his arms, only his head visible.

He stops self-consciously, unsure of what to do.

We haven’t established any kind of ease with him yet, so these first few days are going to be a little bit awkward. Not his fault; that’s just the way things go when diving in feet first by taking in a newbie. It will get better; it has to.

But Rome himself is a tad awkward. I don’t expect him to be overly extroverted until he gets to know us and we him, but lord he is shy.

“Uh, Eliza? Jack said I can store some of my things in the garage?”

I set the glass of water in front of Lilly. “Oh sure. Here—let me get the door.”

That’s when he notices my friend. Lilly’s seated at the counter, all blonde and beautiful and forlorn, her big sad eyes gazing back at him.

She smiles.

He blinks.

Awkward…

“You must be the new roommate,” she says at last. “I’m the old one.”

Roman fumbles with the box he’s carrying, nearly dropping it to the floor and blushing beet red in the process.

“Um…Rome. You can call me Rome.”

“Hi, Rome. I’m Lilly.”

She winks at him.

He drops his box, the undeniable sound of glass shattering echoing throughout the kitchen.

“Fuck,” he moans, dropping to his knees, peeling back the cardboard to peer into its depths.

“What is it?” Lilly joins, squatting beside him and peering over his shoulder.

Breathes on him because, duh—he needs oxygen.

“Uh…”

Oh.

My.

God.

Lilly has rendered the poor guy dumb, this already shy dude fumbling with the contents of his box, lifting shards of what can only be a trophy or award into the air.

Letting bits of it fall back into the box.

“That looks like it could have been an Emmy Award,” Lilly says breathlessly. “What was it actually?”

“It’s—it was—a Cambridge Gates Scholarship Award,” he says quietly at long last, after staring holes into the already broken glass. It still shimmers under the light.

“What was it for?”

I see Rome struggle to gulp in a breath. “I won an award to attend Cambridge University in the UK—I spent my junior year there.”