The Junior (College Years 3)

“Thank you so much,” she tells him, sounding genuine.

She doesn’t thank me at all.

Figures.

We grab the last remaining boxes—they aren’t that heavy—that are in the back of her car. She takes a stack of clothes on hangers and once she’s closed the trunk, off we go toward the apartment, Gracie leading us as if she’s the queen and we’re her lowly servants.

Kind of sucks. I don’t want to be trailing after Gracie the entire summer and into the school year, doing what she wants, whenever she asks. I’m not her whipping boy.

Taking a deep breath, I pause in the doorway of the apartment, telling myself to reset. Why do I always assume the worst when it comes to Gracie? She’s never asked me to do anything like that, ever. She has zero expectations of me.

Wait. Scratch that. Her expectations of me are super low. I’ve got nowhere to go but up, truthfully.

But I’m also going mostly silent. Eli was right. I need to leave her alone. Pretend she barely exists. She’s just a roommate. I need to act like I don’t even know her. She’ll probably be busy too. She mentioned needing to find a job to Eli, and that fucker suggested she come work where I do.

I hope that doesn’t happen. Most of the time, the girls work in the fountain while the guys work in the kitchen or on the dock. We have a couple of dock girls, as we call them, and they work in the office, handling the boat reservations and giving the customers boating instructions, taking all the calls and the money and whatever else. We have a couple of regulars who return every summer, and while they haven’t started yet, they will soon.

I’m not too worried about it.

We spend the rest of the afternoon hanging out. Well, Eli and I hang out. Gracie is in her room upstairs, unpacking all her stuff. Setting up her bed—we carried the mattress and box spring in for her while she brought in the frame—doing all the things a person does when they’ve just moved.

Moving sucks. It’s been nice that I’m the one who has remained in this apartment while it has had a revolving door of people. My original roommates were Tony and Diego, with Jackson and Eli living together at another apartment complex not too far from this one. Diego moved out to live with his baby mama, Jocelyn, and become a little family, leaving just Tony and me living here, and Tony covering Diego’s share of the rent because he’s a rich motherfucker.

Jackson eventually moved out of the apartment he shared with Eli and is now touring the country with his band and took his girl, Ellie, with him. They’re dropping out of school and everything which, hey, if that works for them, cool. Tony recently moved in with Hayden. Eli moved in with me. And now so has Gracie.

Wild. If you would’ve told me a couple of years ago that I’d be living with that hot chick I liked to torment I’d tell you no fucking way.

Yet here I am, living with her. And Eli too. We used to be mortal enemies. That guy hated me and the feeling was mutual.

Now look at us.

“You going out tonight?” Eli asks me, pushing me out of my thoughts.

“Nah. I gotta open tomorrow,” I say. Meaning I have to be at work by seven, and considering it’s less than an hour away from where we live, I have to leave the house by six in the morning at the latest.

Eli frowns. “That sucks. I was hoping to go to that party at your frat house.”

The frat house I’ve been avoiding lately. I’m not partying anymore. Not really.

“You can go without me,” I tell him.

Eli shakes his head. “Nah. My girl is coming home tomorrow for good. I should go to bed early so tomorrow happens faster.”

“Aw, look at you. All eager to see your girlfriend and shit.” He’s so gone over her. Ava Callahan can do no wrong in his eyes. It’s been tough for them with her going to college in San Diego while he’s here, but they’ve made it through one school year. Hopefully, they’ll keep going.

“Shut up,” he says, but he doesn’t sound pissed. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

“What what’s like?” I frown.

“Loving a girl so much that you can’t stop thinking about her. You haven’t found the right one yet,” he says.

I see the sincerity written all over Eli’s face, and I want to roll my eyes. Call him a lovesick pussy or whatever, but I keep my opinion to myself. I know he means every word he says. All of my friends are just like him. Stuck on one girl, stupidly in love with them. Willing to do anything for them.

That’s nice and all, but it’s not for me. Not yet. I have enough time before I have to settle down. We’re still young. Like, extremely young. Why do I need to tie myself to only one woman? No one tempts me anyway.

Well.

One girl does tempt me, but not in the right way. More like I want to get Gracie out of my system once and for all. Fuck her once and be done with it. But now that I’m living with her, I can’t cross that line. Fucking your roommate when you’re not interested in her beyond a quick hookup would end up way too messy.