Room Mated: Standalone Reverse Harem Romance

Mason ignored me. “So now I’m sexist just because I think that the men’s dorm rooms should be for men?”

“Yes,” she said.

My best friend threw me a look. I raised my eyebrow but didn’t comment—at least not about that. “Let’s sit down,” I said instead, gesturing to the table. I resisted the urge to pull out a chair for Kylie. If she was going to be living here, then that made her one of us, not a guest. But right now, it wasn’t looking like that was going to happen.

She ended up sitting a seat away from me while Mason sat across from us. “Parker? This affects you, too,” I told him. He nodded and sat at the end of the table. For a few moments, silence reigned. Kylie stared at Mason. She seemed to know he was the biggest obstacle. I couldn’t help watching her. She was young—it was likely she’d just finished her four-year degree last year. Mason was twenty-six and I was twenty-seven. We’d both put in a couple of years in the real world before returning for graduate school. Kylie looked young and small, but it was clear she wasn’t naïve.

Women her age and her size were often referred to as cute, but at the moment, fierce was a better description. Not that she wasn’t pretty, though. First off, there were those fascinating eyes. It was impolite to stare, but they were both gorgeous. Sky blue next to forest green. They were quite the combo. They seemed all the bigger thanks to her thick lashes and eyeshadow. I wondered if she played up her eyes so that people would notice the heterochromia right away? It probably sucked to meet new people and know that they might interrupt at any moment to ask about it. Or worse… just stare.

Her hair was mesmerizing, too. It was straight and came down a little past her shoulders. The ends were blonde, but up by the roots, it looked more red. Was there any part of her that was just one color? It was an intriguing question.

Mason resumed the debate. “It’s not right, you living with a bunch of men.” He’d dropped the strangers tactic, because she was right—she was new here, so anyone she roomed with would be a stranger.

“Why not? I spent half my life sharing a house with my uncle and his son. I doubt there’s much that could shock me at this point.”

“That’s different. It’s family,” Mason said.

“So? I can tell you the exact moment my cousin discovered internet porn, because it took him about a month of heavy viewing before it dawned on him that he should use earphones. I’ve heard my uncle make pretty much every kind of old-man noise imaginable in the middle of the night. How is a small house with thin walls all that different from sharing a room?”

God, it was fun watching her stand her ground. She should be studying law, not business. I could just see her as a tiny total badass in the courtroom.

I took advantage of a momentary pause to dive in. “Let’s go back to the part about our scholarships. The music department’s pretty cool. Unless I sleep with one of the students I give lessons to, I don’t think anything’s going to affect my assistantship. What about yours, Mason?”

“Engineering’s not as lax as the music department,” Mason replied.

“But as you said before, you have influence,” Kylie said. “There’s no way you could’ve gotten the suite that everyone else wanted if you didn’t.”

I bit back a grin as I mentally applauded her. Stroking Mason’s ego was a good approach. Then I turned to Parker. “What about the business school? That’s where Kylie will be studying, too. Are they pretty strict over there?”

Parker looked completely checked out, but then he said, “About some things.” While it wasn’t exactly helpful, at least he’d answered.

Kylie looked back at us when it was evident Parker wouldn’t elaborate. “I don’t want to risk my scholarship either, but it really doesn’t seem like a huge deal in this day and age. And if I get caught, I’ll take the blame. I’ll say I pretended to be a guy or something.”

I couldn’t help snickering and even Mason looked amused. “So we won’t get in trouble, but we’ll look like the three most oblivious people on the planet?”

“Sure,” she said with an easy grin. “A small price to pay for a totally awesome roommate like me.”

We both looked at Mason. “Jude snores,” he said, trying one last angle.

“Only sometimes,” I protested.

“He sounds like a freight train.”

“I can live with that,” Kylie said.

Did she really know what she was getting into, though? “Mason spends most of his time in his boxers. He’s a total exhibitionist.”

“Jude sings in the shower loud enough to wake the dead.”

“Mason mansplains everything. Even to other men.” Kylie’s head looked like she was watching a tennis match as we lobbed insults at each other.