The Roommate Agreement

His lips twitched. “You’re right. I’ll go and apologize and promise to leave after we’ve eaten. Thanks, Shelbs.” He got up and walked to the door right as my dad came over.

“What’s up, kids? Did girls’ night change?” He wiped the table and looked at us both with kind blue eyes.

I shook my head. “Our security was breached. Who let them in?”

Dad laughed when Jay scowled at me. “We’ll do better. What’s up with Tweedledum and Tweedledee out there?”

“Living together issues,” Jay answered. “I can relate.”

Once again, I rolled my eyes. “Did you replace my Oreos?”

“I’ll do it tomorrow!”

Dad’s chuckle was deep as he grabbed our two empty glasses. “Jay, son, all these years and you’re still eating her cookies? Didn’t you learn not to do that in fourth grade?”

“You’d think,” I muttered.

Jay knocked his elbow against me. “Shut up, you. This is why we have a rule that you have to label the packets.”

“You’re still gonna eat them!”

Dad looked between us with an expression of disbelief on his face. “I have no idea how you two have lasted this long as friends, much less live together.”

I raised my glass. “I’ll drink to that, Dad.”

“Same.” Jay clinked the neck of his bottle against my glass. “If anything is worth drinking to, it’s that.”

Hear, hear.

• • •

I groaned as I stumbled into the kitchen, holding my head. “Drugs,” I muttered, gripping onto the island. “I need drugs.”

I was speaking into an empty room because I knew for a fact Jay was still in bed. He hadn’t managed to shut his door before he’d passed out on his bed, fully-clothed, at one-thirty this morning.

That, and I could hear him snoring from here.

He was like a fucking horn bringing boats into a harbor.

With my eyes half-closed, I felt my way through the room to the drawer with the drugs with my head pounding. If I felt this bad, I hated to think about how bad Brie felt. I’d been drinking water along with my mom’s lethal cocktails, but she hadn’t been.

She and Sean had made up sometime during dinner, and since everyone apparently had a day off tomorrow, the drinks had flowed.

I’d pretended not to notice when Sean and Jay had slipped some money into my mom’s back pocket. So had she, even though she’d giggled at their not-so-stealthy attempt.

There was a chance Sean might have stumbled and grabbed her ass while he was slipping a couple of twenties in there…

I found the ibuprofen and shook the bottle. Good. It wasn’t empty. The cap was tough to unscrew, but I managed to get it off and shake out two pills.

Once I’d taken them, I left another two on the counter next to the cooker for Jay and got him a glass of water. There was no way in hell he’d have enough mental capacity this morning to get his own. Kind of like a baby bird.

Opening the fridge door, I stared inside. I wasn’t sure what I was actually doing looking inside it, but I needed to eat before I headed to the library to do some research for the haunted hotel article. If I didn’t, I’d fall down the rabbit hole of research and never come back out.

Well, I would. Just not in any decent amount of time.

I hummed and pulled out some yogurt and berries. That would do for now. If I had anything heavier, I’d probably throw it back up.

I stifled a yawn and tipped some of the yogurt and mixed berries into a bowl to eat. I was halfway through it when Jay wandered into the kitchen, looking a hell of a lot more awake than I thought he would be.

Without speaking, I pointed behind me to where I’d left him a helpful little present.

He walked past me without acknowledgment, and the next noise was the sound of the glass being put back down on the counter. “Thanks. I needed that.”

His voice was raw and husky, full of sleep, and far sexier than it had any right to be.

“You’re welcome,” I said around a mouthful of fruit. “How do you feel?”

“Like I need some of your food.”

I wrapped an arm around my bowl and pulled it into me, glaring up at him. Damn it, even with his hair sticking up in all directions and the imprint of his sheets on his cheek he was still hot.

He was also shirtless, and while it was against the agreement, I just… didn’t have the heart to tell him to put a t-shirt on.

What?

I was only human.

He had abs for days—the perfect, lean kind that screamed kale was one of your food groups but also said that you liked pizza and beer. His entire body was perfectly molded, from his strong shoulders to his tight chest and that tantalizing ‘v’ that curved over his hips and sent girls wild.