Mr. Roommate: Single Dad & Virgin Romance

I wonder if anyone has responded to my ad…

I finished my shower and took a seat in my computer chair once I was dressed for the day. I had a number of responses—much more than I thought I would get. The first was a young executive at a big company who was also recently divorced. He was younger than me and it sounded like he was looking for something temporary, so I passed on his response. It might have been nice to have a man younger than me with money to burn serving as my wingman, but I didn’t want to be in the same situation searching for another roommate when he had enough money to get his own place. Based on his position, I didn’t think he would stick around for long. I needed someone who would be more dependable.

This could be promising…

The second one I clicked was an older lady. She looked old enough to be my grandmother and her reply stated she was looking for somewhere to live for a few years before she eventually went to a retirement home. I picked up my phone and called her, but after talking for a few minutes, I realized she wasn’t all there. She had no answer to how she would pay half the bills and rent drawing nothing but social security. I politely declined to let her come for a visit when she suggested she would have to take the bus and have me meet her there. I felt bad for her, but I wasn’t in a position to take on the role of her caregiver, which seemed to be what she was ultimately looking for.

After I hung up with her, I scanned through a few more responses, mostly from younger guys looking for a cheap bachelor pad. It was clear that in a college town, I was going to get a lot of requests from students. That seemed a little bit outside of my comfort zone, but I still looked at each one hoping to find a gem in the middle of the slew of people that mentioned space in the refrigerator for their beer as a requirement.

Hmm, this one is from a college… girl?

I opened the next reply on my list and saw a generic response from someone named Hannah who was asking if she could stop by and see the place. I started to close it out, surprised to even get a response from a co-ed, but then I saw the link to her social media account at the bottom. I clicked it, and I was greeted by a vision of beauty with her face surrounded by auburn colored hair. The rest of her profile was private, but the picture was enough for me to reconsider my thoughts about shutting her down entirely. I flipped back to the page and typed a response, letting her know I was okay with her stopping by if she wanted. It was only a matter of minutes before she replied and said she would, and she would have her father with her. I didn’t blame her one bit for bringing him with her—for all she knew, I might want to slice her up and have her for dinner, even though my advertisement specifically said I wouldn’t.

Hannah

“I’m not sure I like any of these places…” My father let out a long sigh as we left our most recent attempt at finding me a place to live.

“Nothing is going to be perfect.” I rolled my eyes and climbed into the passenger side of our rental car.

“I’m not looking for something perfect, I’m just looking for something that doesn’t look like you’ll do more partying than studying.” He gave me a glare as he turned on the car.

“You do realize that as a nineteen-year-old college student, I’m not going to spend every Friday and Saturday holed up in my room—you were a college student once.” I folded my arms as he started to drive.

“I know, Hannah.” He sighed. “I don’t expect you to be a recluse, but if I can pretend you are, I’ll sleep easier at night.”

“You could get me my own place?” I looked over at him and smiled. “Then you would know I was safe behind my own locked door.”

“I wish I could afford that.” He shook his head. “Where are we headed next?”

“Um, here—I’ll put the address in the GPS.” I leaned over and started punching the address for the guy named Brent into the screen.

“So this is the single guy you added as a joke?” He stared at the address and looked at the paper in my hand. “Why are we even bothering to visit this place? You know I’m not going to agree to let you stay with a man you don’t know.”

“You’ve said no to every other place. We might as well do him the courtesy of a nice rejection since I told him we were coming by.” I let out a sigh and stared at the paper. “We’re running out of options.”

“There were a couple of maybes.” He started to laugh. “The old lady was pretty entertaining.”

“She had like fifty cats!” I snapped back at him immediately.

“You like cats.” He continued laughing and turned the car when the GPS said it was time.

“I like one cat—she’s raising a petting zoo.” I started laughing as well.

“After two, what’s the difference?” He shrugged.

We drove up to a gate and we had to show our id to get in. After making a few turns, I pointed ahead to the right. “There’s the house.”

“It isn’t bad looking…” He raised his eyebrows when he turned into the driveway. “The neighborhood is quiet. I like that it is gated. This would have been a good option if that nice girl downtown lived here.”

“I don’t think she could afford this place.” I stepped out of the car as he put it in park.

The house was pretty nice—I had to admit that. It wasn’t a mansion and it wasn’t fancy, but it looked to be a nice three-bedroom home. I could see a deck that wrapped around the back and there was a two-car garage open in front of us with an old Toyota parked inside of it. I didn’t know much about the guy who owned it, but his advertisement was pretty funny. He was the only one who specifically said he wasn’t going to kill the person that agreed to be his roommate. He either had a good sense of humor or he was the worst serial killer in history.

We walked up to the door and my father knocked on it. A couple of seconds later, the door opened and I saw a man with a short brown beard smiling at us. He pushed the door open and I couldn’t help but notice that he was hot. His hair was combed over and styled, neatly trimmed like his beard, and the t-shirt he was wearing was covering a mountain of muscles.

“Hello, you must be Mr. Smith. I’m Brent Davis.” He extended his hand to my father.

“Nice to meet you.” My father took his hand.