The Temporary Roomie by Sarah Adams
It’s lake house day. SUPER! I’m so glad I made this happen. Not. If there wasn’t a promise of seeing my grandaddy on the other side of it, I’d be canceling so fast. What I don’t understand is, why hasn’t Drew canceled? There’s absolutely nothing in this for him except to reconnect with his old mentor—but I’m not even sure that’s important to him.
Currently, Drew and I are both standing opposite each other in the kitchen, angrily wolfing down bowls of Raisin Bran Crunch (he insists on healthy cereal but doesn’t realize I secretly mixed Cinnamon Toast Crunch into mine). We’re staring at each other like we’re in some sort of warped cereal eating competition. I almost choke twice.
We both take the last bite at the same time and then go shoulder to shoulder at the sink and drop our bowls in. We’re synchronized swimmers as we turn opposite ways and flow out of the kitchen. I grab my heavy suitcase, Drew rips it out of my hand and glares at me then picks up his own. We stomp stomp stomp out of the house, lock the door, and go to the Jeep. This is how we’ve been operating the last few days, ever since our fight after the fundraiser.
He’s mad at me for humiliating him and turning him down outside my door, and I’m mad at him for breathing. Also—I don’t love that he went out with Mia again. It was just a lunch date, but Lucy told me Drew said they had a nice time. Well sure, Drew, if you like nice times, then why don’t you just go ahead and buy an Instant Pot and dorky matching polos and marry her already. You two will have a very nice life with adorable Christmas cards, I’m sure.
Gag me.
Drew doesn’t want nice. He wants spicy. He wants some grit. He wants a good fighter. He wants me.
Do I want him?
BAM.Drew slams down the trunk of the Jeep, so I slam my passenger door shut just so we’re even. And then we’re off. Locked inside a steel cage together as we barrel silently down the interstate toward a weekend of fake bliss and love. There’s so much tension between us that I can’t even imagine a happy outcome for this trip. How are we going to act lovey-dovey when clearly we both feel like throwing on some boxing gloves and stepping into a ring?
After forty-five minutes of silence, I break. “Have you thought about how you’re going to explain me away after this weekend?”
I look over at Drew, letting my eyes land squarely on him for the first time today. His brown hair is tousled and styled, and his hunter green t-shirt makes his blue eyes look startlingly sharp. His outstretched arm resting on the top of the steering wheel tenses. Veins roll.
“No.”
Okay, got it. One-syllable answer means Shut it, Jessie.
I bite the inside corner of my cheek and look out the window. “You probably should.” My words feel radioactive. Instinctively, I know I don’t need to be pushing this…but I can’t help it. I have to. I feel the need to push every single one of Drew’s buttons. I can handle fighting with Drew—I can’t handle silence from him anymore.
I glance out of the corner of my eye and see his hand wrap tighter around the wheel. We are quiet for five minutes, and just as I’m thinking he’s closed the conversation for good and we will spend the rest of our days as silent monks, Drew’s voice jumps out at me.
“I’ve got it!”
I squeal and drop the package of peanut M&Ms I was holding. They scatter everywhere, and it looks like a candy factory vomited all over his Jeep. “Drew!” I whack him on the arm.
He’s not remorseful in the least. One of the M&Ms landed in his lap, so he picks it up and pops it in his mouth with a self-satisfied grin. “Sorry. I’ve got my story ready.”
“What story?” I ask, sitting back to fold my arms and pout in my seat.
“The story I’m going to tell everyone to explain what happened to you.”
I don’t quite like the grin on his face right now. “That’s why you’ve been silent over there?”
“I needed some time to come up with something good.” He clears his throat like he’s preparing an important monologue. “It started so well. Our love was strong, and we had a whirlwind romance. Jessie, in particular, couldn’t keep her hands off me. I mean seriously, her desire for me was just insatiable. Every single night she would beg me, ‘Drew, please—”
“Okay, I think you’ve made your point, Casanova. Move on.”
He grins at the road before letting it morph into an expression of pure agony. “And then one morning on a weekend trip to Dr. Green’s lake house, I walk in on Jessie FaceTiming a man in the nude!” He gasps and covers his mouth like one of the Golden Girls. “As it turns out, Jessie had been having a secret fling on the side, and the baby is not mine, but HIS—even worse, Jessie knew it all along but just wanted a doctor’s salary to support her.” Drew shakes his head lightly, like his imaginary grief is too much to bear. “It was a heartbreaking tale. But luckily, the Greens were there to comfort me while I sent Jessie packing in an Uber.”
Drew says all of this in a way that lets me think he’s truly planning on this. I can see it now, a cunning smile spreading across his face before he runs out of our room into the kitchen and relays an entire fake story to the Greens at my expense. My humiliation is on the horizon, and I’ll never be able to see another doctor in Nashville again because there will be a bounty out for my head after word spreads. My face will be printed at the top of their doctor newsletter (I can only assume they have one) with a giant red target over my face. I’ll never receive good healthcare again.
“You wouldn’t dare!” I say with decisive emphasis on each word.
He chuckles like a maniac. “Oh, I would. In fact, I will.”
I have limited options for attack, stuffed in the car like this, so I lick my finger and stick it in his ear.
Drew jolts toward his door with a disgusted groan and uses his shoulder to wipe his ear. “You did not just give me a wet willy?!”
“I DID! And when we park, I’ll give you a purple nurple too! You can’t say those horrible things about me! It makes me sound so heartless. Imagine if I pass any of the doctors in the grocery store after word spreads? They’ll open up their egg cartons and start pelting me.”
“Ah yes—doctors are known for public egg floggings.”
“Make up a different story.”
Drew’s eyebrow rises. “Make me.”
Smoke billows out of my ears as I narrow my eyes into dangerous slits. “I know things about you now, Dr. Stuck-up. I can blackmail you ALL DAY.”
He barks out a laugh. “Oh yeah? What dirt do you have on me?”
“When you fall asleep on the couch, you fart. Like a lot. Real stinky stuff.”
“I do not.” He doesn’t.
I hum and tap my chin in a quick obnoxious movement. “I don’t know. Who are people going to believe—the sleeping man, or the woman there to witness the rapid-fire flatulence? I bet Mia would be interested in hearing what she’s signing up for.”
Drew’s brows crunch together. “What does Mia have to do with any of this?”
Doesn’t he see it? Mia has everything to do with it. My mood has never been more sour than after witnessing Drew on a date with another woman. My insides started aching that day, and they haven’t stopped.
“Just thought she’d like to know her man has bad gas before she decides to crawl into bed with him.”
Drew glances sideways at me—no smile anymore—and then looks back at the road. “Mia won’t be getting in my bed, so don’t waste your breath on trying to blackmail me regarding her. It was just a date.”
I have to bite my cheeks to keep from smiling. That doesn’t work, so I suck them in, making me look like a fish. I turn my face toward the window, because Drew absolutely cannot see how much of an effect that news is having on me. I feel like a balloon, freshly filled with helium and ready to drift off into outer space. “That’s a shame.”
He grunts a laugh. “Yeah, clearly you look heartbroken for me. I can see your reflection in the window.”
I wipe my smile off and paste on an over-the-top frown. Paint my face and I’d be a sad clown. “Better?”
Drew quickly glances at me and rolls his eyes, but I can see the hint of a smile in the corner of his fine mouth…his fine mouth that I’ve had the privilege of kissing and would really like to kiss again.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“YOU ARE,” he says, reaching over to slide my hairband down—wrecking my perfect ponytail!
I reach over to pinch under his arm, but he grabs my hand and locks it in his. I try to tear it away, but he just intertwines our fingers, his grip tight and possessive, and rests our hands on the armrest between us. “You can have this back when you learn to behave.”
I huff and puff and put on a big show of hating his hand against mine, but inwardly, I’m dying. Have two hands ever fit together so perfectly? Has the feel of another’s skin against mine ever set me on fire before?
Drew keeps my hand captive—aka we hold hands—the whole drive, neither of us letting go of our pride. We’ve got shields in front of our faces in the form of glares and scowls, and we use our words like swords. I know his pressure points, and he knows mine. When Drew’s thumb tenderly runs up and down mine, we both throw extra insults at each other just to disguise the intimacy neither of us is willing to admit lives between us. Never have two more prideful, stubborn people existed.
It’s a tight rope we walk, and I’m feeling less and less confident in my ability to make it safely across.
My phone rings as we pull up to the lake house, and Drew finally releases my hand so I can answer it. It’s my contractor on the line, and he has bad news. Drew puts the Jeep in park and watches with concerned brows as I receive the update.
“It’s worse than we thought. Most of your sub flooring is rotted too. We’ve been trying to replace boards on a need-to-fix basis only, but the more we tear out, the more problems we find.”
“So what does this mean?” I’m afraid he’s going to say they had to bulldoze the house and start over, that I’m suddenly out four hundred thousand dollars and they are taking me to prison because I can’t pay it.
“It means an increase in your bottom line and also a few more weeks added to the completion date.”
Tears are stinging my eyes, and I will not let myself let them out. I don’t think I’m doing a great job of hiding them, though, because Drew’s hand finds mine again and he squeezes. I spend the next five minutes trying to talk my contractor into putting all of his manpower into finishing this project on time, because I have a baby coming and I would really like to have a home to bring said baby home to. He tells me No can do in a thick northern accent that feels abrasive to me in my fragile state. So now, my house is due to be finished around the same time as my due date. Wonderful. Perfect. SPLENDID!
I hang up and stare blankly out the front windshield, letting my thoughts fall into their final slots like the Plinko game.
“Talk to me,” Drew urges, leaning forward and trying to catch my eye.
“Everything is fine,” I say in a high-pitched screechy tone. “It’s only that my life is over, and my baby is going to be homeless, but it’s fine.”
“What are you talking about? What did the contractor say?”
I take a deep breath, gathering all my strength so I don’t release a sob all over Drew. “They ran into complications—more things to be fixed—and they don’t think the house will be done until the same week as my due date.”
“Oh.” Drew’s shoulders relax like I didn’t just tell him my whole world is falling apart. His nonchalant attitude pisses me off.
“What do you mean Oh? This is bad, Drew. Do you understand what this means for me? I might not have my home to bring my baby home from the hospital to. I won’t have a place to set up its crib, or the rocking chair—not that I even have any of those things because when Lucy offered to throw me a baby shower, I turned her down like a lunatic, because I was too scared of becoming a mom.” My voice is hysterical now and I’m sure I’ll be embarrassed about this later, but for now, it’s all gushing out like I just hit an emotional artery. “I added a few things to a baby registry online but haven’t even bought a single thing off of it yet because I didn’t want to have to pile more boxes at your house and make you mad. But no, that’s a lie—I’m blaming it on you when it’s really my fault. I didn’t order anything for the same reason I haven’t found out the sex of the baby. If I order things, if I have things, it makes it real, and I haven’t been ready to face that yet.”
I finally take a shuddering breath. Once the words are out, I don’t even want to look at Drew. I just spewed my emotions all over him, and if there’s anything I’ve learned about men, it’s that they don’t like dealing with women’s drama. Except for Grandaddy. He’ll listen to my blabbering all day, and I wish I could go to him right now. He’s the only person I’ve ever been able to trust to make things better for me.
Drew doesn’t rush out of the car and leave me behind. He squeezes my hand. “Jessie, look at me.” His words are not tender. Not sweet. They are rough and they say I mean it. I square my shoulders and look in his navy eyes. “Neither you nor your baby will be homeless. You live with me, and my house is your house as long as you need it. Order your stuff. Ship it to my place. It’s time to stop avoiding, to face what’s coming—you’re about to become a mother, and you can do it. You’re strong enough.”
I want to be angry at Drew as he lets go of my hand and hops out of the Jeep, but I can’t. He’s right. And he’s probably the only person in the world that can actually give me the kick in the pants I need. My baby is coming soon. It’s time to pull up my big girl panties and get ready. I’m going to be a mom—I can do this. And thanks to Drew, I don’t have to be homeless.
