“I don’t want a roommate.” I scowl at her, absently picking at the paper sleeve that wraps around my cup. I only just arrived in town not even two hours ago. Staying at Alex’s family’s hotel is great and all, but I don’t plan on staying there for long.
Knowing me, I’d want to sleep in till noon, play a round a golf, and find myself in the bar, paying for a round of drinks for my new golf buddies.
I need to break all my old habits. Living at a hotel won’t help me do that.
“I understand. But where are you going to find a place to live with cheap rent around here? And I hate the idea of leaving Stella alone. But Alex and I, we’re just anxious to start our lives together. Really together,” Caroline stresses, and I wonder what that’s like, to be so in love with someone, you can barely stand the thought of not seeing that person every single day.
I wouldn’t have a clue. I’ve been in casual relationships. In my early twenties, you could’ve even called me a player. But have I ever been desperately in love?
That would be a firm no.
“I get it,” I tell her, lying through my teeth. “And I’m sure Stella will get it too. But me moving in with her? I don’t think she’ll go for that.”
“You’re just being stubborn,” Caroline says irritably “Like I said, you’re both so busy all the time, you two wouldn’t have to deal with each other much.”
“I won’t be as busy here, Caro. I need to find a job first. Establish myself.” She’s forgetting that I have no job, and I’m not that busy. I could go work for a real estate agency. I could walk into any one of them in the area and they’d hire me in an instant.
But I’m not sure if I want to do that. What I’d really love to do is buy a home, fix it up and sell it. A project all my own, something just for me.
“You’re such a go-getter, I’m sure you’ll find a job immediately. Next thing you know, you’ll be working your ass off, as usual, and you’ll never be home,” Caroline says with extreme knowledge, because she knows me so well. “It would work out perfectly.”
“I suppose,” I say slowly, though I don’t know if it’ll happen as quickly as she says. I want to take my time, figure out a plan, reassess my entire life, if I’m being truthful.
Do I really want to do that while living with Stella? Knowing she’s mad at me for what I did to her? She’s a reminder of how I used to be. The player who had sex with women and then immediately forgot all about them. I don’t want to do that anymore.
I want to change.
Caroline’s face brightens. “So you think it would be a good idea? Because I do. You could take over my room, pay rent, reevaluate what you want to do here now that you’re back. We know you’ll eventually find a job, find a place to live, and firmly establish yourself here. It’s the perfect solution to your temporary situation.”
“What will happen to Stella once I move out?” I’m speaking hypothetically, of course, because we know this is never going to happen.
Caroline’s eyes dim and she sighs. “I don’t know. I suppose she could find another roommate eventually. Or she could live alone. She might want to, after you two live together for a while.”
“Ha, very funny.”
“Listen, the best part about living with Stella is the rent is super cheap. Only four hundred dollars a month, and that includes utilities,” Caroline tells me.
My eyes feel like they’re going to pop out of my head. “That’s it?” The leases for any business on Ocean Avenue in Carmel-by-the-Sea are way more than that. As in, four hundred dollars is probably their hourly rate.
Caroline nods, her expression guilty. “I know, right? It’s so cheap.”
Living with Stella is sounding better by the minute. But I know it could never work. First, she would never allow it. Second, the temptation of having Stella living in the same place I do would be too much.
Way too much.
I can’t risk it.
What happened between us that one night can never happen again, no matter how badly I might want it to. Lately, I think about that night a lot. Maybe it’s because I can’t have her, and we always want what we can’t have, am I right?
But who the hell is saying that I can’t have Stella? Me?
Yeah. It’s me. I don’t deserve her, especially after what I did.
“I should go.” I grab my cup, drain the last of the coffee and slam it onto the tabletop, jostling the paper sleeve so that it falls off the cup, uncovering the writing that it hid.
Hope you don’t poop your pants, it says, accompanied by a perfectly sweet smiley face.
Smiling, I stare at Stella’s loopy, feminine handwriting. I should be offended, right? Maybe? But I’m not.
I’m kind of charmed.
Would it be so terrible, living with Stella? Nah. Though it would be a real test to my self-control. She’s pure temptation. Even seeing her here now at Sweet Dreams, working hard behind the counter, glaring at me every chance she can get, I’m drawn to her.
But it would be temporary. A short period in my life so I can get back on my feet, figure out what I want to do and make my next move.
“Meet us for dinner tonight,” Caroline says as we both rise to our feet, making our way to the front door. “We want to go to that one place with the terrace that overlooks the street.”
“Close to the beach?” I’ve heard of it, but never been. And thank God my sister didn’t suggest Tuscany. That restaurant is full of all sorts of memories, almost all of them starring Stella.
“Yes.” She nods. “Seven o’clock. What do you say?”
“Sure,” I shrug, then glance over my shoulder to find Stella watching us. I lift my hand in acknowledgement and she scratches her forehead, subtly giving me the finger.
Laughing, I make my way out of Sweet Dreams with my sister on my heels.
“What’s so funny?” she asks.
My laughter dies, but my sudden good mood doesn’t. “Nothing. I’ll see you tonight.”
Four
Stella
I show up at the Treehouse Café a little after seven, cursing inwardly that I’m late. I’m a punctual person. It’s almost a fault of mine, just how on time I am to everything I need to be at. My family? They’re always late. My mother, my father, my brothers. They’re a half hour late almost every single time. It’s gotten to the point that I tell them an event is happening thirty minutes earlier, just so I can guarantee they’ll be on time.
Once I was done with work, I went upstairs to my apartment, took a shower, and fell asleep in my unmade bed, all snuggled up and cozy under the blankets and wearing only my panties and bra. I woke up around six-thirty, my hair still damp and a tangled mess, drool dried on the side of my cheek. I only had to go down a couple of blocks to get to the restaurant, which took maybe ten minutes, tops, but I had to get myself presentable first, and that took a while.
I enter the restaurant and am led outside by the hostess. It’s dark, the breeze from the ocean chilly. There are patio heaters set among the tables to keep everyone warm, though I’m grateful I brought a thin sweater. Glancing around, I spot Alex and Caroline as I follow behind the hostess who’s chattering away about how no one wants to sit inside tonight. I nod and smile when she looks at me from over her shoulder, stopping dead in my tracks when I see my friend and her fiancé sitting at a table. They’re not alone.