“I am covered,” Ariana said, enunciating the words as she held her arms out to the sides. She gave me a look as if she couldn’t understand how I didn’t see that. “I’m—you know what? Whatever.”
Well, crap.
Shooting a glare at Hollis, she hissed, “If I have to wear clothes the entire time she lives here . . .”
It’s getting worse. How is it getting worse when we’ve only been here for half a second?
Hollis slowly looked at us, her expression all apologies before she pushed Ariana away from the door, their hushed whispers too low for us to make out as I turned to Caleb.
“This is already a disaster,” I said under my breath.
One of his eyebrows ticked up, but he didn’t look away from where he was staring at the porch. “Say the word, and we’re back on the freeway.”
“Caleb . . .”
“What do you want from me, Kinsley?” he asked just as softly, finally shifting his stare to meet mine. “To just let you go? To not care that you’re leaving?”
“I want you to be happy for me.”
His eyes searched my face before falling to the porch again. “I can’t do that.”
My heart wrenched and my lips parted on a pained exhale just as Hollis came back.
“We make really great first impressions here, I know,” she teased, and I struggled to fix my expression before facing her, determined to push aside all my pain until Caleb and I were alone. “But despite what you just saw of Ariana, she’s the fun one and she’s also the mom of the house. She makes sure all the bills are paid and she cooks for us. She’s arguably the responsible one. She just doesn’t love clothes.”
I shook my head, hating that I’d already had such a bad start with half of my new roommates. “No, I shouldn’t have said anything. I think it just shocked me.”
Hollis waved off my words, her expression pure ease. “Don’t worry about it—people talk to her about it all the time. I promise she’ll be over it and making jokes about something by the time she’s back out here.” Glancing around us, her eyebrows drew close in curiosity before she pointed to the porch. “Where’s all your stuff?”
Stuff.
Stuff, because I’m moving in, and this is my new life.
In a freaking mansion.
Despite my emotional and physical exhaustion, a genuine smile tugged at my lips. “Oh, it’s still in the cars. We were kind of hoping to rest first . . . and also maybe see if we were even at the right place.” I made a face that was all embarrassment as I reminded her of the beginning of our meeting.
“Right, the house is kind of staggering at first.” She sent me a wink as she stepped back, waiting for us to follow her into the entryway. “You get used to it though. Just think of it like an apartment complex where we share all the common areas.”
An incredulous laugh fell from my lips as I let my stare go everywhere, taking in absolutely everything. “Get used to this?”
“You will,” Hollis assured me. “You’ll meet Stevie, she’s upstairs. Her dad owns this house—he’s one of those mega-rich guys but is honestly the sweetest man ever,” she added, reaching back to touch my arm before continuing into a massive, open-concept living room and kitchen. “And he lets all of us, including Stevie, rent out the rooms for about what an apartment would be.”
“Which is why we thought we were in the wrong place,” I teased.
“I’m going to bash that bitch’s nose in,” someone screamed, their voice filtering in from upstairs.
All right then.
“That would be Stevie,” Hollis said, pointing toward the ceiling.
“She sounds . . .” I dipped my head slowly. “She sounds nice.”
Hollis choked out a laugh. “Yeah, uh.” Her head slanted as she thought over her words. “Stevie has never claimed to be ‘nice,’ and she probably wouldn’t want to be labeled that way. But if she likes you, she’s absolutely the girl you want in your corner.”
“Got it,” I murmured just as the words “Fuck me” sounded from the long hall past the kitchen, and Ariana came jogging down it, looking more annoyed than when she’d left.
At least she was wearing clothes.
“Watch her when you go to work tonight,” she said to Hollis. “Jenny posted an old picture of her and Russell, saying she misses the old times or something.”
“She’s goading Stevie, you know she is,” Hollis whispered, and Ariana lifted her brows in agreement before looking at me.
“So, welcome to L.A.” She clapped her hands together, the corner of her mouth lifting into the beginnings of a smirk as her stare dipped over me. “Sorry for the shitshow as soon as you showed up. Our house can be a little dramatic at times, but we’re a lot of fun too, I promise. So, what would you like to do first? I can make us lunch or help you get unpacked.” She pointed to the hall she’d just come down. “You want to see your room?”
I stood there for a moment, partly because I was struggling with the weight of all my decisions pressing on me. Overwhelming me. Partly because I was stunned by the change in Ariana. It was like Hollis had said—Ariana was completely over it. And had she . . .
I was ninety-nine percent certain that look had been her checking me out. But that . . . no. That hadn’t happened, right? Right.
One of your new roommates apparently has violent tendencies, and the other one definitely did not check you out.
Great. Good. Settled.
Moving on.
Pushing aside my wonder and doubts, I forced myself to focus on the conversation and said, “I’d love to see my room if that’s okay,” just as Caleb leaned toward me.
He stilled, his mouth pressing into a firm line and his eyes pleading with me not to do this.
When I just held his stare, silently begging him not to argue with me in front of the girls, he stepped back with a frustrated huff. “I, uh . . . guess I’ll start bringing things in.”
My lips parted on impulse, but Caleb was gone before I could apologize.
I swallowed past the knot in my throat and faced my new roommates when the sound of the front door shutting reached us. “I’m sorry, he isn’t normally like this,” I whispered, the overshare of a ramble continuing to pour free even as my head told me to stop—to attempt to salvage this first meeting somehow. “He’s just been angry ever since I got the job here. He doesn’t want me to move, even though I’ve begged him to come with me. It isn’t the distance, even though he hates the idea of it. It’s that he thinks L.A. will change me.”
“And then you had to go and welcome them in your underwear,” Hollis mumbled to Ariana, sending her a look that was all teasing affection.
Ariana let out a long groan. “For the last time—”
“This definitely won’t be the last time.”
Ariana slid a mock-glare Hollis’s way just as the front door opened again.
I studied the two of them for a moment longer, cautiously surprised when there were no hints of the judgment or irritation I was so used to back home, then turned to look for Caleb. But it wasn’t Caleb who rounded the corner into the large room.
Tall, broad, and slightly terrifying . . . something about the man had me taking a step back. And then another when Hollis went running past me and launched herself at him.