Page 9 of Necessary Roughness

Chapter Four

LATE THAT AFTERNOON, Jordan pulled on an old T-shirt and a pair of leggings before jamming her feet into running shoes. She needed a good run. The day hadn’t been so bad after Tanner left, but spending an hour stifling the impulse to say something objectionable to him (or push him over onto the padded mats) shredded her typically steady nerves. She pocketed her house key, stuck her earbuds into her ears, and stretched a bit before turning onto the quiet street she lived on in Redmond.

He was really under her skin too. She couldn’t imagine how the people in his life dealt with him. Harrison seemed like such a nice guy. Why was he friends with someone so difficult? She was always the first one to stick up for the clients with Marco. This one, however—she needed something worse to call him.

Even more awful for her, Tanner was handsome. If any of her girlfriends (or her sisters, even if they were married) got a look at him, they’d ask her if she needed help. He could be a real jerk when he wanted to be, but she’d have to be blind to not admit he was handsome too. She let out a loud “Ooh!” of frustration and was rewarded with a stare by some woman trimming the rosebush in her front yard.

She’d spent both PT appointments doing everything in her power not to stare at him. He was tall and muscular. He had that dark, tangled, wavy, curly guy hair she could never resist, coupled with stubble that probably grew in five minutes after he’d shaved. His eyes were a silvery gray and framed by thick dark brows and long lashes. He riveted her. Plus, he smelled good. She could never resist that fresh-out-of-the-shower smell, paired with some guy thing she’d never be able to describe. Did testosterone have a smell?

She’d never been able to stay away from men like him, despite his awful personality. She was attracted, repulsed, and disgusted with herself. Why wasn’t she drawn to the handsome, charming, and funny Harrison instead? He was a much better choice of how to spend her time than the compelling argument for male PMS that was Tanner Cole.

It was the bad-boy thing all over again. Something was obviously wrong with her. Her mom would tell her to “make good choices.” She knew there was someone nice in there somewhere. She wasn’t sure how long it was going to take her to find him.

“He’s a client,” she said aloud. “I can’t date him.” Another of the neighbors was pulling weeds in her front yard. Whenever the sun came out in Seattle, the entire population rushed outside before it rained again. She glanced up and gave Jordan an odd look. Jordan waved a little as she ran by. Maybe the neighbor would think she was on her phone or something.

She’d run another mile or two, get herself cleaned up, and find out if anybody she knew wanted to go see a movie or get some dinner later. She needed an evening out before she had to face the ogre again.

***

UNFORTUNATELY, THE EVENING out Jordan dreamed of wasn’t happening tonight. She would have settled for Netflix, her couch, and a glass of wine—anything but what greeted her when she arrived back home. Her three roommates were arrayed on her living room couch waiting for her. She’d talked with them before about asking before they invaded her basement apartment; they must have forgotten that convo.

She’d taken the place she was currently living in when she had to move out of her former roommate’s condo on less than a month’s notice. Rentals were expensive and scarce in the Seattle area. Most people had roommates unless they lived in one of the teeny “pod” apartments in Ballard or something. She made a pretty good living, but she wasn’t close to the amount she’d need to buy a five-hundred-square-foot condo anywhere near her office. She’d needed to find a place to live fast, she didn’t have time for a long search, and it hadn’t taken her long after moving in to figure out why the three upstairs roommates had a somewhat-affordable vacancy.

Becky, Madison, and Blair treated her like she was Cinderella and they were the three ugly stepsisters. She’d rented the basement, but they insisted on barging in uninvited whenever they wanted to. They used her things. Whoever they got to mow the lawn dumped the clippings on the doorstep in front of her separate entrance. They also tried assigning her some of their housework upstairs, which she refused to do. When she installed a lock on the door leading to the basement, one of the roommates crawled through her bedroom window late one night because she’d “lost her keys.” A guy she’d never seen before crawled through the window minutes afterward.

“This is my man,” Madison told her. “You’ll need to leave your window unlocked so he can get in.”

“No.”

“If he breaks it, you’ll be responsible for paying for the glass.”

“Get out of my room! Go use the front door. I need to work tomorrow.”

“At least someone is sleeping tonight,” Madison said with a smirk. “We won’t be.”

“Want to join us?” the guy said.

Jordan jumped out of bed and grabbed the baseball bat that sat in the corner of her bedroom.

“No harm in asking,” the guy said. She could hear their laughter all the way up the stairs.

Mostly, she needed to find a new place. She couldn’t live like this anymore. She regarded the three women on the couch and said, “Did you let yourselves in?”

“The landlord says you can’t install any locks without his permission,” Becky said. She looked down her surgically corrected nose at Jordan. “You’ll need to take the lock off of your bedroom window too.”

“That’s not going to happen—”

“We’ll do it for you.” Blair gave Jordan a glare. Jordan could never understand why they treated her the way they did from the minute she moved in. She was quiet, paid her rent on time, and met up with her friends elsewhere. They hated her anyway. It was like junior high all over again, except for the fact she had a hard-earned doctorate and a job that paid significantly more than theirs did. She made more money, but she had the same problems as any other Seattle-area renter in their twenties and thirties.

Madison crossed her legs, folded her arms across her chest, and tried to prevent the grin breaking over her face. She was unsuccessful. “Actually, Jordan, you won’t be living here long enough to remove anything but your stuff. You need to be out of here by the end of the month.”

“You can’t evict me without thirty days’ written notice,” Jordan said. She tried to control her facial expression. She didn’t have time to look for a new place so soon. She hated where she lived, but at least it was a roof over her head. She was not going to let them see she was upset by this news, either.

Becky brandished a piece of paper with some type of letterhead. Jordan wasn’t getting close enough to grab it out of her hand. “Oh, that’s not true. The landlord said you are altering his property, so you’re out.” She tried to look concerned. “Hope you can find a mover on such short notice.”

“We’ll just leave her shit on the front lawn,” Blair said.

“I’d love to say I’ll miss you, but I won’t,” Madison said.

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