Page 45 of IOU

I like it.

“That’s not how it works. We—”

She waves me off, clipping my remark.

“I don’t care, Maverick. I’m not going to let you get to me today. I’m just going to take my boxed wine to the gym and drink it in the car.”

I rear back. “Why the gym?”

“Why not?”

I have no fucking clue how to respond to that, so I go with “I’m not bailing you out of jail,” and walk away.

I need a fucking shower—a cold one.

Sebastian breezes through my door like he lives here, heading straight for the balcony and hanging over the ledge as if he’s looking for something. “Dude, did you know there’s a chick floating in our beer pool?”

I sigh, closing my laptop, and rub my temples. I knew I shouldn’t have left her alone. When I came out of the shower, she was gone. I assumed she heeded my warning. Evidently, not.

“Where?”

He doesn’t look at me. “On the sidewalk. Her feet are propped up on the hood of your car, and I’m pretty sure she’s chugging wine from a box.”

I’m going to kill her.

“A brunette?” My tone borders on indifferent, but I’m anything but. I want to be damn sure who I plan on killing.

“Hell yeah. All that silky hair is piled up into this sloppy bun that just begs to be yanked.” Told you it was notable. “Want me to shoo her off?”

I bet he would like that. He’d shoo her off with his number programmed into her phone and then he’d leave the game early to celebrate his loss, balls deep. Too bad that won’t be happening. Ever. My new roommate is off-limits and still very much a secret to Sebastian. Guess that’s about to end.

Let the rumor mill flourish with this new information.

“No, I’ll take care of it. Get the table set up while I’m gone.”

“Maybe you should wait a minute, push the game back an hour or so?”

“What the fuck for? Just because you lose money, doesn’t mean the rest of us want to delay our payday.”

Sebastian turns his head, speaking to someone outside before facing me. “Because we all want to enjoy the show a little longer.”

We all?

You’ve got to be shitting me. I walk the few steps to my balcony and look out. Half of the terraces are occupied with men staring down, directly in front of my parking space. A front-row parking space I’ve had since I moved in. Renters want it, but no one dares park in it. But leave it to my disobedient roommate to indeed be floating in two feet of water in the plastic pool we use for chilling beer, propping her damn feet up on my car.

When I told her to go soak up some sun, I meant for her to go to a sorority house or a club or something. Not drag the pool down to the parking lot and use my hood for a fucking footrest.

I take the steps two at a time, ignoring the audience on their balconies, until I come face first with the biggest pain in my ass. Ainsley is sprawled out with only the scraps of fabric covering her breasts. Never mind the straw connected to her reddened lips as she slurps at what I assume to be more wine in her tumbler.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I drawl lazily as if her oiled skin glistening in the sun is doing nothing to my dick.

“Can you move a little to the left?” Her voice is bored and slurred. “You’re blocking my sun.”

I’m going to block something else of hers if she doesn’t get her ass upstairs in the next 2.3 seconds.

I stay rooted to the ground, never moving. After a few awkward seconds tick by, Ainsley raises her ridiculously round shades and sighs. “Can I help you, Maverick? Did I leave the toilet seat down or something?”

God, help me. It takes all my patience not to snatch all one hundred and so pounds of her out of the pool and push her inside. “I told you to make yourself scarce.” I take a slow look around as if it isn’t obvious that the parking lot of the complex is not scarce.

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