Page 22 of Rookie Season
If I have to act like an asshole occasionally to make that happen, then so be it. No distractions. Not even my beautiful roommate, who smells too damn good and really needs to start eating some vegetables.
CHAPTER 10
ALLEGRA
Turnsout that a Sunday morning living with three professional hockey players is not unlike a Sunday morning waking up at college—remnants of a party strewn everywhere, people complaining about their hangovers, and tons of coffee, breakfast, and TV on the menu.
The guys have a rare day off today, and I’m not teaching again until tomorrow morning, so I guess today is for roommate bonding. Although I’m quite sure one particular roommate isn’t too thrilled about that.
“What are we watching?” Noah asks as he finishes washing the pan he cooked with.
“PutScarfaceon,” Fisher instructs as he flops down on the couch with anoof—miraculously not spilling a single drop of his coffee. He balances his plate, piled precariously high with an omelet the size of a frisbee, in his lap.
“No. Let’s watchReservoir Dogs,” Penn argues as he sprawls his huge body next to Fisher.
“We watched that two weeks ago,” Noah groans as he sits down on the other side of the couch.
I stand at the kitchen island for a moment, biting my lipas I look at the sticker chart by the fridge, apparently to serve the purpose of preventing swearing for some superstitious hockey reason. It has all four of our names on it now—Penn added mine the day after I moved in—and though my name doesn’t have a single sticker next to it, I was happy to be included. A part of the house rule, no matter how random that rule may be. And after last night, I thought Noah and I might have reached some kind of a roommate truce—but he’s clearly pissy with me again right now, our shaky camaraderie seeming to have crumbled as the morning progressed.
For what reason, I don’t know, but I’m sure Harry sneaking into Noah’s room in the middle of the night surely didn’t help things—I saw him slinking out of there this morning like he was performing a feline walk-of-shame.
In both mine and Mr. Styles’ defense, Noah did leave his bedroom door open…so he was kind of asking for company.
In typical standoffish cat fashion, Harry always loves people who hate him. And in typical people-pleasing Allegra fashion, I always want to make people like me who don’t like me.
Which means I’m bothered by how much Noah is bothered by my presence here in 3B.
“Hurry up and get your ass over here, Ally; we need a deciding vote,” Penn calls from the couch.
I wrinkle my nose. “Neither.”
“Useless,” Penn declares with a cheeky grin. “How aboutSwitchblade,then?”
I snort. “Definitely not.”
“Are you criticizing the best action movie series of all-time right now?” His eyes widen. “Because if so, we can no longer be friends.”
I give him a little salute and a smirk. “It’s been nice knowing you, then.”
Fisher smiles lazily. “Is it because it’s weird for you to watch Carter Callahan seducing someone who’s not your mom?”
“Ew. I don’t want to ever watch my dadseducinganyone, my mom included.”
Penn’s jaw just about drops off its hinges. “Shut the puck up. Carter Callahan’s your dad?”
“Stepdad, technically,” I say with a shrug. “But yeah, he’s married to my mom, and I call him Dad.”
“Wild.” Penn lets out a low whistle.
“Don’t bother asking her to get an intro to Ella Hernandez for you. I already tried and got shut down,” Fisher teases, referencing Dad’s supermodel costar in the franchise.
“Bummer.” Penn pouts.
Noah, meanwhile, says nothing. His dark eyes are trained on me, but they don’t give any indication of what he’s thinking or feeling.
Probably judging me, thinking I grew up as some spoiled Hollywood princess.
Which couldn’t be further from the truth. When my mom married a famous actor, our lives didn’t change that much, aside from the fact that we moved out of our little duplex and into a much nicer house in a quiet Atlanta suburb. Dad’s very down to earth and grounded, and we live pretty normally, keeping out of the public eye. My mom likes it that way. We all do.
