Page 13 of Always a Roommate
“Two.”
I leaned against the counter next to Tanner. “It’s still hard to believe this is all yours.”
He smiled as he looked around, taking it all in. “Sometimes, it feels like this is where I was meant to be.”
He’d only owned the Surf Hut for a couple months. It sat right on Gulf City’s best beach, the perfect location, and sold everything from snorkeling and surfing gear to beach snacks and tourist gifts.
“So…” He bumped my shoulder. “What’s this I hear about Shane moving out?”
I shrugged. “We don’t work as roommates. You got a front row seat to our dysfunction at dinner Sunday.”
“You two have always been dysfunctional.” He laughed. “But I also seem to remember it was more than that.”
I leveled him with a glare. “I was an infatuated teenage girl, nothing more. Now, I’m a woman who knows when to cut the cord.”
“If you say so.”
Finley jogged over to us. “Finished. I went fast because I couldn’t hear what you two were saying.” She moved around us to get to the ice cream. “Carry on.”
I watched my best friend as her grin widened while she scooped ice cream. Before meeting Knox, she’d been left at the altar three times. Despite being engaged to Knox’s friend at the time, she’d fallen completely head over heels in love with him.
And I was so proud of her.
Also a bit jealous. Not because she had Knox, but because the smile she used to wear like armor was now genuine.
Tanner was watching me carefully, so I looked away. The middle Kelly brother and I had always understood each other, but sometimes I didn’t want to be understood.
Finley licked her ice cream cone—two scoops for the four boxes she’d unpacked—and turned to me. “What’s it really been like living with Shane? Do you two just fight all the time?”
“Not really.” I thought for a moment. “We mostly don’t talk.”
“Probably suits him.”
But it hadn’t. I knew that now. “Maybe.”
Finley studied me too closely, and I squirmed under the intensity of her gaze. I wanted to know what it was she saw, but that also terrified me. Distracting myself, I brushed my hair into a ponytail and secured it with the band from my wrist.
“Your mom forced us into this situation anyway.”
Finley arched one brow, but Tanner was the one who responded. “Don’t forget about Finley’s abandonment of you.”
“Hey.” Finley punched her brother in the side. “That didn’t happen.”
Except it had. I wouldn’t begrudge Finley anything she had, but she’d convinced me to listen to her mom and let Shane move in. Then again, Finley always saw her brothers in the best possible light.
“It was never going to work.” As roommates, as friends, as anything else. I wish I’d known that as a teenager. Shane and I weren’t meant to get along, to be anything to each other.
I’d accepted that a long time ago, and I should have known nothing would change it.
6
SHANE
Johnny and Tanner were waiting for me when I walked out of the school building just before five in the evening. I almost missed them sitting in Tanner’s Jeep because I couldn’t get Trevor Nicks out of my head.
The kid looked worse than normal when he showed up for my last class of the day—my favorite class because of how engaged they were. Every question I’d asked about the American Revolution, I’d expected Trevor’s hand to shoot into the air like it normally did.
The kid was smart, and he actually enjoyed history. I could tell when a student was only trying to get by so they could have the credit to graduate, and it never bothered me. I remembered what high school was like.
