Page 18 of Always a Roommate
She smiled, a gesture I wasn’t used to coming from her. I normally got her scowls. “Stay. We’ll survive thirty more days together. That’s nothing in the grand scheme of things. Really, we’ve already lived together for about that long, and—”
“Okay.” If I didn’t stop her, she’d go on for hours.
Rae looked out to the water. “Okay.”
We’d reached the public beach and headed for my car in the lot behind the Surf Hut.
I had no doubts that come morning, Rae and I would be at each other’s throats again, but for a moment, it had been nice to pretend to be something else.
7
RAE
I woke up the morning after my evening stroll with Shane thinking about one thing. Rules. If we were going to get through another month together, there had to be rules.
It was way too early for anyone to be up, and I should have used the extra time to check emails and respond to the waiting list of prospective clients I now had, but this was more pressing.
I tapped a pen against my notebook. Rules. Rules. I’d only come up with two, but it was a start.
When I emerged from my room, fully dressed, with my hair and makeup done as always, I found Shane in the kitchen making coffee. My first instinct was to run back to my room and wait until he left.
But that wouldn’t help anyone. I set the notebook on the counter. “Good morning.”
He gave me a skeptical look. “Morning. Did you want some coffee?”
I looked at the mostly empty pot, knowing he’d figured I wouldn’t come out until he left. “No, tea is more my thing.” I moved around him to put the kettle on and tried to breathe through my mouth so I wouldn’t smell the coffee, so it wouldn’t hit me as hard as it always did.
Because I, Rae Brooks, was afraid of that smell.
And I’d never told anyone.
“House rules?”
Glancing back over my shoulder, I caught him looking at the notebook. “We should have done this when you first moved in,” I choked out.
“Did you and Finley have rules?”
“Only one.” But I didn’t want to say it.
“And?”
I couldn’t, so I busied myself scooping loose-leaf herbal tea, a flavor called Oo La La, into the wire basket inside my teapot, letting its orange scent calm me. “It’s not important.”
Finley had known I didn’t get along with Shane, but more importantly, that being around him when he thought so little of me hurt. Our rule was that her brothers couldn’t all be here when I was home.
She’d broken the rule a few times, but mostly with Tanner. Except for that one night… the night she’d gone missing after her brothers attacked her fiancé at their rehearsal dinner, a fiancé who’d only been using her.
Her brothers crashed here, and Shane sat up all night waiting for her.
Shane took the pen and started writing something. I walked over, trying to read it. His handwriting was horrible for a teacher.
1. Rae must stop avoiding Shane.
“Really?” I laughed. “That’s our first rule?”
He shrugged. “You make it awkward between us.”
“Me? You’re the one who never says anything. You speak in grunts and scowls.”
