Page 31 of Always a Roommate
Tanner saved me. “So, these rules… let me guess… Rae gets to use the bathroom first in the morning.”
“Hey!” I protested. “How in the world did you guess that?”
“I know you, Rae Rae. Almost as well as Finley does. You don’t let anyone see you before you’ve perfected your face.”
“That’s not true.” It sort of was.
Tanner leveled a stare at me.
Shane threw his spoon in the trash and backed up to lean against the counter behind us, one ankle crossed over the other. Even in his ridiculous outfit, he looked good. And I didn’t want him to look good.
I turned my back on the ice cream. “Do you agree with him? You both think I’m that vain?”
His brow furrowed, and his silence spoke more than words could.
“Vain and cold, got it.” I dumped my spoon in the trash and skirted around the counter to get some space. Walking down a nearby aisle, I didn’t stop until hanging beach towels hid me from view. Only then did I release a long breath.
I’d long known I was too worried about how the world saw me. It took me years to be okay with the weight I’d gained after high school, but the rest of me, I’d never been comfortable with that.
“You’re not cold.” Shane’s voice made me jump.
“I just need a minute.” We’d talked about this, and he’d apologized, but does a comment like that ever go away?
“Rae…”
“It’s okay, Shane. It’s not your job to make me feel better. We’re roommates, always roommates. Nothing more. Not… friends. I’m fine with that, really.”
His expression was unreadable, and oh how I wished I could read it, to see how my words affected him.
Instead, he stepped back, the beam of light from the flashlight falling to the ground as he turned and walked away from me.
Great. Cold and vain and mean.
Wonderful, Rae.
I couldn’t beat myself up for long because as I started to tell myself everything would be okay, the glass shattered.
12
SHANE
I saw it happen as if in slow motion when I walked away from her. The Hut had a window along the wall facing the beach. A window that now let the howling wind inside as shards of glass flew through the air.
I ran back toward Rae, wanting to protect her, to get her away from the wicked rain blowing in, but she was already moving toward the front of the store where Tanner had just run out of the storage room.
“What’s going on?” he yelled, though he could plainly see what had happened.
Glass crunched under my feet as I moved to join them.
Rae was yelling at him. “Nails, Tanner! Get some nails and a hammer if you don’t want to lose every piece of merchandise in this store.”
And ourselves, but she didn’t mention that.
There was a calm strength about Rae even now, even when my heart beat against my breastbone and my breath went ragged.
The three of us escaped into the dry—for now—storage room, where Tanner found some tools. “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”
Rae reached for him, sliding the hammer from his grip. “Maybe.”
