Page 19 of The Beautiful Collision
Rook bellows from the living room, holding my essential oil diffuser like it might explode. “Hamilton, where does this witchcraft go?”
“That’s—“ I start.
“Bedroom,” Maine interrupts decisively. “All the smell-good stuff goes in there.”
“It’s not ‘smell-good stuff,’ it’s aromatherapy for?—“
“Bedroom,” he repeats, his grin shifting into something dangerously teasing.
I let out an exasperated breath. “I?—“
“Unless you’re trying to seduce us all with your magical lady smells?”
“They’re therapeutic-grade essential oils designed to?—“
“Seduce us. Got it.”
Rook makes dramatic gagging noises while Mike and Sophie share a look—thatsickeninglook of the successful couple that somehow makes everything worse. And, phone in hand, Sophie isdefinitelyrecording this disaster, her thumbs flying across her screen with documentary filmmaker speed.
“Shit,” Mike says, having excavated something from my boxes, my first edition ofThe Beautiful and Damned. “She hasrealbooks. Not just school ones.”
“I can read,” Maine protests, sounding wounded at the unspoken comparison, given his bookshelves don’t have… well… books. “I read all the time.”
Mike snorts. “Instagram captions don’t count, buddy.”
“I read other things!”
“Name literally one book you’ve read this year.”
The pause stretches. Then, Maine grins. “The playbook!”
“That’s not a book, you beautiful idiot.”
“It has pages! And words! That’s literally the definition of a book!”
This is my life now.
“Last box!” Sophie announces with the false cheer of someone abandoning me to her fate. “Where does exercise equipment go?”
Maine perks up like a golden retriever spotting a ball. “Oh, sick, you work out? We converted the spare room into a gym! Got a bench, free weights, a?—“
“Yoga,” I interrupt flatly. “It’s for yoga.”
His enthusiasm deflates. “Right. That’s like… competitive stretching?”
“It’s a spiritual and physical practice that—“ I stop, realizing that I’m about to waste my time explaining mindfulness tosomeone who probably thinks meditation is what happens when you forget your phone in another room. “Yes. Fancy stretching.”
“Cool. That can go in your room too.”
My room. The potential hellscape I haven’t even witnessed yet.
“Speaking of,” Maine says, reading my catastrophic thoughts, “want to see?”
I don’t, but I follow him down the hallway anyway. We pass his open door, revealing exactly the biohazard I expected: clothes draped over every surface like fabric stalactites, hockey gear breeding in corners, and what appears to be a shrine built entirely from empty Gatorade bottles.
It’s horrifying, making me despair over the likely state of my room. But then he continues down the hall and pushes open my door with a flourish that suggests he’s proud of something. And, following behind, I’m shocked to see that the room is empty.
Completely, blessedly, miraculously empty.
