The Rival Roomies (The Rooftop Crew Book 3)

by Piper Rayne

  I stare at Dylan, his bright smile directed at me with his hand on the door. “Yeah, too bad I didn’t.”

  He opens the door and allows me to walk in first.

  The guy behind the counter looks me up and down, raised eyebrows to why I’m standing in front of him. “Can I help you? I’m going to start my day with tattooing a fucking flower, aren’t I?”

  He’s intimidating just like when I was in college. Tall, big, and tatted from neck to collar, short sleeves to wrist. His blue eyes are amazing though, and I lose myself for a second.

  “Phillips?” he says, his smile growing wide and welcoming when he notices Dylan at my side. He comes around the counter and the two of them hug, each hitting the others back harder and harder until they back up from one another.

  “What’s up, Big Man?” Dylan says.

  I can see how the nickname fits. The guy has a few inches on Dylan and a lot of mass.

  “She yours?” Big Man eyes me, his gaze once again flowing over my body like I couldn’t possibly be with Dylan.

  Bingo, Big Man.

  “She’s my roommate. Rian, this is Big Man,” he introduces me.

  The guy puts his hand out in front of me and almost bows. “You can call me Brian.”

  “Hey, Brian.”

  He studies me for a second, and I shift my weight from one foot to the other, releasing his hand.

  “Virgin skin, am I right?” Brian asks.

  Dylan smiles at me.

  “Yes,” I say, forced to answer so I’m not impolite.

  “And when she wants one, I’ll be the one doing it,” Dylan says.

  Big Man holds up his hands, laughing. “No worries, I get enough virgin canvas around here.”

  He walks to their waiting area and sits on the couch, holding his arm out for the two of us to follow him.

  “Yeah, Rian graduated from NYU,” Dylan says.

  “And I never converted you then?” Big Man shakes his head like I do when I’m trying to solve the damn math problem.

  “Sorry.” I shrug.

  He laughs. “As long as Phillips got you, I’m cool. I just hate when virgin skin goes to some asshole who will tattoo their neck before their ankle or wrist or some shit.”

  “Truth,” Dylan says.

  I had no idea there were rules in tattooing.

  “So what’s this visit about? Especially so bright and early.” Big Man puts his ankle on his knee, and leans back in his chair.

  “I’m in need of a fresh artist.”

  Big Man tilts his head. “Cliffton Heights suffering?”

  Dylan briefly glances at me, but I pretend not to notice. “Nah. Never, but Mad Max moved on and I need to replace him.”

  Big Man taps his Vans. “I heard a rumor that Jax is back.” His eyebrows raise in question.

  Dylan inhales through his nose. “You of all people know that will never work.”

  “He’s your best bet. All I got are people who can make a college kid happy. Ink Envy is different, you know that.”

  “I was hoping you might know someone up and coming,” Dylan says.

  Brian shakes his head. “Nah, not at the moment. Most of the people I’ve come across are just wannabes who watched a few YouTube videos and practiced on an orange, know what I’m sayin’?”

  “Yeah, I get it. Not real artists.” Disappointment rings in Dylan’s voice.

  “Exactly.”

  “If anyone comes to mind, send them my way, yeah?” Dylan asks, standing.

  “I don’t know a lot who’d be willing to go out to the country.” Brian laughs. Dylan pretends he’s going to hit him, but they end up doing that man hug again. “But we both know people will go out there for Jax. You should do it even if it’s temporary.”

  Dylan shakes it off like he doesn’t agree.

  Brian turns to me. “And you’re welcome any time.” He holds his hand out to me and I shake it. “Although I do have to refuse your virgin skin. Dylan’s claimed it, I suppose.” He acts as if that’s a big loss.

  I laugh and Dylan’s hand finds mine. Even Brian looks down and a shit-eating grin appears on his face. We leave the tattoo place and walk down the road toward the subway station before he releases my hand.

  “Why won’t you just hire Jax?” I ask. It’s the million-dollar question because it’d surely help out his business. “You love Ink Envy. Do it for the company.”

  “It’s not that easy.” He runs his hand through his dark hair.

  A few college girls walk by and snicker to one another about Dylan. At least I’m not the only one who wants to climb him like a tree today.

  “I just spilled all my family shit on you.”

  He looks at me from the corner of his eyes. “Up for a field trip?”

  “I thought we were already on one?”

  We continue walking as he laughs. “Today’s destination is to visit the part of the city that fucked up Dylan Phillips. You in?”

  Am I ever. “I’m in.”

  He doesn’t smile—if anything, he looks nauseated—but we head to the subway, and once again, he pays for me. Which makes me get all swoony.

  Come on, Rian, it’s a train fare, not a romantic dinner for two.

  “Just stay close to me, okay?” His voice is hard and lacking any type of affection.

  We’re in his old neighborhood. Needless to say, it’s very different from where I grew up. The concrete buildings are all decorated with graffiti, and homeless people line the sidewalk.

  “So, you and Jax and Knox all grew up here?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  My heart sinks to my stomach. This wasn’t an easy place to grow up. The lack of anything green and alive pulls on my heart.

  We walk by a high-rise apartment. Some guys are hanging out by the doors, and others are playing a basketball game across the street.

  “That’s where Jax and I grew up.” He turns me by putting his hands on my shoulders to face a building kitty-corner to us. “That’s where Naomi Jennings lived.”

  I nod though I don’t understand. “Who is Naomi Jennings?”

  “The wedge that came between Jax and me.”

  He signals with his head for us to walk. “Winnie, my foster mom, took me in my freshman year and Jax our junior year. I already knew Jax before then because we went to the same school, ran in the same circle. We were both foster kids and had been thrown together a few times when we were younger.”

  No wonder they can still have non-verbal conversations across a table like they did last night.

  “The first day Jax moved in with Winnie, I thought it would be cool to live together. I think that’s a big part of the reason Winnie agreed to take him in. Jax was labeled as a troublemaker. Technically, we both were, but Winnie got me under control, so they thought they could give her the tougher cases, I suppose.”

  The farther we walk, the farther we move away from all the concrete. There’s some grass, but most of it is still recovering from the long winter.

  “Jax had a giant chip on his shoulder from day one. He constantly called me momma’s boy, which pissed me off because although I loved Winnie, she wasn’t my mom. And Jax knew that all I knew about my parents was that they didn’t want me. He, on the other hand…” Dylan stops and looks at me. “Well, that’s his story to tell.”

  I entwine my arm through his and lean my head on his shoulder because I feel like an idiot for complaining about my parents. Parents who only want me to succeed. They gave me shelter and food. Who cares that they gave me extra homework on top of my school requirements? I had parents who cared for me.

  “Don’t pity me,” Dylan says in a low voice.

  I remove my arm and stand up straight next to him. A rush of guilt hits me.

  Dylan stops us on the street corner. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, but I’ve had people pity me my whole life.”

  “I don’t.” Although I kind of do, I’ll keep that to myself.

  “I made a life for myself.”


  “You did, and you’ve done amazing.”

  He offers me a soft smile as I take the familiar role of his cheerleader. “I wouldn’t have been able to get out if it wasn’t for one person, and if you want to know the true reason Jax and I are where we are now, a lot of it has to do with her.” He nods toward the cemetery across the street.

  “Who?”

  The light changes and we walk across, dodging the pedestrian traffic on the other side. When we come together again on the other side, we enter the small cemetery attached to a Catholic church. He’s quiet as we walk a path through the rows of burial plots. This cemetery doesn’t have huge granite headstones carved with quotes about their lives. There are no statues of angels or crosses. Everyone has a small rectangular marker with their name and birth and death dates.

  He walks a path he definitely has memorized until he stops under a tree and shoves his hands into his pockets. “She’s the one who helped me, and that’s why Jax hates me the way he does.”

  My heart breaks as I read the name.

  Chapter Eight

  Dylan

  Bringing Rian to Winnie’s burial plot isn’t what I had on the agenda today. I wanted us to have a fun day. But after another asshole brought up the problems between Jax and me, I knew I owed her some answers. Especially since she opened her chest and let her heart fall out on the train ride here.

  “She died our senior year. I’d already aged out of the system, but she let me stay through graduation. Hell, she would’ve let me stay after too. But Jax was a month shy of aging out, so he had to go to another family.” My mind floats back to that time. Jax and I were best friends, along with Knox, but we fought like brothers. “She left me her savings with the stipulation that I had to use it on myself to attend school.”

  I look at Rian and she nods.

  “Jax went to a shitty house for his last month of high school, but again, that’s his story to tell.” I’ve never told anyone Jax’s story and I won’t start now, even if our relationship is in disrepair.

  She nods again. “I thought it was whoever that Naomi girl is who came between you?”

  My head whips in her direction. “No. The Naomi situation wasn’t good, but it was only a symptom of the problem.”

  I’ve told her enough at this point. Time to take a turn off memory lane. Rian’s and my childhoods couldn’t have been more opposite. The pity in her eyes is driving me insane, making me want to punch the trunk of that nearby oak tree.

  I stare at the grave marker and read her name. Winifred Ann Carlson. Although it doesn’t say mother, she was one. To so many kids, but most of all to me. Everything I’ve done since the day she died in that hospital bed, I’ve done for her.

  I bend down and run my hands over the etching, removing the dead leaves from around the small stone.

  “Ready?” I say to Rian when I stand again.

  “Yeah.” Her voice cracks.

  More reason to get the hell out of here. I’m probably not going to find myself a new tattoo artist in New York City who wants to live in Cliffton Heights anyway, even if I was still in the mood to do so.

  We walk out of the cemetery and stand on the street corner, waiting for the light to turn. A couple walks over to wait near us. They have a dog and Rian bends down to pet it, asking its name. They tell us how they just adopted him down the street from a shelter that didn’t think it’d be able to keep their doors open.

  “Oh, that’s so sad.” Rian looks at them with sad puppy eyes.

  “There are two more there. She tried to get me to adopt all three,” the man says with a nod to the woman. “We can barely put food on our table. We can’t feed three dogs.”

  I laugh, remember Winnie saying she couldn’t take any more kids because the government pays shit and if she can’t feed herself, how can she feed others? But she took in Jax even after she had been laid off, and she made it work.

  The woman bends down to Rian’s level. “They’re so cute. The people at the shelter said they aren’t getting enough donations. I’m not sure how anyone with a heart can just walk by.”

  The light changes, so the guy tells the woman to pick up the dog so they can cross.

  Rian looks at me. “Are you allergic to dogs?”

  I shake my head, wishing I could lie to her. “No, but—”

  “Do you know if Jax is?”

  “I’d like to say yes.”

  She pulls out her phone and dials him up while walking in the direction the couple came from. “Hey, Jax, are you allergic to dogs?”

  My blood shouldn’t boil that she has his number, but I feel it heating anyway.

  “You’ll have to pay that ridiculously high pet deposit to the landlord,” I say.

  Rian turns around, putting the phone to her chest. “I have some savings.”

  “What’s happened to you?” I ask. First, she’s going to cheat on the math problem and now she suddenly wants a dog?

  “Great. And you don’t mind?” She smiles at whatever Jax has said. “Oh, Dylan and I are in the city and there are these dogs at this shelter that might be closing.” Rian finishes her conversation and hangs up with Jax while we walk another block.

  “Do you really think any of us can take care of a dog?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know, but it sounds like fun and they need homes.”

  I put my hand on her arm to stop her and she steps out of the way of pedestrian traffic, moving to the edge of the sidewalk. “Are you doing this because I’m a foster kid?”

  The excitement drains from her face. I feel like I just told a kid that Santa Claus isn’t real. Fuck.

  “No. That’s not why.”

  “Okay, just making sure.” I step back onto the sidewalk and she joins me, not nearly as excited as she was before. “I want to make sure you’re not on some do-good kick now that I told you about Winnie. It can be contagious, you know?”

  “What can?”

  “You hear a story about how someone did good and you want to replicate it.”

  She pulls me aside by the sleeve, closer to the buildings. “That’s not why. For the first time, I wasn’t thinking of the consequences of something. I saw the dog. The dog was cute. I wanted the dog. That was all. But let me ask you a question…”

  “Spit it out,” I say.

  She still hems and haws for a moment.

  “Rian, I can take it.”

  “Well… don’t you ever want to repay what Winnie did for you?”

  I chuckle. Out of everyone, I never would’ve thought it would be Rian to call me out. But actually, paying it forward is something I feel guilty about. Like someone saved me, so shouldn’t I save two more people and keep the good deeds going? I understand her bigger point, but I’m not sure this is the situation to step up.

  “So because Winnie saved me, I should let a shelter dog shit and piss all over the apartment? You have the dog for its entire life, not until it reaches adulthood or its parents sort their shit out.”

  Rian bites her lower lip and stares at the sidewalk. “True. Maybe this is a bad idea.”

  Her disappointment hits me square in the chest, making it tighten. But the more I think about it, she’s kind of right. Adopting a dog who’s hours or days away from death sounds pretty damn appealing right now. And yes, I’m fully aware I’m probably more willing to do this because I just left Winne’s grave. Plus, dogs piss off Jax. He’s never liked them. Naomi had one that would always hump his leg.

  “Maybe not,” I say.

  Rian’s eyes light up. Shit, to see that excitement from her, I’d adopt ten dogs. “Really?”

  “Yeah, come on.” I tug her sleeve and we walk a little faster now. Our excitement escalates the farther we make it down the sidewalk.

  “How far away was it?” she asks.

  “I don’t think they said.”

  “They didn’t act like it was this far, did they?” She bites her lip again and her sunshine smile dims.

  Finally, I see the shelter’s sig
n on the corner, but we have to wait to cross when we’re met with the big red hand. When we reach the animal shelter, a couple is walking away with a dog and Rian claps her hands in front of herself. But when we look in the little pen, all that’s there is shredded newspaper with some dog shit.

  “Where are the puppies?” Rian asks a woman who approaches us.

  “That couple just took the last one. Thank goodness. Did you see our flyer?”

  I put my arm around Rian’s waist because we’re not going to be dog parents today.

  “They’re all gone?” she asks with a strangled voice.

  The woman finally understands and touches Rian’s hand. “I’m sorry. They are.”

  Rian splashes on a fake smile, something she does often. “That’s good. I’m glad they all have homes.” She steps away and out of my hold.

  “There are a lot of other shelters. Would you like a list?” the woman calls.

  I take the piece of paper from her since Rian isn’t listening anymore, then I catch up to Rian down the street.

  “Hey.” I duck to meet her eyes. No tears, thank fuck. I have a hard time dealing with tears.

  “We should probably head back, huh?”

  And just like that, the dog subject is abandoned.

  We walk off the train, neither one of us accomplishing what we wanted. I’ve never seen Rian so depressed. Like she owned a puppy and someone ran over it.

  I stop us outside our apartment building. “I’ve gotta go to Ink Envy, want to join me?”

  “Nah. I’m going to try to work on that equation.”

  I nod. “Cool. I’ll be home in a little bit. Let’s order pizza tonight?”

  A slight smile creases her lips. “Sure.”

  After she gets in the front door, I walk across the street. The parlor is dead. Of course, that’s because neither Frankie nor I are working and we’re what keep this place going.

  Lyle takes his feet off the front desk and sets his sketchpad on the table. “What’s up, boss?”