The more they all gang up on me, the more this stupid idea makes sense. Still, I can’t allow him to be a distraction, not with finals and me trying to figure out what to do after graduation. “Finals are—”
“Driving me crazy, too. We have to let off some steam or we’ll both suffer mental breakdowns before graduation. I know you, Kayla. I know you need to break things down and find the logical reason behind it all. This makes the most sense.”
I hate how he knows that about me. “And you have to do these three things? Why can’t we just live together?”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“I don’t want to have fun,” I whine. It’s the only thing I think of. My defense is crumbling.
“I don’t believe you.”
I hate how he challenges me, and I hate that he’s right. I need to lighten up. I know that. Still, I don’t need this right now. I’m too close to achieving my goals to let this derail everything. I want to tell him no. I want to tell them all to stick their wishes up each of their cute little asses. “Can I have a say in the fun?”
“As long as you participate.” His grin shatters what’s left of my resolve. I don’t like the idea, but it really is the best option. I wouldn’t be able to study in a hotel, let alone live in one. I have nowhere else to go. My parents live in Portland, which is too far away to commute. I wouldn’t be able to find another apartment in such a short amount of time. Even if I did, leases are a six-month minimum and I don’t plan to be around that long. How much damage could three little wishes do?
“She’ll do it.” Ciara grabs the card from me and holds it out of my reach.
I hate how I’m the shortest one of the group. “Ciara!”
“One more condition,” Shannon adds, stopping a foot from him, her finger in his face. I don’t trust that dark dance in her eyes. “Your job is to take care of our Kayla. That means no other girls.”
Mel and Ciara snort at the way Jake’s expression falls slack. I would have joined them if I weren’t paralyzed by shock at this weird night.
“Well?” Shannon and Ciara ask at the same time and mirror each other’s stance of arms crossed, hip out. Shannon continues when Jake doesn’t respond. “Look, fire boy. It’s not that hard of an answer. You were all gung-ho to be FTFs a minute ago. What’s the problem?”
“There’s no problem. It’s just…”
“If you won’t do this,” Mel jumps in and joins the other two, stance and all. “We find a roomie who will fulfill our wishes for her. One who’s not afraid of a challenge.”
“Wait,” I break in, insulted. “I’m a challenge?”
“Duh.” Shannon gives me a look.
“Wait,” I say again when the rest of Mel’s statement hits me. “What do you mean, find a roomie who will? Who will what?”
Shannon gives me that look again.
“No.” I snap.
“No,” Jake barks at the same time. He loses what little smile he had as his gaze bounces between the three of them. His expression is a mix of shock and irritation. “Are you shitting me? You’d ask a complete stranger to come in and do God only knows what? You can’t do something like this to her. She’s already stressed enough. Bringing someone else in will send her into a panic attack. No way. I won’t let you do that to her. What kind of friends are you?”
My jaw is on the ground. I’ve never had a guy stand up for me like that. Like ever. Jake Swanson, a guy I thought only had two speeds—turned off and turned on. Who knew he had it in him? My friends all have their jaws as unhinged as mine. Clearly, they didn’t think he had it in him, either.
“Is that a yes?” Shannon recovers and crosses her arms.
“If I say yes, you three have to promise me something in return.”
They all exchange glances before nodding reluctantly. I don’t like that dark glimmer in his eyes. “What are you up to?”
And then he smiles. It’s beautiful. His teeth are beautiful. He’s just all-around beautiful. The way his dark eyes glimmer even more has me ready to melt right there. I love the way the strobes from the firetrucks flash in his gaze. Jesus, the stress of the night must be getting to me. He gives me a sideways wink that leaves me a little dizzy. How does he do that? “Not one more comment about how boring her choices are. Or how ordinary she wants her life to be. There’s nothing wrong with wanting normal. Quit making her feel bad for it.”
Again, I’m taken aback by his words. I’m perfectly capable of defending myself, but oh how I love when he does it. His gaze snags mine. We exchange smiles. I’m a little lost in those eyes, I’m not going to lie. And that smile. And the way he keeps sticking up for me.
Shannon shakes her head. “No way. You don’t get to tell us to leave her alone.”
“If I’m dedicated to her for the foreseeable future, then you’re damn right I do. She’s mine,” he adds when I take a breath to protest, “And I’m hers.”
I definitely don’t want to protest that. We’d be a couple, if only for three weeks. That’s three weeks longer than I ever thought I’d get with someone like Jake Swanson.
The rain has soaked everything, including all of us. I’m freezing. Mel’s lips are blue. Ciara’s teeth are shattering. Shannon is the only one seemingly unaffected. Then again, she’s from Montana, so she’s used to the cold.
“Can we decide on the three wishes tomorrow?” I ask and let out a jaw-popping yawn. “I’m exhausted.”
“Oh, no.” Ciara jumps between us. “You can’t have a say in them.”
Shannon joins Ciara. “In fact, you can’t even know what they are.”
They stare me down, so I turn to Mel. “Help?”
She shakes her head. “I’m not getting in the middle when those two join forces, especially when they have that look in their eyes. Talk about scary.”
“I’m so screwed,” I mutter.
Jake comes up and slips an arm around my shoulders. “I think we both are, babe.”
9
[Jake]
How can one person, especially a broke college student, have enough stuff to fill twelve big-ass boxes? I don’t even have half this much crap to my name. She probably has an entire box for her shoes alone. I’ll never understand why women have so many pairs of shoes. I have boots, running shoes, and flip-flops. That should be enough for anyone.
Kayla walks into her apartment, her hair up in a cute ponytail swinging behind her, and gives me a smile. Just like that, my frustration with the number of boxes is gone. How does she do that?
“Thanks for helping me move.”
“I’m sorry for being late.” Between Jackson continuing to bust my ass for not protecting my strike zones and Ryan quizzing me on shit I’ll never remember, I was over an hour late meeting her here.
“You already apologized.”
“I still feel bad.”
She shrugs it off and grabs a box, sending her ponytail swaying. God, I love that. “You’re carrying all the heavy boxes. That more than makes up for it.”
I grin. “We’re going to be roomies. It’s the least I could do.”
“You know, you’re taking this better than I expected.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You’re stuck with me for the next three weeks.”
Laughing, I shake my head. “You make it sound like torture.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. I can list several people who would be torture to live with.” My nerd of a forced partner, for starters. “You are not one of them.”
When she doesn’t say anything, I catch her watching me. After several seconds, she turns away. “If you say so.”
“Are you saying it’s going to be torture living with me?”
This time, she laughs. “We don’t really get along, Jake.”
“Unless we’re naked.” I wiggle my eyebrows. She laughs and the sound melts into my senses, heating my nerves. I love making her laugh.
“Something like that.” Her eyes sparkle and I stare at her for lon
ger than I should. When I’ve had my fill, I drop my gaze before the silence grows awkward.
She’s just one girl. I’m sharing an address with her and only for a week shy of a single month. There’s no reason I need to read more into it. I don’t typically overthink things, so to start now makes no sense. Add that to the ever-growing list of things that don’t make sense when it comes to my reaction to Kayla. I blame Bailey McKoy for planting uncertainty into my head. “Are we going to talk about last night?”
“Do we have to?” She winces.
“Yes.” I need her to realize the danger she put her and her friends in with that stunt. If Ciara hadn’t banged on my door. If I didn’t keep a fire extinguisher in my apartment. If I hadn’t been home. There are way too many ifs in this scenario. When I ran into her apartment and saw those flames, fear cramped my gut. She could have been hurt. I could have lost her. When she collapsed into my arms, I wanted to shake her and demand she tell me what she was thinking.
But then I felt her trembling, saw the fear in her wide eyes, and I couldn’t help but hold her. Comfort her. Be her strength. She scared me half to death. I can’t let her know that, so I choose to lecture her on something a bit more neutral. “You could have burned the place to the ground.”
“It’s not like I meant for it to happen.”
“Do you know how many times I hear that?” I look at her like she’s as crazy as she sounds. “No one means for it to happen. But it happens. You don’t screw with things you can’t control.”
She rolls her eyes and I’m ready to lose my shit. “I should have known you’d turn this into another lecture.”
“Kayla.”
“Jake!” She drops the box in her hands as her eyes flash. “I get it. It was stupid. I knew it was a bad idea before we did it. There’s no such thing as a boyfriend burning. Shannon and Ciara just wanted to burn shit.”
Despite the stress of the conversation, I chuckle. I have to do something to lighten the tension before one or both of us snap. As much as I want to continue to drill into her about how monumentally stupid it was to start a fire in what in essence is a chimney filled with a bunch of flammable items, I concede to keep the peace. “Oh, boyfriend burnings are the real deal. Believe it or not, last night wasn’t my first one.”
“As a fireman? Or as one of the items in the fire?”
I chuckle again, knowing she’s trying to bait me. She’s good at that, at getting under my skin like no one else. Both good and bad. “Probably a little of both. Some of them I didn’t even deserve. Most, though, I did.”
“I believe it.”
“You’re all heart.”
“That’s not even my best asset.” She smiles, and my annoyance at her comments disappears. Her heart is definitely one of her assets, but she’s right. It’s not her best one. If I had to choose, I’d go with her eyes. The way they dance whenever she smiles mesmerizes me. Then again, her mind is worlds above mine. She’s so smart, the smartest person I know. It’s more than a little intimidating. If we spend any serious time talking, she’ll see how much better off she is without me—and that terrifies me.
Jesus, what’s happening to me?
I wipe my hands on my pants. Why are my palms sweating? I don’t get nervous around girls, especially ones I’m not trying to sleep with. I need to say something to break this awkward silence between us. “Hey, uh, I hope you’re not mad that I went off on your friends last night.”
“About that.” She crosses her arms up under her breasts and pulls my attention to her nipples. They harden beneath her shirt and I lick my lips. When she clears her throat, I jump my gaze to her face and smile sheepishly as my cheeks burn. “Get a good look?”
“You were saying?”
She rolls her eyes again. It’s really starting to annoy me. “Why’d you defend me like that?”
Shit. I knew she’d get hung up on that. I didn’t want another guy in the picture, not until I figured out why I can’t stop staring at her. Or trying to make her laugh. Or moving close enough to smell the body spray she uses. It’s a cross between strawberries and paradise, and makes my mouth water. “They were just words.”
“They were nice words. You can be a nice guy if you tried.”
Is she serious? No one remembers the nice guy, let alone likes him. I think of Ryan and how he had to make a deal with Emma to get her to even date him. Sure, they’re together now, but she would have never gone for him had they not made that deal. “Nice guys finish last, sweetheart.”
She shakes her head. “Just when I thought you couldn’t get any douchier. You really are an asshole. I guess last night was just a temporary thing?”
I hate the way she looks at me, like I just said something so painful it registered on her internal Richter scale. “I guess so.”
She storms off to her bedroom and returns with a piece of paper. “Here.”
“What’s this?” I ask and accept it. As I read, disbelief tightens my muscles. My disbelief melts into anger the further down the list I go. Is she kidding? I hold the laundry list of her bullshit rules in my hand, the paper crinkling as I make a fist. Gone is me wanting to make her smile. Now I want her to go away. “What the hell is this?”
“A few ground rules.”
“A few? Kayla, this list goes into the double digits. I stopped reading after ten.”
She shrugs. “I’m impressed you read that many.”
Bitch. She doesn’t know me, doesn’t know how hard I’m struggling in school. She doesn’t know how I can’t retain the shit I read. She doesn’t know TREX assigned me a nerd as a tutor—a nerd who hates me and wants to break every bone in my body for insulting his girl. What right does she have to accuse me of not having a long enough attention span all because I don’t sit home every night with my nose stuck in a book? I crumple up the paper and toss it into the metal trashcan she used to house her little bonfire last night. “That’s what I think of your list.”
“Goddamn it, Jake.” She hurries over and rescues it from the garbage. “We have to set expectations here.”
“What the hell are you talking about? What’s that even mean?”
She runs her hands over the paper to smooth it out. “If we don’t have rules, we have chaos.”
“Says who?”
“Says my mom. My dad. Every successful person out there. Didn’t you ever see any of the Jurassic Parks? That’s what happens when you don’t have rules.”
I’m completely lost. “Are you saying I’m going to be eaten by a dinosaur if I break a few rules? You may be even crazier than your friends.”
“Jake! Be serious. We need rules.”
“Not me.”
“You need them most of all.”
“Do you even hear yourself when you talk?”
She narrows her glare, the venom in her look sinking into me. I feel bad, but I’m not about to apologize. After all, she started it with her stupid list. A list so stupid I can’t recall a single rule from it. Not willing to wait to see what new insult she plans to sling at me, I grab a box and turn to leave. As I walk out into the hall, she follows.
“One of us has to have rules. Since I know it won’t be you, I have no choice.”
I drop the box. Nothing breaks, thank God. I’d never hear the end of it if I broke her favorite music box or some shit. “Are you saying it’s my fault you have so many rules?”
“Not you, exactly, but guys like you.”
Another insult about someone like me. First Ryan. Now her. Maybe the two really are more alike than I’d originally thought just as Bailey pointed out. “And what, exactly, is a guy like me?”
“The fact you even have to ask me that should answer your question.”
Great. Now she’s using my own words against me. This is never going to work. We haven’t even moved into the new apartment yet and I’m ready to strangle her. “Forget it. I’ll live at the firehouse.”
“Of course you will. Shocker.”
I’m getting really sick of h
er little digs. “Meaning?”
“That’s just you, isn’t it? You push hard to get whatever you want. Once you get it, you run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.”
Okay, now I’m pissed. This is her fault. Why is she trying to pin this on me? Well, enough is enough. Time to turn that shit right around. “You think I want this? I was just fine in my crappy little apartment. Three weeks, Kayla. We had three weeks left in this hellhole before you went and screwed that up. Now I’m stuck with you when I’d rather be out having fun with anyone else.”
She sucks in a breath and staggers back as if I physically struck her. Tears shine in her eyes. Shit. I hate when girls cry, especially when I’m the cause of it. I firmly believe most girls have the power to cry on command, leaving guys at a disadvantage. But not Kayla. Those are real tears and knowing that makes me feel like an even bigger piece of shit. When I take a breath to say something, she raises a hand and thrusts it into my face. “We’re done.”
The air whistles out of my lungs. The tone of her voice, like I’ve defeated her, has me close to coming undone. I clench my jaw to stop myself from saying something we’ll both regret. “What do you mean, we’re done?”
“You lasted longer than I figured you would, but you’re doing exactly what I expected by being a complete prick to me so I’d throw in the towel. So, you know what? You win. I’m not going to spend one night in that apartment with you, let alone the next three weeks. I refuse to live with someone who considers me their last resort.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Is that how it sounded?
“Isn’t it?” She pulls the keys out of her pocket and hands them to me. When I don’t take the bait, she jingles the keys. “Here.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
But I do, and that’s the problem. Knowing she won’t back down, I nod for her to follow me as I concede. Besides, we’re in the hall and the other residents moving out are now watching us. Kayla is already on their collective shit list for forcing this on them, so having her fighting with me, the one who stopped the building from burning down, isn’t earning her any points.
The Heat Is On (TREX Rookies Book 2) Page 9
