Not Over You: Accidental Roommates Romance

by R. S. Lively

"Yes. Cade is the only person I trust. He knows this house, and I know him. I don't want a stranger poking around in my belongings and seeing me in this delicate condition."

  Says the woman I'm fairly certain is wearing fake eyelashes right now. How in the hell did she do that so fast? I couldn’t apply them that well with half an hour, a magnifying glass, and a team of prayer warriors surrounding me.

  "Why are you getting all these repairs done around the house when you're hurt? Don't you need to recover?"

  "I planned on talking to Cade about doing the repairs before I had my accident," Grammie says. "It just so happens the house got the upper hand before I had a chance to. You wouldn't want me to keep living in such dangerous surroundings, would you?"

  She gestures at the Robo-Boot again for good measure.

  I let out an exasperated sigh.

  "No," I say. "Of course, I don't. I came all the way out here to take care of you, didn't I? I even braved creepy Old Man Driver to get here."

  "Who? Oh. That's Leslie. His grandson owns the Harrison farm."

  "He's just delightful. I'll have to remember to invite him over for afternoon tea and croquet."

  Grammie looks at me strangely.

  "We don't have a croquet court."

  "Damn. Well, I bet Cade here can whip one right up for you. It will give me enough time to bake up some petit fours and personalize a helmet for the next road trip I have with Leslie."

  "That's enough of your sass. He was very kind to go all the way out to that airport to pick you up," she says, settling back into her pillows. "Speaking of which, I'm starting to get hungry. What did you plan for lunch this afternoon?

  "I didn't have anything planned for lunch today," I say. "I just got here, and it's storming like hell outside."

  "I'm really hungry," she insists. "The sweet nurse who helped settle me in when I got hurt made sure I had some snacks near me, but I'm afraid I’ve run out."

  I sigh again.

  "Alright, Grammie. I'll find you something."

  "You might want to see a doctor about your lungs," she says as I start out of the room. "It sounds like you’re having some trouble breathing."

  I pause just outside the bedroom to drop my forehead against the wall. This is not what I had in mind when I decided I needed a change in my life.

  "So, what are you going to do?"

  I turn to look at Cade, who has stepped up behind me.

  "What do you mean what am I going to do?"

  "Obviously you have an issue with this. I think we're both adult enough to talk about what's going to happen next."

  I start down the steps.

  "I'm going to make my grandmother something to eat because she's hungry and she needs me." I get to the bottom of the steps and turn toward the kitchen. "That's why I'm here."

  "Well, I'm here to do repairs for your grandmother, and that's what I'm going to do."

  "She should have hired a professional. Just because you spent some time with Gramps learning to do a few things doesn't qualify you to make the house safe for her. And it definitely doesn't necessitate you being in the house when you aren't doing something, so I suggest you go ahead and head out. This storm is going to make it hard to get to your the hotel."

  "I spent seven summers learning woodworking, construction, contracting, plumbing, and electrical work, which is how I started my own business – making me more than qualified to handle the repairs. Staying here will make the projects more efficient. It doesn't make sense to stay anywhere else."

  "I don't care if you started a business doing underwater basket weaving and interpretive dance. You're not staying here. There's a hotel right in town. Go."

  "No, there isn't."

  "Of course, there is. It's where we stayed…"

  My voice trails off. I don't want to say, 'It's where we stayed the night after prom.'

  "There used to be a hotel," Cade says. "Not that you know since you haven't been around in years, but it closed a while back."

  I choose to ignore the dig.

  "This town feels the need for two bowling alleys, a business center, three antique shops, and a formal boutique, but it doesn't think a hotel is important enough to keep open?"

  "The town historian decided to do some research and try to have it declared a historic landmark. But all he uncovered was the hotel's sordid history as a brothel."

  "That doesn't shock me too much. It happened a lot."

  "The owner wasn't pleased about it, especially since in the article the historian wrote for the newspaper he also revealed some of the ladies of the evening could still be… lingering."

  I pause with my hand still in the bag of white bread I found sitting on the counter.

  "Ghosts?" I ask. "He thinks there are ghosts in the hotel?"

  "Only because their bones were dug up from the basement."

  "Are you telling me the town's oldest establishment is no longer there because someone thinks a bunch of dead prostitutes are pissed that someone buried them in the basement?"

  "I'm not sure if it was the burying or the unburying part."

  I turn back to the bread and pull out two pieces, dropping them down into the toaster and pushing down the lever.

  "That sounds like something Grammie would have told me."

  "Maybe she thought you didn't care."

  "I don't need you making passive aggressive commentary about my relationship with my grandmother, or how long I've been away from here. It's been far too long for that. I bet there's a nice, generic hotel chain not too far from here that isn't full of skeletons or ghost hookers, and you can come in the morning, do your work, and go back before dinner. I think it would be best for all of us."

  I snatch the pieces of toast from the toaster and start to carry them upstairs to Grammie.

  Cade laughs. "Seriously, Fiona? You're giving her dry toast? Without a plate?”

  I glare at him and grab a plate out of the cabinet. Rinsing it for good measure, I put the toast on the plate and slather it with butter before pouring a can of soup into a bowl and microwaving it.

  "Is this acceptable?" I ask sarcastically.

  "It's not exactly healthy."

  I let out an exasperated growl and start toward Grammie's room, food in hand. Cade follows close behind me, and I curse the butterflies in my belly for daring to take flight.

  4

  Cade

  I can't believe I'm watching Fiona walk up the steps right now. It's been so many years, I was convinced I would never see her again, much less share the same space with her. Fiona has changed a lot since I last saw her but in the best possible ways. The awkwardness of her teenage years is gone, replaced by the confident, natural sexiness of a woman. Her hair is longer than it used to be, and her round face has matured into one with high cheekbones that accentuate her beautiful eyes and pouty lips. Even when she's raging at me, her lips look sweet enough to suck into my mouth.

  "Why are you following me?" Fiona snaps, glaring at me over her shoulder.

  "I'm not following you. I'm going to talk to Grammie."

  "Which you know I'm doing, too."

  "Am I supposed to wait in line? Is this some sort of deli counter situation? I have to take a number and wait for my turn to talk?"

  Maybe the years haven't changed her in all the best ways.

  She lets out a frustrated sound, and I can't help but imagine the freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose and the tops of her cheeks popping out with her anger like they did when she was younger. I remember the first time I saw them do that. It was the first summer I spent with Grammie and Gramps, and Fiona and I were just getting used to each other. She was about as receptive to me in those first days as she is today, and I didn't know how to handle the surge of new feelings rushing through my thirteen-year-old body and brain in response to her. One afternoon she was helping Grammie hang laundry out on the line, and I grabbed a handful of her panties, taunting her by swinging them in front of her face when Grammie wasn't looking.
Fiona's eyes were squinted shut, fists clenched at her sides, and that cinnamon-sprinkling of freckles across her face reddened in fury, as she screamed at me.

  Now that she’s all grown-up, I can't help but wonder what she's wearing under those tight little pants.

  She turns back around and continues to stomp up the rest of the stairs and into the bedroom.

  "Here, Grammie," she says, settling the plate and bowl in her lap.

  Grammie looks back and forth between us.

  "You two don't look very happy."

  "We're just trying to figure all this out," Fiona says.

  Grammie looks at her quizzically.

  "What do you mean 'figure it all out'?"

  "Cade insists on staying here while he does the repairs to the house," Fiona says.

  She steps back from the bed and crosses her arms over her chest like a sullen child.

  "And I tried to explain to her that it makes the most sense for me to stay here during the renovations because it will give me the easiest proximity to the home."

  "Oh, they're renovations now? I thought they were just a few repairs."

  "I don't know, yet, because I haven't had the opportunity to evaluate the house. It seems like you’re insisting on me leaving because you're not adult enough to deal with the situation."

  "Fiona… Cade…" Grammie says, but neither of us looks at her.

  "Don't flatter yourself, Cade. I'm here for one reason and one reason only, and that is because Grammie hurt herself. She needs me here to help her while she recovers, and this is where I spent my entire childhood, so I’m staying."

  She says it in a way that suggests I don't have that same right.

  "Fiona… Cade…"

  "That sounds like at least two reasons."

  "Why does it matter so much to you what I think about you being here, anyway? It's not like you've cared where I've been for the last ten years. You didn't have a problem leaving and not having anything else to do with us."

  "Fiona…"

  "Oh, wait," Fiona says with a mirthless laugh. "You do stay in touch with someone. You apparently have lunch with my grandmother, and neither of you thought that might be something worth mentioning to me."

  "Why should we tell you? You don't have any say over what either of us does with our time. She's the one who raised you, Fiona. Not the other way around. Nothing that happened between us has anything to do with my relationship with Grammie, regardless of how you think about it."

  "Cade…"

  "Of course, you don't care what I think! You never did! You never even gave me a reason..."

  "Stop! Both of you." The intensity of Grammie's voice stops Fiona in the middle of a sentence I really don’t want her to finish. "Look. All this back and forth between the two of you isn't helping anything. It's ridiculous, and the two of you haven't even been in the same house together for an hour yet. Fiona, I need you here to take care of me and help me around the house while I'm stuck in bed. Cade, I need you to help make this house safe and beautiful again like when Gramps was alive. The way it should still be. The two of you have to figure something out to sort through this mess between you, so I can feel confident you'll both be alive at the end of the next three weeks."

  "I won't kill him if he doesn't kill me first," Fiona says, her meek expression immediately showing me that she realizes just how absurd she sounds, but is too damn stubborn to back down.

  "How exactly do you suggest you kill me if I get you first?" I snap back at her.

  "Enough," Grammie says, and my eyes whip back to her, by the volume and sharpness of her voice. "Both of you are acting completely ridiculous. You are grown-ass adults. I have had my fill of listening to you already, and it's been less than an hour. I'm old. I don't know how much time I have left in this world. Could the two of you please, for me, try to be civil? It's only three weeks, and you'll both be busy. Can't you get through that? For me?"

  Damn it, she got us.

  Fiona and I walk out of Grammie's bedroom and down the stairs in uncomfortable silence. We wander back into the kitchen, and Fiona walks over to the ancient coffee machine and turns it on. I've been trying to convince Grammie to replace it with something not from the era of green metal thermoses and women in lace-edged aprons and heels at six in the morning when their husbands went off to work, but Rose always brushes me off. There's something about this coffee maker that speaks to her. It may be her spirit animal.

  I've already put adding a new one at the top of my repairs list.

  "She's right, you know," I say.

  Fiona has gone through all the motions of making a pot of coffee and is now moving things around in the pantry, all while completely silent. Finally, she sighs and leans her head against the pantry door.

  "I know," she says. "We sound like toddlers. It's ridiculous. We both need to be adults about this."

  "Exactly. Grammie needs us, and we need to put everything behind us and do this for her. I think we can handle that much."

  I see Fiona stiffen in response to my words, but she doesn't argue.

  "The rain has died down some. That'll make it easier for you to find a hotel."

  I look at her incredulously.

  "Are you serious? You still expect me to go to a hotel because you're uncomfortable?"

  "I expect you to get a hotel because it's the decent thing to do."

  "Decent? Decent for who? This is Grammie's house, and she doesn't have a problem with me being here. In fact, she wants me to stay. It's not like I've never slept in the same house as you. We’ve slept in the same –"

  "Stop," Fiona says, holding her hand up to silence me. "We're not going down that path. That has nothing to do with now. Let's just agree to that. Since it's obvious neither one of us is going anywhere, we're just going to have to figure out how to navigate around each other in the same house for the next three weeks. Like Grammie said, we're going to be busy anyway. You do your thing, I'll do mine, and then we'll go our separate ways." She looks into my eyes, and I see emotion welling up in hers. "Again."

  "Why three weeks?" I ask.

  "That's how much vacation time I was able to take. I can spend three weeks here with Grammie, and by the end of that, I'm sure she will have recovered enough that she'll be able to take care of herself. If not, then we can discuss alternatives. Maybe I can find a nurse for her."

  "I don't think she needs a nurse."

  It didn't escape me that Grammie was wearing makeup and her hair was styled when I first stepped into her bedroom, and the weakness in her voice seemed to fade in and out depending on what she was saying. By the condition of the parts of the house I've seen thus far, however, I know she genuinely needs my help. The extent to which she needs Fiona is yet to be seen.

  "Why don't we agree that you can handle the house, and I will handle Grammie? Both of us made promises to her, so we'll suck it up and go through with it. Right now, I'm going to try to get to work on laundry and figuring out something for Grammie for supper later. OK?"

  The coffee has finally finished brewing, and I watch as Fiona pours herself a mug. She pauses for a second, staring at the few inches of opaque liquid still sloshing around in the round glass pot, before taking another mug out of the cabinet and pouring some coffee into it. She pushes it to the edge of the counter behind her and walks over to the refrigerator to get cream. I note she didn't bother to rinse the mug like she did her own before pouring the coffee into it, but it's at least a friendly gesture.

  Fiona reaches into the refrigerator and pulls out a small container of cream. A two-second pour of heavy cream and a scoop of sugar. It's barely coffee by the time Fiona is finished with it, but that's how she’s always taken it. From the time Gramps made her a cup when she was twelve years old, and we were heading out before the sun came up to help the Harrison's at the farm to pick an early harvest of corn, that was how she drank it. Somehow, seeing that she still drinks it that way, is reassuring.

  Opening the little blue and white cardboard
pint, Fiona brings it to her nose to sniff. Her face immediately contorts in disgust, and she carries it over to the sink, silently retching.

  "Grocery shopping. First, I'll go grocery shopping."

  After pouring the contents of the container down the drain and chasing it with several liberal squirts of green apple-scented dishwashing soap, she heads toward the front door. An unexpected crash of thunder and a rush of new rain makes her step back.

  "Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will go grocery shopping."

  "What about your coffee?" I ask.

  She looks down into the mug still sitting on the counter. Her expression is cautious, but firm, like she's trying to intimidate the brew into being drinkable.

  "I can drink it black," she says.

  "Oh, you can?" I ask, a hint of laughter in my voice.

  "Yes, Cade, I can," she retorts sharply. She snatches the cup off the counter and takes a swig. Immediately, the mug hits the counter again, and she grimaces. "Hot. So hot and bitter," she chokes out. "Why the fuck would anybody drink that?"

  I take a sip of my coffee, hoping to not taste any dust, and start out of the room.

  "Nice to see that finishing school program Grammie made you do is still sticking with you.”

  I can feel Fiona's eyes boring into my back, and I stifle a laugh against the lip of my mug as I sip on my coffee. Walking up the stairs, I head toward the bedroom I used when I was younger. This is a familiar route I've taken countless times before, but when I get to the end and look in the room, it’s completely different than I remember.

  Rather than being a simple bedroom with a dresser on one side, and a bed set against the wall opposite the window, I find myself staring into a storage closet. The entire room has tilted furniture, boxes, crates, and a variety of other things piled on top of each other, nearly to the ceiling. I reach in and flip the light switch in an attempt to illuminate the space, but barely any light filters through the junk piled up around the fixture.

  "Wow," Fiona says as she steps up beside me. "This looks welcoming. You might want to get started heading toward the bed. Looks like it might take you a few days to slither your way in."