ROOMIES (Strangers-To-Lovers Romance Novel)

by Bella Grant

  16

  Liam

  Alone. That was how I spent my day off. Normally, I would check in with one of the guys, go out for lunch and a beer, and see a movie, but today, I decided to stay home. And I wasn’t unoccupied. Thoughts of Emily kept me busy. Thoughts of her coming to the bar to get me out of concern, almost making love to her, and the steamy kiss this morning.

  So, between my consuming thoughts and catching up on my sleep, I was fairly occupied. I did make a quick run around noon to a deli just down the street to get a sandwich but didn’t stay to eat it there. Although it was afternoon, I waited impatiently for my roommate to come home.

  That was a first. Usually, I wished she’d never return except for days when the rent was due. I was caught up with thoughts about her and whether I should tell her I liked her when the door to the apartment flew open so hard it banged against the wall.

  “What the hell!” I exclaimed in surprise as a white-faced Emily rushed into the apartment and slammed the door shut behind her. She leaned heavily against the door and breathed hard. There were spots of blood on her white top.

  “Emily, are you okay?” I demanded and jumped up from the sofa to hurry towards her. “Are you hurt?”

  Before my eyes, she tried to gather herself and summon a smile. “Ha—hi, Li-Liam.” She stuttered my name, threading her fingers nervously through her curls. “What are you doing here?”

  “I live here,” I responded. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you freaking out?”

  “I’m not,” she denied and tried to push past me, but I didn’t budge. She tried as hard as she could not to let it show, but her body was taut and trembling. She was freaking me out.

  “Come on, Em,” I cajoled. “I know you. Something is wrong. Now tell me what it is.”

  Instead of answering, she flung herself against me. I wrapped my arms around her. She didn’t cry, but her body was wracked with shudders. Something had scared the shit out of her, and I was determined to find out what it was.

  My arms wrapped around her waist, pressing her closer to me while a hand patted her back in an attempt to calm her down. Little by little, the shudders subsided until she leaned against me, her body slack. I cupped the back of her head to ease her back a little and saw the cut on her neck where I had left a love mark on her. It looked as though something had tried to scrape it off, but that was absurd. My hand went down to her neck and my thumb rubbed the area, which was dried with blood. She grimaced at my touch.

  “I need to know, Emily, and now,” I told her softly. “Please, tell me. What’s going on?”

  “I’ll-I’ll tell you. But I need to get some water first.”

  “Okay.”

  I followed her into the kitchen. I wouldn’t let her out of my sight until she spilled and told me what was going on. She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and drank half of the content in one go. With a sigh, she dropped down into a kitchen chair, and I stood there, lounging against the sink almost casually, except I was tense as hell. Someone had hurt her, and I wanted to know who.

  “There’s a reason I was desperate to find a roommate and move here,” she started, her head bowed. “Prior to this, I-I lived with my boyfriend. It was stupid of me to move in with him after a matter of months, but I thought…I thought he was different. And he was—he is different.” Her cheeks changed from paper-white to red. “He’s…he took my…umm, my virginity and it was my first relationship so I was easily swayed. It took me a while to realize he was obsessed with me.”

  I stared in disbelief at her. “You mean to tell me that your ex-boyfriend’s the reason you’re so scared silly? He did that to your neck?”

  She nodded. “He’s been following me. At the mall, but he’s never physically done anything to hurt me until he saw your-your…”

  Anger burned inside me, and I didn’t even know the guy. I didn’t need to know him. What he had done to her was enough for me. “Will you point him out for me if you see him again?”

  Her eyes widened as she lifted her head and stared at me. “No, no. I won’t.”

  “In fact, I want you to give me this guy’s address so I can go straighten him out,” I offered, rubbing my knuckles at the thought of pounding the guy. It had been a long time since I’d been in a fist fight, but I was ready.

  “No!” she protested, getting to her feet. “You don’t understand, Liam. Jake is unstable, and I believe he could be very dangerous if he found out about…about us.”

  My hand went to her neck again, and fury coursed through my veins at the way he’d bruised her. I cupped her cheek, feeling fiercely protective of her. She had a big mouth on her sometimes and knew how to nag the hell out of a man, but she was…well, she was Emily and no one would hurt her. Not on my watch.

  “I’m not going to stand idly by and let this guy terrorize you,” I informed her. “What he’s doing is not right, and I’ll put a stop to it. He’s a coward for doing that to you, and I bet once he knows you have someone, he’ll stop messing with you.”

  I didn’t know what I said, but her eyes filled up with tears and spilled over onto her cheeks. “Emily…”

  “He scared me,” she cried, then laughed through her tears. “I used the pepper spray right this time. He had me up against the car, digging his fingers into my neck. I was so scared.”

  “Oh, Em, I promise he won’t hurt you again,” I told her.

  “But—he knows where I work. He’s following me around.”

  The idea hit me like a hot ton of bricks. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before this. “Then we’ll get a restraining order against him. Yes, that’s exactly what we will do.”

  “But, Liam—”

  “You can’t have it your way, Emily. You’ve got two choices. One, you give me his address and I knock some sense into him for scaring you, or two, we go down to the police station and get a restraining order against him.”

  She sighed and stepped away from me. “Okay, let me go change.”

  “No, we need them to see what that bastard did so they’ll understand the severity of the matter. You’re riding with me. Come on.” Because she looked sad, I dropped a kiss on her forehead. "You're doing the right thing, Em."

  With a little coaxing, I got her out of the apartment and into my car. She sat quietly with her head averted, gazing sideways out the window at nothing in particular. I couldn't help thinking this was certainly not what I envisioned would be the result of what happened between us last night. I wasn’t sure what to think would come of it, but I'd at least hoped we would talk about it.

  I glanced at her with a frown, some of what she had said to me just now processing. I could have guessed she wasn't the kind of girl who went bed-hopping at whim, but it was a surprise to know that if I'd succeeded last night, I would have been her second lover. Maybe even her last.

  Whoa, where the hell did that come from? Emily was a nice girl and all, but I barely had my life together much less think long-term about her. Or any girl. A month ago, I'd lived in my parents' basement. Plus, this crazy ex-lover of hers showed me I didn't know much about her.

  Traffic was light and the sun was just beginning to make its descent in the west when I parked at the nearest police station and prodded her inside. She resisted when we got to the door.

  I turned to her angrily. “Do you want to get that son of a bitch off your case or what?” I demanded. “There’s nothing funny about this, Emily. That guy made you bleed and there’s no telling what he might do next. Do you want to lose your life over something that could have been avoided?”

  My words must have strummed fear through her veins because she didn’t argue or resist. We walked into the police station and to the front desk where I explained that we needed a restraining order against her ex.

  “And you’re the one being harassed?” the dark-skinned police woman asked Emily. “If you’re the one making the complaint, I need to hear it from your lips, not from your friend.”

  Emily looked up
at me in fright and looked down without saying a word. I was about to apologize for wasting the woman’s time when she finally spoke. “I’d like to get a restraining order against my ex-boyfriend, Jake Carnegie,” she said softly. “He’s been making threats and stalking me.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief when the police woman invited us to sit. I listened as Emily disclosed the relationship between her and this man. She was uncomfortable talking about it but didn’t have a choice. The police kept asking her questions.

  For a moment, I was at a loss that she’d been with an older man. Granted, the man was thirty, but I didn’t see her as the type of girl who would get involved with an older man. Again, I asked myself what I knew about her. I listened as she repeated some of the threats that had been issued to her by this Jake guy. She talked about him almost forcing himself on her once.

  The more she talked, the more I wished I had gotten the address out of her and taken care of things. He had been harassing her far longer than she had even realized, even while they were together. She blushed as she recounted that Jake insisted he had taken her virginity and because of that she would always be his.

  By the time we departed the police station, she obviously felt a whole lot lighter. The police had explained Jake would be served a summons and they would both have to appear in court and a judge would rule on the order. At least when her ex got the summons, he would know she was serious about him leaving her alone.

  “Thanks for insisting I go,” she told me with a smile. “It was the right thing to do. Do you believe a restraining order will stop him?”

  “He’d be a fool to try anything with you after getting that summons,” I responded as I opened the car door for her to get in. I closed the door when she was comfortably seated then went around to the driver’s side and started the car. “Anyway, if he does, he will just be giving us more fuel to use in court.”

  “You’re right. You’re a great…uh,” she stuttered to find the right word, and I listened eagerly for what she would say because I wanted to know what we were too. “Roommate,” she ended.

  Roommate. What did the term mean between us anymore? I opened my mouth to ask her when I heard her tummy rumble. I glanced at her, and she blushed.

  “Do you want to grab a bite to eat?” I asked her hopefully. I stared ahead of me at the street as if I was concentrating on driving, but I was trying to avoid whatever look she had on her face. What if she turned down the offer?

  “I can make something at the apartment,” she suggested. “You’ve done enough already. I don’t want to keep you away from anything.”

  “You’re not keeping me away from anything, Emily. I am asking you because I am hungry too, and, uh…well, you deserve a break from cooking duty. You had a horrible experience today. Now what do you say? Will you allow me to buy you something to eat or not?”

  “Uh, okay.”

  I didn’t quite capture the whoosh of breath I was holding in, and I glanced quickly at her to see if she had noticed. She had. And on her face was a half-smile.

  17

  Emily

  Was this a date? Or was this one of those things where two people were hungry and it made sense to go out together for good food and company? I couldn’t tell, but the whoosh of breath Liam had let out made me feel like this would turn out to be more of a date. Why else would he seem so relieved I had said yes? And why else would he have pressed me, even though I initially told him no, we could eat at the apartment?

  “Uh…we should probably get back to the apartment so I can change into something more appropriate,” I told him.

  “Right.”

  We traveled in silence, and while I anticipated dinner with Liam, I couldn’t help checking the rearview mirror each time for the silver Honda Civic Jake drove. I wasn’t sure if he had followed me home earlier when I’d left the mall. I had been so frantic every time I checked, every silver car looked like his.

  I hadn’t wanted to explain my relationship with Jake in front of Liam at the police station. Hearing the words coming out of my mouth, I realized how stupid I was. I should have figured out the type of guy he was, but I’d ignored all the warning signs—the constant phone calls asking me where I was and who I was with, the popping up in places where I least expected him, and the lack of friends on his part while he was consumed by our relationship.

  Every day, a woman lost her virginity. Why did he think I belonged to him simply because he took mine? I couldn’t understand it. Hell, I didn’t think anyone could understand it. If he’d listen to my advice and saw a shrink, he might seem a little less off his rocker.

  At the apartment, I shucked Jake from my mind as Liam told me to hurry and get dressed. We went to our separate rooms. I couldn’t resist it. I hopped in the bathroom for a quick shower to wash up, tucking my hair up under a shower cap so it wouldn’t get wet. I spent no more than ten minutes in the shower and, back in my bedroom, searched for something easy to wear—something casual and nice but without seeming as though I’d gone to any effort to dress up.

  I settled on a navy-blue dress with a broken-down collar, a belt tied at the waist, and buttons all the way down the front. I paired it with a pair of black mules I found in the back of my closet and brushed my hair vigorously over my shoulders to hide the angry bruise at my neck. By the time I was finished dressing, I looked like I had put way too much thought into getting dressed, but I couldn’t change, having spent so much time already.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. I almost jumped from the knock on my bedroom door. “Emily, are you dressed?” Liam’s voice was a bit muffled through the door.

  “Um, yeah. I’m coming out now.” I grabbed a purse and transferred my wallet and other trinkets from my work bag, then hurried out of the bedroom. I took a deep breath at the door before I exited. Liam stood there, waiting.

  He had changed as well and looked so gorgeous, he took my breath away. He wore a pair of dark jeans with a dress-shirt and a pair of loafers. He’d taken the time to run a comb through his hair as well.

  “Um…Emily, you look—are you ready?” he changed his comment on my appearance to ask.

  “Yes, let’s go.”

  The atmosphere in the car was charged and different between us. I was aware of him sitting beside me as I stole glances at his profile and his arms on the steering wheel. He had nice arms—strong and muscular without being too bulky.

  “Where are we going?” I asked him, trying to break the awkward conversation between us.

  “I thought I’d take you to Logan’s,” he replied, glancing at me and to the road. “Is that okay with you?”

  “I’ve never been there, to be honest,” I responded.

  “I think you’ll like it. It doesn’t look like much on the inside but the food is amazing.”

  “Well, that’s the important thing.”

  I discovered what he meant by the restaurant not looking like much on the inside. Whoever had designed the interior had given it a laid-back feel. The floor was vinyl planks and the seats of the booths were upholstered in burgundy. Each table had a small bucket of peanuts still in their shells.

  “You’re right,” I murmured, looking around me as the waitress fetched our drinks. “I do like the feel of this place.”

  He looked relieved and relaxed visibly at my admission. “I guess weeks of living with you has taught me a lot about you.”

  Before I could respond, the waitress returned and asked if we were ready to order. We weren’t but grabbed our menus. He ordered baby back ribs with a baked potato and salad, but I couldn’t decide and ordered the tester menu. This gave me the opportunity to try three things on the menu. I selected the mozzarella sticks, moonshine glazed chicken, and mashed potatoes.

  “So how did you end up with such a creepy ex?” he asked me when the waitress left.

  I hesitated before I told him about Jake visiting Hollister until I decided to go out with him. Talking about it, I frowned. I’d thought his persistence and his visits to the store was sweet
. Now I wondered if those visits had been early signs he was possessive and a stalker.

  “I don’t want to talk anymore about him,” I concluded, not wanting thoughts of Jake to ruin the evening. We changed the topic to random chat about the mall and were laughing about some of our hilarious interactions with customers when the waitress returned with our meals.

  “You’ll have to help me with all this,” I remarked at the food she laid out before me. The servings were way more than I’d expected. I didn’t see myself eating all this food.

  “Sure, don’t mind if I do.”

  We shared our meal and relaxed. I wasn’t a fan of steak, but he cajoled me to try his with A1 sauce. “Still tastes bland?” he asked.

  “I’m not a fan of red meat,” I explained. “It’s too chewy, but you were right. The sauce makes it better. My dad loves steak, and I probably ate it too much back home.”

  “Where is back home?” he wanted to know.

  At first, I hesitated. We were going into unchartered territory. Did I want Liam to know me more intimately? The answer was a resounding yes.

  “I grew up in Auburn,” I answered with a smile. It was so easy to talk about it now that I had accepted I wanted to get to know him as well. “I grew up an only child, so I was doted on a little. My parents had me when they were older and had stopped trying for a baby.”

  “Do you have a good relationship with them?”

  “Yes, very. In fact, now that you mention it, I should call them soon or they’ll call me. With everything that’s been going on, I haven’t visited them in a while. It’s a four-hour drive back and forth.”

  “Oh, that’s nice.”

  “What about you?” I queried. “Where did you grow up?”

  “Homewood.”

  “Wow, that’s not too far from our apartment. You must see your family quite a lot.”

  He gave a short laugh and shook his head. The sadness I’d seen before in him clouded his eyes. “My family isn’t like yours,” he replied. “My folks aren’t so accepting of me.”