Chapter 4
Saturday morning, I was in the middle of a fantastic dream when—
Wham.
My bedroom door flew open.
I bolted upright and came face-to-face with Chloe, who looked mildly panicked and not even slightly sorry.
“Could you knock first?”
“I did knock.”
I looked at the dent the handle had left in the plaster and then back at her.
“SWAT teams don’t knock that hard.”
“Why didn’t you lock the door?”
I gestured at the apartment around me. “Does this place look like anything in here locks?”
She waved a hand like she was the one doing me a favor. “Whatever. I just needed two hangers. I did laundry and forgot to buy some.”
“Help yourself,” I muttered, sinking back under the blanket. “I’m not exactly ready to get up yet.”
The corner of her mouth twitched.
I don’t know why I was hiding under the blanket. But for some reason, I—a six-foot grown man—blushed like a schoolgirl.
“Nice SpongeBob boxers,” she said, laughing as she grabbed two hangers.
“Lady, do you ever shut up?”
“You want me to buy you a nicer pair?”
She bolted from the room with suspiciously hurried footsteps. She was flustered, even if she’d never admit it.
Living with a roommate is supposed to mean a period of adjustment. I always thought that meant learning each other’s boundaries. You stay on your side. I stay on mine.
Chloe didn’t get that memo.
She found the line and decided to play jump rope with it.
She still barged into my room. Once, I was brushing my teeth when she wandered into the bathroom half asleep and sat down on the toilet without noticing I was there. When she finally looked up and saw me, she let out a scream loud enough to trigger an evacuation.
I don’t know why she was screaming. I felt like the victim.
The girl also had zero life skills.
She once asked why her clothes never came out as clean as mine. Turned out she wasn’t using detergent. She was just throwing clothes in the machine and hoping for the best.
She insisted on cooking and nearly burned the building down.
Every time, I’d end up sighing under my breath while teaching her how to function like an adult.
The only upside was that she learned fast.
By the second time she cooked, she knew not to throw water on a grease fire.
By the second time she did laundry, she knew detergent was not optional.
Living with Chloe was like adopting a cat that hated you. Beautiful, unpredictable, occasionally destructive—and somehow, despite all of that, you kept filling up the food bowl.