Chapter One
Dean
“I’m confused. It goes where?” my roommate, Kaley, asks with a tilt of her head.
“It goes in the hole.” I smirk while fighting the urge to crack up.
“How on Earth would it fit in that hole? I mean, it’s too big, the hole is too small.” She pouts and crosses her arms over her chest.
“That’s the point. It’s part of the word problem.” I pick up the paper and read it to her again.
She shakes her head and crosses her arms over her chest.
Being a guy, I look as her breasts are pushed up by the movement, with the V-neck shirt she’s wearing giving me an excellent view of her cleavage.
“Dean, why can’t you do my homework for me? That would make this a lot easier.” Her lower lip pouts out, her eyelashes bat as she stares at me.
“Because I have my own homework to do.” I shoot back at her as I stand and retreat from the living room back to my bedroom.
I’m not lying, I have a crap-ton of homework to do. Tonight is the first night that I’ve been home before nine, and I intend to take full advantage of it. I finished training early tonight because of the power going out at the gym. So while being home this early wasn’t planned, it is nice to have a quick break in my daily regimen.
“I need more help, Dean! You’re my best friend, my roommate, and the most smartest person that I know.” She whines, following me.
“Call Denise.” I tell her. “She’s good at homework.”
“Your sister and Todd are going out tonight, something about keeping the love alive,” she says.
“Either way, I need to do my own homework. If I keep talking to you about your homework, I will get nothing done.”
I pull out my English Lit book, notebook, and a pen out of my backpack, sit down at the head of my bed and lean my head back against the wall as I close my eyes.
Her voice is far away, but I know that it shouldn’t be. Then a moment later, she shakes my shoulder.
Apparently, I fell asleep.
I shake my head and my eyes focus on Kaley.
“I thought you were doing your homework?” she asks.
“I came in here to do it, but I don’t know what happened.” I rub my eyes.
“You’ve been in here for two hours,” she says softly. “You alright?”
“Yeah. I am probably just catching up on sleep. What’s up? Did you need more help on your homework that I won’t give?”
“No,” she hesitates and bites her lower lip. “Alright, so, you know how I’ve told you that my parents are super conservative?”
“Yeah, what about it?” Where the hell is she going with this?
I recall off-handed comments she’s made, but we’ve never really had that specific conversation, at least that I’m aware of.
“Well, they may or may not be coming to town to visit for a few weeks.” She fidgets with the hem of her shirt.
“That’s cool.” I shrug.
“Yeah. Well, my parents…they may not like that I have a male roommate.”
“Are you asking me to stay away from the apartment while they’re here?”
“Not exactly.” She squirms.
“Spit it out, Kaley.”
“I may or may not have told my parents that you were my live in boyfriend and that my sister can stay here.” She says quickly and hides her face in her shirt.
“Whoa, okay. Back it up. Where is your sister going to stay? We only have two bedrooms.”
She looks at me, waiting for me to catch up to speed. And when I do, my eyes widen and I’m actually speechless.
“So, they think that you and I... we’d have to share a room? Which probably means that we would have to share the same bed and did you really not think this through? Did you say your sister can stay here? How old is she? Where am I going to sleep?” I run off question after question as I push myself off the bed and look around my room. “Is she staying in my room? That means I have to sleep in your room. Kaley, you need to talk a little more.”
“Slow your roll. Okay, so I didn’t think it all over when I was talking to them. I was kind of half listening and just agreeing with whatever they were saying.”
“Well, this is great.” I run my hand through my hair.
“It’s only for a couple of weeks and they’ve never been to Seattle before, which means that they may just never be around, they may just come over here and sightsee the entire time.”
“How many weeks exactly are we talking here, Kale?” I steady myself by placing my hand on the top of my dresser.
“Three.”
“Three.” I mumble.
“I’m sorry.” She looks at me, her eyes full of emotion. I can see the war waging in the right or wrong and with guilt for choosing the wrong.
“So, what do we have to do?” I ask resigned, knowing that there’s no changing the situation.
“Well, either I move into your room or you move into mine. My room is more lived in, you really should decorate in here.” She says looking around.
“Your sister?”
“She’s sixteen, but not the cool type. She’s a bookworm, kind of shy and probably, alright most likely, will stay with us to spy on me for my parents.”
“Sleeping situation?”
“Together.”
“And you and I?”
“We’re in a serious and committed relationship.”
“Why wouldn’t I have met your parents before if we were serious?”
“Since we’ve lived together, how often have I gone home?”
“Good point.” I nod.
She hasn’t gone home since I’ve met her, and I met her through my sister two years ago.
“Let me get this straight, you and I are together and shacking up. Your conservative parents are okay with that?”
“They wouldn’t want me living with a guy unless it was... you know.” She shrugs.
“I know what?”
“You know, heading somewhere.”
“Oh geez. This is a mess you got us in, you know that, right?”
“Please, please, please? It’s only three weeks. Most of the time you aren’t home anyway with all the team stuff. So, it will just be like a bare minimum of playing along.”
“All we have to do is play house?”
“Yes.” She nods eagerly.
Kaley Valentine is beautiful. If she wasn’t my sister’s best friend, and my roommate, I would likely have tried to hook up with her at one point or many for that matter. Kaley has long wavy light blonde hair, gray-blue eyes, perfect pink lips and a small cleft in her chin. She’s gorgeous, but we’re friends and we friend zoned each other by proxy of my sister right away. Not only is she a roommate, she’s a good friend too, someone that lets me know when I’m being an idiot, and she even makes sure that I keep my head on straight.
“Oh, you’re so going to owe me.” I shake my head. “When are they coming?”
“This weekend.”
“Great. I have a bye week next week. I have a game this Friday night. But then my next game isn’t until the following Saturday after my bye.” I groan, leaning my head back, hitting the wall. “I have light practice and so far zero press meetings. They just had to pick that week.”