Don't Fall for My Hot Roommate Brothers novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Sandwich Girl
Lacey reads Anneliese's love letter to four hundred people while Lance laughs, and the speakers die before page two. Locked out of her apartment, she carries her boxes into the Conrad house and finds Lance on their couch.
Lacey read my letter into the tailgate microphone in front of four hundred people.
She stood on the tailgate of Lance's truck in the yellow scarf I had knitted her, holding my pink paper in both hands like it was precious.
I stood at the back of the crowd, holding a tray of cupcakes.
I had iced a C on every one.
"Dear Lance," Lacey read, in her sweet voice. "You gave me half your sandwich in third grade, and I have been hungry for you ever since."
The whole lot groaned, and then it laughed.
Phones went up all over the grass.
I had written that letter on Wednesday night, and I had shown it to exactly one person.
On Thursday, Lacey had read it at our kitchen table and cried a little.
"Nobody will ever see this but him," she had said. "I swear on my grandma."
Then she had taken a picture of it with her phone, in case I lost it.
This morning she had braided my hair and brought me coffee in bed.
Now she flipped the page and grinned at the crowd.
"Oh, you guys, it gets so much better," she said.
Lance stood by the cooler with the football team.
He had lived four doors down from me since I was six.
He looked across the lot until he found me, and he knew the letter was mine.
Then he laughed with everyone else.
"Annie, come on," he called. "It's a little funny."
He didn't walk over, and he didn't take the microphone out of her hand.
"Page two," Lacey said. "Lance, this next part is about your hands."
Every speaker in the lot cut out at once.
Lacey tapped the microphone and shook it.
"Oops," she said, and the crowd booed and howled.
At the edge of the lot, a man in a black football jersey stood beside the generator with an orange cord in his hand.
I knew him from the posters on every door on campus.
Dane Conrad, number 14, the linebacker people crossed the street to avoid.
He looked at me once.
Then he wrapped the cord around his elbow and walked away.
Lacey jumped down from the truck and came toward me with her arms already open.
"Don't be mad, Annie," she said. "It was a joke. Everybody loves you."
She held out the pink paper.
It was only page one.
I set the cupcakes on the bumper of Lance's truck, very carefully, so none of the Cs smeared.
I took the paper out of her hand and folded it into my back pocket.
"Enjoy the cupcakes, Lance," I said. "They're the last thing I'll ever make you."
Nobody laughed at that.
So I walked out.
The crowd opened for me, and the phones followed me all the way to the street.
It was a twelve minute walk to the apartment Lacey and I had shared for two years.
My key didn't turn.
A new lock had been put in, and a sticky note was stuck above it in Lacey's handwriting.
Landlord needs the room back Sunday. Your boxes are downstairs. xo L
I went down to the lobby.
Three boxes stood by the mailboxes with my name on them, taped shut.
The receipt for the tape was stuck to the top one.
It was dated Thursday, the day she had cried at our kitchen table.
She had packed me up before she braided my hair.
I sat down on the bottom box, and my phone buzzed in my hand.
It was my dad, from a layover in Houston.
Landed. Chile tomorrow, Annie-bear! My old roommate's boys have the spare room on Alder Street if you ever need it. Door's open. Love you.
My parents had left for Chile that morning.
It was the third country they had worked in since I turned fifteen, and I had told them at the airport that I would be fine.
I had told them I had Lacey.
I read the address twice.
Then I called a car, and I put all three boxes in the trunk myself.
The house on Alder Street was blue, with a porch light on and music coming through the windows.
Four pickup trucks were parked on the lawn.
I rang the bell with my elbow because my arms were full.
The door swung open on a tall guy in a baseball cap and bare feet, holding a spatula.
"Roommate!" he said, and he grinned at me.
"You're Anneliese Barron, right? I'm Rory. My dad texted that you might come."
He took the top box out of my arms before I could say anything.
"I saw the video, by the way," he said. "It's terrible. I'm so sorry."
"Thanks," I said. "I think."
"Come in, we have lasagna. Dane cleared the desk in your room last week, just in case."
I didn't ask him what that meant.
I was too tired to ask anything.
He led me down the hall into the living room.
Six football players sat across the couches with plates on their knees, and every one of them turned to look at me.
The one in the middle was holding a beer, and he stood up so fast he spilled it.
"Annie?" Lance said.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend