He Slept With My Roommate, So I Moved In With the Hockey Captain novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Cake
Maggie carries Cody's birthday cake up the stairs and finds him with her roommate, then takes her key back and meets a captain with a room to rent.
At nine o'clock on Cody's twenty-first birthday, I carried his cake up the stairs in front of forty people.
The candles were already lit.
I had to turn sideways to get past a guy holding a beer funnel.
Kayla's text was still open on my phone, pinned under my thumb against the plate.
He's upstairs waiting for you!! Go on, don't be scared.
She had curled my hair that afternoon and lent me her green dress.
She had told me I looked like a girl who was about to get what she wanted.
I had known Cody Hartigan since the fifth grade.
I knew how he took his coffee and which of his brothers he lied to.
Tonight I was going to tell him I loved him, and I had practiced it in the mirror until I could say it without crying.
At the bottom of the stairs a tall guy in a team jacket stood with his back to the wall.
He wasn't dancing or drinking.
He looked at his watch, then up at the open door at the end of the hall, and nothing on his face changed.
I climbed past him with hot wax running down my wrist.
Cody's door was open a hand's width.
"Cody?" I said, and started singing.
"Happy birthday to..."
I got as far as the second word.
Kayla's blonde curls were spread across his pillow.
Cody's bare back was turned to me, and her hand was on it.
Neither of them had heard me over the music downstairs.
Then Cody looked over his shoulder.
"Mags."
He said it the way he had said it every day since we were eleven.
Kayla sat up and pulled the sheet to her chin.
"Maggie, oh my God. Please don't. We were going to tell you."
"It just happened," Cody said. "I swear, I was going to tell you tonight."
I didn't say anything.
Behind me the stairs creaked, and somebody laughed.
I turned around.
Four guys from the party had followed me up, and the one in front had his phone raised.
"Dude," he whispered. "That's the roommate."
The little red dot was on.
I looked straight into the lens and did not look away.
His thumb wavered.
"Delete it."
The tall guy from the stairs had come up behind them.
He didn't raise his voice.
"Now. I'm watching you do it."
The one with the phone swore under his breath and held it out so the captain could see the screen.
Trash can, confirm, gone.
Then the tall guy looked at me for a moment, and stepped back to let me through.
I walked into the room.
Cody pushed himself up against the headboard. "Mags, don't do this. Let me explain."
"You can explain to Kayla," I said. "She's going to need it."
I set the cake on the foot of his bed, on the gray blanket I had given him two Christmases ago.
The candles were still burning.
"Happy birthday, Cody."
My key ring was in my bag. His house key hung on it, a brass one with a green plastic cap.
I worked it off and laid it on the frosting.
Kayla was crying already. "Maggie, we're still us. I'm still your friend."
I did not answer her either.
I walked out, down the hall, past four guys who suddenly found the ceiling interesting, and down the stairs.
The tall man in the jacket had gone.
I did not go home.
Home had Kayla's name on the lease next to mine and Kayla's mugs in the cabinet.
I slept in a chair in the library's night lounge, with my coat over my face and the green dress still on.
At seven I was standing in the student union in front of the housing board, reading cards with my arms folded.
Studio, nine hundred a month.
Room in a house, must be vegan, must not mind the snake.
Room near campus, first and last and a deposit, no pets, no parties, no exceptions.
I had four hundred and twelve dollars in checking.
"You look like you're pricing a kidney."
I turned.
The tall guy from the stairs stood there in a gray hoodie with two paper coffees.
He held one out.
I didn't take it. "Who are you?"
"Brody Kincaid. I'm the one who told the kid to delete your face."
He had a scar through his left eyebrow and gray, steady eyes.
I knew the name. Everyone in Northfield did. He was the captain of the hockey team.
"I'm Maggie," I said.
"I know. It was on the cake." He set one coffee on the shelf beside me. "I have a room."
I looked at him.
"It's two blocks from the rink. Nate and two other guys live there. The room's empty because our last guy graduated and left a mattress."
He gave it to me as a plain list.
"Rent is whatever you can actually pay. I don't want a deposit. Nothing on that board is cheaper, and half of it is a scam."
I studied his face and waited for the catch.
He drank his coffee.
I thought about the lease with Kayla's name on it. I thought about forty people on the stairs.
So I picked up the coffee.
"Show me the room."
On the walk over my phone buzzed in my coat.
Cody.
Mags, can we talk? Please.
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