He Slept With My Roommate, So I Moved In With the Hockey Captain novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Spare Room

Maggie moves into the hockey house and Kayla posts a couple photo that makes Brody go still.

I turned Cody's text face down in my pocket and did not answer it.

The house was a tan two-story with a sagging porch and a hockey stick nailed over the door.

Nate Rudnick opened it holding a spatula.

He was a stocky redhead with a broken nose and a sleeveless team shirt, and he looked me over in one quick pass.

"You're her," he said. "Brody said you might come. Do you eat eggs?"

"I eat eggs."

"Great. Everyone here eats eggs. It's the only thing we can make."

Brody carried my one bag up the stairs without being asked.

The spare room was at the end of the hall.

It had a bare mattress, a desk with one short leg, and a window that looked at the neighbor's garage.

It was the nicest thing I had seen in two days.

"Bathroom's across the hall," Brody said. "It has a lock. It sticks, so shove the door with your hip."

"Okay."

"The other two guys are on a road trip until Tuesday."

He leaned in the doorway and counted on his fingers, which he plainly didn't enjoy doing.

"Don't touch Nate's pads. Don't eat anything with a name on it. Don't answer the door at night unless you can see who it is."

"That's the whole list?"

"Mostly."

He looked at the floor, then at me.

"If you want to leave, you leave. I don't need a reason, and you don't owe me one."

I thought about that after he went downstairs.

Nate drove me to the apartment at noon in a truck that smelled like old gloves.

Kayla had class until three. I knew her schedule the way I knew my own phone number.

Her key still worked.

Our kitchen looked exactly the way it had yesterday morning.

Her yellow mug sat in the drying rack, and my blue one sat next to it.

On the counter was a bakery box with a sticky note on top.

Please don't go. I'm so sorry. Let's talk when you're ready. I love you. xx K

Inside the box were two of my favorite croissants, the almond ones from the place on Fourth.

I stood there with the lid in my hand.

Nate looked at the note, then at me.

"Does she always do that?"

"It's how she does it," I said. "She makes you feel like the mean one."

I put the box in the trash.

Then I took it out again and ate one croissant standing at the sink, because it was a good croissant, and I was hungry, and I would not let her ruin food for me too.

We packed in forty minutes.

I took my clothes, my laptop, my scrubs, the toaster I had bought, and the framed photo of me and my grandmother.

I left her mugs and the lease and my half of the deposit.

At the bottom of the stairs, Nate said, "You're doing great, by the way."

"I'm stealing a toaster."

"It's yours. It's called getting your stuff."

When we got back, the sun was low and orange on the porch, and someone was sitting on the steps.

Cody.

He had on his gray Northfield hoodie.

He stood up too fast and nearly dropped his phone.

"Mags. Please. Just five minutes."

Nate stopped on the walk beside me and did not move.

"You don't have to," he said, low.

"I know."

I carried my box up the steps and stopped one stair below Cody's feet.

His eyes were red.

I wanted so badly to put my hand on his arm, and it was the stupidest thing I had ever wanted.

"I didn't plan it," he said. "You went to your cousin's wedding, and she came over for a movie. It was one night, and then it was two."

"And then it was your birthday."

He rubbed his face and said nothing.

"I love you, Mags. You're my best friend."

"You don't get to say that on this step."

I said it softly, and he heard it.

He stepped back.

I went inside.

Brody was in the kitchen with his back to the counter, and he had clearly heard every word through the screen door.

He didn't say a thing.

He just slid a glass of water across the table.

I drank it, and my hands finally stopped.

I put the toaster on the counter and plugged it in.

Nate gave a little salute.

Then my phone buzzed on the table.

Not Cody.

A notification from an app I had half forgotten I had.

Kayla had posted a photo.

She and Cody, forehead to forehead, in the kitchen of the house on Maple.

Under it she'd written: Sometimes the person you needed was right next door. Choosing happy.

Choosing happy.

Forty people had been on those stairs, and she'd already put out her version.

I turned the screen to show them.

Nate said a word I'm not going to write down.

Brody looked at the phone.

He didn't look at Cody's face in the picture, and he didn't look at mine.

His eyes went to Kayla's smile and stayed there, and a muscle in his jaw went tight.

"You okay?" Nate asked him.

"Fine," Brody said.

He wasn't.

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