My Hockey Roommate's Filthy Desires novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Wall
After a twelve-hour shift Roxanne bangs on her suitemate's door over the noise through the wall; Camilla sweetly outs her crush in front of Chandler, who says nothing, and Roxanne finds a room to rent that same night.
The headboard in my suitemate Camilla's room started knocking against our shared wall at eleven forty.
I had been home for ten minutes.
I had worked twelve hours, opening the coffee shop and then closing the library desk, and my feet ached up to my knees.
Camilla had left a plate of pasta in the fridge for me, with a sticky note that said, Eat, you look dead!
I was eating it cold, on my bed, when the first moan came through the wall.
It was Camilla's voice.
The second one was Chandler's.
Chandler was my best friend.
When I was fifteen he sat beside me on the church steps for three hours after my family's funeral and never once asked me to talk.
I had turned down a full ride at my dream school so I could follow him here.
I had never told him that was why.
The knocking got faster.
Camilla let out a long, loud cry that was meant for the whole hallway, and I put my fork down.
I had to be at work at 5:15.
I picked up my pillow, pressed it over my head, and counted to sixty.
At sixty-one I got up, crossed the suite in my socks, and hit Camilla's door with the side of my fist.
"Some of us have to open a shop in the morning!" I yelled. "Keep it down!"
Everything on the other side went still.
I went back to my room and sat on the edge of the bed, shaking.
Two minutes later someone knocked on my door, light and friendly.
I opened it, thinking it would be Chandler, ready to say sorry in his easy way.
It was Camilla, in one of his gray Wolves shirts, her dark hair pushed up on one side.
"Roxy, I'm so sorry," she said, and she put a warm hand on my arm. "We got carried away. You must be exhausted."
"It's fine," I said. "I just need sleep."
"Of course you do."
She walked past me and sat in my desk chair, the way she did on weekends.
"Can I be honest with you?" she asked. "I'm only saying it because I care about you."
I should have shut the door right then.
"Is it the noise that's keeping you up?" she asked softly. "Or is it that it's him?"
My face went hot.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Roxy. Honey." She tilted her head. "You've been in love with him for years."
"I see how you look at him," she went on. "Every time he kisses me, I can feel you on the other side of that wall."
Behind her, in the open doorway, Chandler was standing in the hall with his jeans on and his shirt hanging open.
He had heard it.
I knew he had, because he looked straight at me, and then he looked at his own bare feet.
I waited for him to say something.
I wanted one sentence, anything at all, like "That's a shitty thing to say, Camilla."
He rubbed the back of his neck and stayed where he was.
"Get out," I said.
"Roxy, I only wanted to clear the air," Camilla said.
"Get out of my room. Both of you."
She stood up, patted my shoulder twice, and walked out.
Chandler opened his mouth.
Then he shut it and followed her.
I locked the door, turned off the light, and lay there with my hand over my mouth until my breathing evened out.
At 5:15 I was behind the counter at Larkin's, and at 6:00 sharp the door chimed.
My regular came in, the tall one in the black Wolves jacket who ordered a large black coffee and said nothing else.
He put a twenty on the counter for a four-dollar cup, as he did every morning.
Then he took his usual spot by the pickup window, where he could see me work.
"Thanks," he said.
It was the only word he ever said to me.
I was too tired to wonder about it that day, and I was back at the suite by two to change for the library.
Chandler was in the kitchen, pouring juice, in a fresh T-shirt, with the face of a man who had slept fine.
"Hey, Roxy."
He said it as if last night had not happened.
"My mom called," he said. "She wants to have Camilla over for dinner Saturday, to meet her properly."
The pasta in my stomach turned over.
Chandler had never brought a girl home to meet his mother.
Not once in five years.
I was the only girl who had ever sat at that table.
I had let myself believe it would stay that way until it was my turn.
"Great," I said.
"I want you to come." He smiled, pleased with himself. "It'll be less weird with you there. You can study in my dad's library while we eat."
He meant it.
He honestly wanted me to sit down the hall from his family's dinner table with a book, and wait.
"I can't," I said. "I'm busy."
"With what? You come home with me every weekend."
"Not this one."
"Roxy, come on. Don't be dramatic."
I picked up my bag and walked out.
In my room I opened my laptop and typed in the Westbridge housing board, with my banking app open next to it.
My balance was not much.
It was enough for a deposit on one cheap room.
I scrolled until one listing stopped me.
Room in a two-bedroom above the laundromat on Pell Street. Four hundred a month. Furnished. I travel a lot, so you'll mostly have the place to yourself.
I sent a message before I could change my mind.
The reply took less than a minute.
It was signed C. Hendry.
Can you come tonight?
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