My Hockey Roommate's Filthy Desires novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Opening Shift

Chandler turns up at Larkin's with flowers and his mother's dinner invitation; Roxanne says Maddox is only her roommate within Maddox's hearing, and Camilla sends a photo of Roxanne's things in boxes.

At 6:00 the door chimed and Maddox walked in.

He had walked me to Larkin's, then circled the block and come in again, so we would not arrive together.

It was his idea, and I had not asked for it.

He put a twenty on the counter, took his black coffee, and stood at the pickup window.

"Thanks," he said.

This time he looked at me when he said it.

I felt it all the way down my back.

I told myself it was because I was tired.

At 6:20 the door chimed again, and Chandler came in with a bunch of yellow tulips.

He was in the camel coat his mother had bought him, and he walked straight past the three people in line.

"Roxy." He put the flowers on the counter. "You scared me last night. Camilla said you didn't come home. I called you all night."

"I came home," I said. "To a different home."

"What does that mean?"

"It means the line starts behind that lady in the green scarf."

He laughed, because he thought I was joking.

"Come on, Roxy."

"Sir, there's a line," said the lady in the green scarf.

Chandler gave her his best smile and she did not smile back.

He stepped to the end of the queue and checked his watch.

When it was his turn, he leaned on the counter.

"Mom's dinner is Saturday at seven," he said. "She keeps asking where you are. Camilla feels awful about what happened."

"I'm sure."

"So where did you go? Whose place is it?"

"A room on Pell Street."

His face changed.

"Pell Street." He looked over his shoulder, and his eyes landed on the pickup window, where Maddox was standing with his cup, looking at his phone.

Chandler turned back around slowly.

"Roxy. Tell me you're not living with Hendry."

"I'm renting a room."

"From Maddox Hendry." His voice dropped. "Do you know what he is? Everyone on the team knows. They call him Filthy for a reason. He goes through a new girl every other week."

"Chandler."

"He'll be nice to you for a week and then you'll be a story in the locker room. I'm saying this because I care about you."

Camilla had said the same words to me twelve hours earlier.

I looked at him.

"You're asking me to be careful," I said. "About a man I've said maybe ten words to."

"He's an animal. Ask anyone."

"Chandler, I live in his apartment. He's my roommate. That's all he is."

I said it sharp and fast, and I only meant it for Chandler.

At the pickup window, a cup went down on the ledge very carefully.

Maddox did not turn his head.

He pulled his hood up, picked his phone off the ledge, and walked out the door, past the queue and the lady in the green scarf.

The twenty was still on the counter.

The chime sounded behind him.

I wanted to run after him and say it came out wrong.

But I had a line out the door and a man in front of me holding my best friend's idea of a bouquet.

"What can I get you?" I asked Chandler.

"Roxy, we're friends."

"A drink, a muffin, or the door."

He ordered an iced latte in October.

I rang it up and charged him the full six dollars and fifty cents.

He took the tulips with him when he left.

At nine, my shift ended and I turned on my phone.

There were four texts from Chandler, none worth reading.

There was one from Camilla.

It was a photograph of my old room.

My bed was stripped, my posters were off the wall, and my books and my winter boots were stacked in cardboard boxes by the door.

Under the picture she had written:

Just clearing the clutter, Roxy! Chandler says it's fine. Come get it before the weekend or it goes in the dumpster. xoxo

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

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