Well. Except.
“Okay, so this wasn’t technically from the plane,” I began, “but you’re going to let me count it on the grounds that I generously lent you my car while I was gone.”
“That’s fair,” Andie agreed. “Hit us.”
“Picture, if you will, a hulky, shaggy-haired werewolf still enamored of his goth-punk phase, who sleepwalked into an airport and has no idea how he got there and has even less idea how to leave.”
Rick and Andie dissolved into identical wheezy giggles, which was new. “Okay, but did he howl at the fluorescent lights?” Andie managed, asking the real question.
“I need you to understand that he did absolutely nothing. There I was, having a delightful text chat with Darren that I willnotbe sharing with you, and he’s just hunched up next to me and fully ignores me when I say hi. I think he may have grunted, but that’s it.”
“Yep,” Rick said, “that’s a werewolf.”
Andie perched her elbows on the table and grinned. “But, like, a hot werewolf?”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “So ... a werewolf?”
“Oh my god, Lucas, stop encouraging her,” Rick complained. We all laughed, and it was like our old vibe, before the two of them became a closed unit.
We ended our brunch after Rick and Andie had told me all about their week in a series of anecdotes that they tried to keep from seeming romantic.
The three of us chatted all the way back to our—their—apartment, where we staged a car-hostage exchange situation. “Thanks for hanging onto my stuff for me,” I said as we added a few more moving boxes to my already packed little car. “I would’ve left the fish with you guys too, but I’d prefer them to live.”
Andie gasped in mock offense. “That wasone time!”
Rick touched her shoulder. “It was multiple times. Lucas, you were right to leave them with Darren. He’s many things, but I trust that he’s not a fish-killer.”
There was an awkward breath between them at the mention of my boyfriend. However, I wasn’t particularly in the mood to hear another round of them not-so-subtly voicing their dislike of Darren McKinley, a dislike that had been going strong since we were all in high school together nearly ten years ago.
“I think I’m going to check out the new place,” I said brightly, because they were not going to bring their conspiracy theories into my perfectly nice day. “I’ll swing by for the rest of my things tomorrow, if that’s okay.”
Rick and Andie agreed, and after a three-way hug and me thanking them for the pick-up, I slid back into my car, adjusted the seat, and left them waving from their front porch.
My new apartment, the one I’d had to sign a monthly lease for at the very last minute after Rick and Andie had decided that they just couldn’t embark on a romantic relationship with another person living with them, was all the way across town. I had, in passing, brought up the possibility to Darren of us moving in together, but he had reasoned that it felt too early in our relationship for that.
Which made sense. A decade of friendship and an on-again-off-again situation notwithstanding, four months of a solid relationship might seem a bit soon to move in.
Rick and Andie would never need to know that I had no intention of heading to my new alone-person apartment until absolutely necessary. Darren should be out of his meeting at this point, and I was itching to see him.
I pulled up to the McKinley estate and shot Darren a text, lamenting yet again that I didn’t have a spare key. It had been on his to-do list for a couple of weeks, but the case he was working on kept him busy more hours than was remotely preferable.
My phone buzzed a minute later.
Darren:so sorry, held up with work
Darren:I want to see you but if I don’t finish this, they’ll kill me :(
Disappointment lodged in my throat the longer I stared at the message. Deeply suspicious that somehow, cosmically, Rick and Andie had something to do with this particular planet misalignment, I now had no course of action except to drive to the Briars apartment complex and try my best to settle in.
After a quick stop at the housing office to pick up my keys and sign the remaining paperwork, I made my way to apartment 203.
It was ... well, the only word I could find to describe it wasquaint. Less LA and more cottage-core chic than I’d been expecting. Nothing that some nice accoutrements wouldn’t fix though. Luckily it was fully furnished with a lovely island in the center of the modest kitchen.
My roommate (“Armand Demetrio,” according to the lease) must’ve moved in already—there was a faint but lingering stench of cigarette smoke, and a light trail of dust and dirt that ran directly from the front door to the first bedroom on the right.
A roommate who isn’t my best friends or my boyfriend. This is fine—better than fine. It’s ideal, even.
I dragged my suitcase to the other bedroom, reminding myself with every step that this was only temporary. On my way back into the living room with a handful of personal effects, my eyes returned to the trail of dirt in the hallway.
