“That’s my room,” I say.
She redirects as only Ms. Know-it-all can, heading instead to the closed bedroom door on the other side of the spacious sitting area with a kitchenette along the wall nearest me.
“That’s mine too,” I say.
“You’re usingbothbedrooms.” Not a question. A statement like she’s pointing out that I’m ridiculous.
I’m an easygoing guy. Love having fun. Love helping the people around me have fun. I can handle a lot.
Icausea lot.
Almost always a harmless lot these days, but a lot.
But sharing a room with Princess Plainy-Laney so that she canbabysit me?
No.
One of us has to go.
Any other day, any other place, with anything else hiding in that second bedroom, I’d volunteer to be the one to go.
But that’s not an option.
“Yes,” I say like she’s the one being dumb, even though I know she isn’t, “I’m using both rooms.”
Her face twitches just like you’d expect. “Emma’s working with management to find me my own bungalow or an open room in the overflow hotel, but really, this won’t be so bad until she does. Iknowyou’re not using both bedrooms.”
She’s annoying as hell when sheknowsthings.
And why didn’t Emma tell me herself? “You can have the pullout bed. The bedrooms are mine.”
“Theo. Youcannot sleep in two beds at once.”
“Maybe I just don’t want you here.”
It’s been a long while since we spent any significant time together. Most of our adult lives, in fact, and I have zero doubt she’s expecting high school turd-waffle Theo instead of grown-up has-his-shit-together Theo.
Her expectations are making me fall back into old habits that I got over a long time ago and don’t like.
“I’m an easy roommate,” she says flatly with a giant fake smile plastered on her face. She’s probably unhappy with this arrangement too. “Promise. Very quiet. You won’t even know I’m here.”
In all of my school years, she was the only classmate I was never able to win over. Finally swore to myself I’d quit trying, no matter how much it killed me on the inside to know how very, very much I wanted to win her over. So Emma askinghertobabysitme?
This is insult to fucking injury. “You haven’t stopped talking since you walked in the door.”
“Just getting out all of the words so that I can be quiet later. Unless you want me to talk more?”
“No.”Shit. I don’t know if I’m supposed to reverse psychology her or be honest.
“Works for me. I don’t know that I want to talk to you a whole lot more either.”
“Not mincing words, are you, Princess Plainy?”
She shrugs like she’s deflecting the nickname out the balcony doors and off into the darkness over the Pacific as she heads once more for the closed door. “Not much of a point when we both know we’ll never be close friends. At least we know where we stand with each other, right? This is for Emma. I would doanythingfor Emma.”
I wiggle my brows at her. Can’t help myself. Easiest path to annoying her. “What if Emma wanted you to strip down with me too?”
She crosses her arms and stares me dead in the eye. “Anythingshe asks me to.”
