CHAPTERONE
Lorelei
I’d never actively thought about committing a crime, but Mrs. Henrietta Whittaker had me contemplating it.
“What do you mean you’resellingthe complex?”
“Ms. Romano, the letter you received explained it clearly. As did the email and posters I’ve hung all over the building.” She pushed her gray hair behind her ears and huffed. “Stop making a fuss. It’s not my fault you failed to realize the severity.”
“The building is oncampus.”
She blinked. “I know where it’s located, thank you for stating the obvious.”
“You’re giving us a month’s notice to find another place? In September? When most of campus’s housing is booked?”
She eyed me up and down, her gaze narrowing on my duffel bag with the Central State Soccer logo. After pushing away from her computer chair, she used one finger to adjust her glasses. “There is nothing more to add to this conversation. It’s being sold. You have thirty days. Now excuse me, I need to do anything but repeat the same conversation with you.”
Mrs. Whittaker turned her back on me, dismissing me in the rudest way possible. I clenched my fists, my left eye twitching as images rushed through my mind.Me stealing her car. Me spray painting on her computer. Me shaving off her eyebrow.
It’d feel good as hell to see her pointy face all red and pouty, then she’d understand how much she ruined my day. Hell,year.My vision board contained images of this exact building, with the ivy and exposed brick and a coffee shop on the first floor. I’d be far away from Eric—the ex who broke my heart. My goal was to hang with Mackenzie and focus on earning the internship in marketing. I’d have to beat out everyone else in my marketing class, Eric included, and this place had the perfect café on the bottom floor where I planned to work.
Only… not so much anymore.
So not only did I have to worry about my soccer season, keep up with my grades, impress my professor to get the internship, and try not to show Eric how much he hurt me because the ass signed up for my same class, but I also had to find a place to live in thirty days.
A scream built inside me, and I did the only thing I knew to deal with stress: run.
After dropping my duffel in my room, I put in my earbuds and set off for a jog. My feet hit the pavement in dull thuds, the sneaker to cement sound a consistent rhythm that matched my music. I jogged along the quad, near Greek Row and most the houses the athletes lived at, and that was when it hit me. The solution of all solutions. My saving grace. My holy grail.
See? This was why I ran. It solved shit. It kept me in shape and let my mind settle down to think, and wham, bam, thank you ma’am, I wasn’t gonna be sleeping in the library…probably.
There were perks to having your twin brother attend the same schoolandbe the starting quarterback, like not getting a parking ticket because they never knew what Romano they were dealing with. The name had weight, and even though I liked to think I held my own as a scholarship recipient for soccer, I knew it was my brother’s reputation. Dean Romano was the face of the football team, and he wasn’t completely hideous.
There were definite cons of having him here, like my so-called friends using me to get closer to him, to being recognized if we went anywhere as a family, to his face being all over campus. But right now, there was a huge-ass perk sitting in front of me.
My brother is down a roommate.
It felt wrong to be happy one of his teammates had injured his leg and moved back home for the semester, but that left an empty room that I wanted to claim. I adjusted my route to head toward the football house, hope blooming in my chest like my favorite appetizer—the blooming onion.
Sweat covered my neck and chest as the September humidity clung to the air, and my dark curly hair went in every direction. I hummed to myself as I stood in front of an old-bricked building. A large porch with a couch led to a blue front door with a football painting on it. I rolled my eyes. Could my brother live in a more obvious house?
I paused my dance mix playlist and sent him a text.You up? I’m outside.
It was ten on a Monday, and the guy lived and breathed football, so if he wasn’t home, he’d be at the gym or at the field watching tape. Ineededhim to be home though. The thought of not having a place to stay made my skin crawl and my stomach heave.
It derailed my plans, and I stuck to my plans. They were my commandments, and Eric had thrown the first wrench in them. Now the apartment? I was one distraction away from losing it.
Dean: what do you want?
Lorelei: fame and fortune
Dean: go away
Lorelei: this is serious
Dean: five minutes
I raised my fist in a cheer just as the front door swung open.
