The Roommate Agreement Read online

  Table of Contents

  The Roommate Agreement

  CHAPTER ONE – SHELBY

  CHAPTER TWO – SHELBY

  CHAPTER THREE – SHELBY

  CHAPTER FOUR – JAY

  CHAPTER FIVE – SHELBY

  CHAPTER SIX – SHELBY

  CHAPTER SEVEN – SHELBY

  CHAPTER EIGHT– JAY

  CHAPTER NINE – SHELBY

  CHAPTER TEN – JAY

  CHAPTER ELEVEN – SHELBY

  CHAPTER TWELVE – SHELBY

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN – JAY

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN – SHELBY

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN – SHELBY

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN – JAY

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – SHELBY

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – SHELBY

  CHAPTER NINETEEN – JAY

  CHAPTER TWENTY – SHELBY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE – SHELBY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO – JAY

  EPILOGUE – SHELBY

  THE ACCIDENTAL GIRLFRIEND

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BOOKS BY EMMA HART

  Copyright © by Emma Hart 2019

  First Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Cover Design by Emma Hart

  Editing by Ellie at Your Brother’s Editor

  Formatting by Alyssa Garcia at Uplifting Author Services

  CHAPTER ONE – SHELBY

  You Must Wear Pants

  “You! Shove this filthy, cheesy piece of crap up your ass!”

  Jay turned his head, staring at me with wide green eyes, his hands firmly around the controller of his Playstation. “What?”

  I threw the dirty sock at his head. “I’ve had enough! Three months, Jay! Three months! You told me you’d have another place by now, but I still just had to pick your dirty damn sock up out of the bath before I could shower!”

  My best friend’s eyes darted up and down my body. “Is that why you look like a clan full of cats just dragged you out of a forest?”

  “It’s a clowder.”

  “What?”

  “A group of cats is a clowder.” I paused, then shook my head. “Not the point. I’m sick and tired of picking up after you. You’re twenty-six! Why can’t you work a washing machine?”

  He paused his game then tilted his head to the side, flashing me his signature charming grin that did absolutely nothing but piss me off. “Because you know how to, Shelbs.”

  I grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and threw it at his head. “I am not your mother! I am your best friend and apparently, your keeper, you overgrown manchild!”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” He grabbed the jacket before I hit him in the face with it. “No need to make more mess. It’s bad enough as it is.”

  Annoyance flared within me. I stormed over to the living room and stood with my feet apart and braced my hands on my hips. Slowly and deliberately, I cast my gaze over the living room.

  Over the empty bottle of Mountain Dew on the floor by his feet, the crushed Red Bull can on the side table with the lamp, the pizza box on the coffee table surrounded by empty food packets…

  “And who does the mess belong to, Jay?” I asked in a deathly calm voice that my mother would have been proud of.

  He froze, the grin falling from his face. “You sounded like your mom.”

  I continued to glare at him. “I am not picking up after you anymore. I’m tired of finding your clothes in the washer when I need to wash mine. I’m sick of picking up after your rubbish because your lazy ass can’t find the trash can, and—hey! Are those my Oreos?”

  “No!”

  The tell-tale blue packet peeked out from between two packets of Doritos. I reached forward and snatched it before Jay had a chance.

  It was my Oreos.

  And the packet was empty.

  “You ate my Oreos!” My voice was shriller than it should have been, but this day was going from bad to worse. I was behind on my deadline, there were dirty socks in my shower, and my shit roommate and future ex-best-friend had eaten my only pleasure in this life.

  Jay had the good grace to grimace. “Sorry?”

  “Sorry? Sorry? One thing in that kitchen is off limits to you, and that’s my Oreos!” I waved the packet to punctuate my point. “They are the one pleasure I have in life!”

  He winced. “They’re just cookies, Shelb. I’ll stop at the store and get you some more when I come home from work later.”

  I crunched the packet up in my fist and folded my arms. “And you’re going to tidy your mess up before you go.”

  He checked his phone. “I don’t really have time.”

  “You have time to play video games.”

  “Yeah, but I get to kill people in video games.” He paused. “I can’t kill anyone tidying up.”

  “You can kill the mess.”

  “Not the same.”

  “Okay, then I can kill you for coming into my apartment and wrecking it.” I tossed the Oreo wrapper in the trash and went to the fridge for a bottle of water.

  There weren’t any.

  Leaning back, I peered across the apartment at Jay. “Where’s all the water?”

  He hit a button on the controller and put it down in a scarce space on the coffee table. “The guys came over after you went out with Brie last night.”

  “Jay…” I groaned, slamming the fridge door shut.

  He knew how I felt about that. In fact, I’d told him once a week, every Monday, ever since he’d moved in.

  Jay worked for his dad. Wesley “Wes” Cooper owned a successful chain of gyms in Texas and had put his son in charge of one of them. Jay’s friends consisted of sports-obsessed, beer-loving, wing-eating, gym-rat couch coaches.

  And, lucky me, they converged on my apartment every weekend. Or they had ever since he’d moved in temporarily.

  Since Sunday happened to be my designated day off to work on my own novel instead of ghostwriting or freelance news articles, it wasn’t all that convenient.

  Men watching sports were loud. Toddlers in a playground kind of loud. Not to mention that every single one of Jay’s friends thought they were more qualified to manage the Dallas Cowboys than the actual coach.

  Although they probably weren’t far wrong at this point in the season. Especially in my dad’s opinion—and that was something he gave whether or not you wanted it.

  I digress.

  I was more than a little fed up of having my quiet apartment ripped apart by men. All I wanted to do was write my book, wander around in yoga pants and tank tops with swearwords, and eat my body weight in chips and queso whenever the urge came over me.

  It was hard to do that with judgey-ass gym-rats all over your living room.

  Not that I cared. If there was anything better than chips and queso on the sofa, it was chips and queso in bed without pants on.

  Now there was a quote for a t-shirt.

  Still, I was tired of it. I wanted my apartment back. I wanted to not find socks in the bathtub and empty bottles under the sofa. I wasn’t a freaking mom yet. I didn’t need another person leaving shit everywhere, thank you very much.

  Jay stood up and held up his hands. “All right, I’ll pick it all up.”

  I folded my arms across my chest and eyed him. “Then you can vacuum the crumbs up from the carpet.”

  He paused.

  He didn’t know where I kept the vacuum cleaner. I bet he didn’t even know where
I kept the damn dishcloth.

  I leveled my gaze on him. He knew that I knew he didn’t know, but I also knew that he didn’t want to admit it.

  Jay was, if nothing else, a bit of an alpha male. If he were a character in a book, he’d be a werewolf alpha without a doubt.

  He stood at over six-foot-tall, and his muscles were the perfect mix of toned and bulky at the same time. He wasn’t going to be entering a bodybuilding competition any time soon, but he was the guy that made girls look once, twice, at least three times on the beach or, hell, on the street.

  His hair was unfairly dark and thick, cut close to the sides of his head. The top was longer and swept over to the side. Coupled with a square jaw that was dotted with yesterday’s stubble and startlingly green eyes, he was impossibly handsome.

  But none of those looks would work on me.

  I met him when he was missing his two front teeth and he’d punched a boy in fourth grade for being mean to me.

  We’d been in first grade.

  He’d taken a suspension, and I’d found myself a new best friend.

  Nobody had ever bullied me since that day.

  “You can look at me like that all you like, Jay Cooper. I’m not going to tell you where I keep the vacuum cleaner. Just like I’m not going to tell you where I keep the pods for the washer.”

  He groaned, grabbing an empty plastic bag from the cupboard to pick up his trash. “Come on, Shelbs, help me out here.”

  “No. If you want to keep living here, things have to change. You have to start picking up your fair share of the chores and you have to be more respectful of me.” I gripped the edge of the island and leaned forward. “I’m tired of it. I’m tired of having my Sundays interrupted by your couch coaching. I’m sick of doing your laundry like I’m your mom and I’m sure as shit fed up of you eating all my damn Oreos.”

  “Always with the Oreos,” he muttered, shaking the bag out with a noise that went right through me. “All right, all right. I get it. I’ll pick up my shit now and make it up to you, okay?”

  I grunted an unintelligible noise and pushed off from the counter. Storming into my bedroom—the only room in the apartment untouched by Jay—I slammed the door behind me for dramatic effect.

  I did enjoy a good dose of drama—as long as I was the one dishing it out.

  I had no time for it from someone else. Unless it was on Facebook and I could go down the rabbit hole of comments. Then I had time for it.

  The fact was, my drama was warranted.

  Three months ago, Jay had turned up on my doorstep the day before his apartment building was sold and begged to stay with me. His loose-tongued, Fireball-loving grandma had just moved into his old room at his parents’ place, and he had nowhere to go.

  I had a spare room and as a writer staring into the black hole that was my bank account, needed a roommate.

  It had seemed perfect. He promised he’d be out by three months. That he was actively looking for a new place and he swore it wouldn’t be too long.

  I’d believed him. We’d been best friends for over a decade when we’d started high school, and he’d been the hot football star who needed tutoring.

  And no, it didn’t go the way most romance books did.

  Instead of the book-loving girl making the hottest guy fall in love with her, we became best friends.

  Now, that asshole was in my spare room, still not on the tenancy officially, and was eating all my goddamn Oreos.

  Things had to change.

  I had to face the facts: Jay wasn’t going to move out anytime soon.

  That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I mean, I still needed help with the rent, so I’d just end up having to find a new roommate anyway. Keeping the pain in the ass one I already had seemed like less of a risk than trying to find someone else.

  Besides, I had Jay’s mom’s phone number if he annoyed me too much, and I wasn’t afraid to use it. Not to mention that the woman loved me; she often referred to me as the daughter she never had.

  I wasn’t sure if that was because she wanted me to actually be her daughter or if she liked having somebody else be ‘bad cop’ when she didn’t like his girlfriends.

  As the best friend, that was my job. Right? Weed out the weak and all that.

  It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact I had a minor crush on him. Nope. Not at all.

  Okay, maybe it did. But in my defense, the crush was relatively new. There’s only so many times you can see your best friend wandering around in a towel, still wet from the shower before it starts to do things to you.

  Namely, turn your clitoris into a little heathen.

  Because let me tell you this: I do not need to get turned on while flipping pancakes in the morning. Or making a ham sandwich. Or cooking dinner. Or sweeping the floors because the man has the schedule of a two-year-old who’s been left in charge of the day’s activities.

  Not like me. No. I like my schedule. I wake up at the same time, eat at the same time, work at the same time and, for the most part, sleep at the same time.

  A bit like a cat.

  No matter how anal Jay tells me I am, it doesn’t change this: I work from home. If I don’t have a schedule and set work hours, I’ll spend all day lounging in front of the TV wearing last week’s sweatpants and no bra while eating my weight in Cheetos.

  Then I’d need three roomies to pay the rent, and I was just about coping with one.

  I picked my phone up from where I’d left it on my bed and checked it. I had a ton of Instagram notifications, so I sat down and scrolled, clearing all of those before I checked my email.

  I had an email from earlier this morning asking about my ghostwriting rates, so I tapped out a quick response with a note that I hoped to hear from them soon.

  Two knocks rattled my door right as I clicked off the email app. “What?”

  “Can I come in?” Jay’s voice crept through the crack.

  “Sure.”

  The door creaked open, and he poked his head through the gap. “I cleaned up. I couldn’t find the vacuum, but I did find the broom and swept, so that’s halfway there.”

  It wasn’t, but I’d already gotten on his back enough today. “Thanks. I can vacuum soon. I have some work to do while you’re out and it’s quiet.”

  He nodded, pulling his lips up to one side. “I’ll buy you two packets of Oreos on the way back from work. How’s that for an apology?”

  “It’s a start,” I replied, trying to glare at him, but my smile was too intense to fight. “Thank you.”

  “I’d say you’re welcome, but I owe you.” He shrugged. “I’m going to work. Do you need me to grab anything else while I’m at the store?”

  “Do you know where the dishwasher tablets are?”

  He stared at me like I was speaking Japanese.

  I sighed. “Just water, then. Go to work, loser.”

  He grinned and did just that.

  CHAPTER TWO – SHELBY

  Get The Fuck Off My Oreos

  Brie looked at me across the table, a fry dangling between her finger and thumb. “Really? Again?”

  I nodded. “All my Oreos.”

  “Of course you’d focus on the Oreos and not the mess.”

  “Actually, focusing on my Oreos is the only thing making me not freak the fuck out about the mess.” I paused, reaching for my cocktail. “I don’t know if I can do it anymore, Brie. I don’t want to kick him out, but I want my space back. I think he forgets who the apartment technically belongs to.”

  She dipped the fry into ketchup and shoved it into her mouth. “It’s like having an overgrown child living with you, right?”

  I nodded again, sucking on my straw.

  “When Sean moved in, I wanted to claw out my eyeballs with a fork. He’d lived alone for so long that he had zero semblance of anyone else’s space,” she said, referring to her long-term boyfriend who’d moved into her apartment. “It’s been six months, and honestly, he’s only just getting it. I spent far too l
ong hoping he’d just realize it before I broke down and set rules. I don’t think he pays attention half the time.”

  “I shouldn’t have to set rules. He’s twenty-six. I’ve been complaining about it for almost the entire time he’s lived there.”

  “Yes, but Jay’s too used to living his bachelor lifestyle.” She picked up her own drink and curved her black eyebrows upward. “And you’re too used to living the introvert life.”

  “The introvert life is the only one worth living. No phone calls, no random drop-in visitors, I don’t have to wear pants…” I trailed off because that wasn’t entirely true.

  Now, I had to wear pants.

  It just wasn’t the same when I was making pancakes. Pants were restrictive.

  “Yes, yes, I know. I stopped dropping by unannounced when you answered the door in a thong and a thin tank top.”

  I shrugged. “I looked through the peephole. I knew it was you.”

  “It was fucking tactical, and you know it.”

  “Of course it was. I don’t like surprise guests.” I grinned. “Which is why it’s so distressing when Robin Hood and his band of merry men descend on my living room to watch football. There isn’t nearly enough space for all their muscles, never mind enough doors to block out their couch-coaching.”

  I was being a whiny bitch. I knew it. I also didn’t give a shit.

  “Tell me about it. Sean was there last night when we went to the wine bar. I found out when I got home to him being stupid drunk and yelling abuse at an invisible Jason Garrett.”

  I finished my drink. “Sounds about right. Jay admitted this morning that he’d had the guys around without telling me. I only knew because they’d drunk all my water.”

  Brie groaned, running her hand through her black hair. “They’re such children. They have no respect.”

  “And that’s the problem.” I waved three fries at her. “He thinks he’s being respectful, but he’s not. I lost my shit at him this morning so I think he’s starting to realize I can’t keep living like this, but I don’t know what to do.”

  Brie waved down our server and motioned for two more drinks. “You could call his mom. She’d have his grandma come around and beat his ass.”