Page 20 of The Roommate Lie

He starts to walk up the pathway again, but I dig in my heels, my fingers hooked around the soft inner curve of his elbow. “Explain it to me real slow, Blythe—and don’t skip the good stuff.” Guys like him don’t own places like this by accident.

Charlie hesitates when he hears that nickname, and the corners of his mouth hitch upward a little more. But he doesn’t call me Carrots in return. He doesn’t say anything; he glances away.

Lydia eases around us, hiding a smile of her own. “Yeah, Charlie. Tell her how you teamed up with Mother Nature to wind up with our dream home.”

Our dream home?

She doesn’t say that possessively, but I can’t figure out what she means. My and Lydia’s dream home (because this place is almost any girl’s dream), or Lydia and Charlie’s dream home? Because they’re a couple. Who live together. In the most adorable one-room schoolhouse I’ve ever seen.

That possibility hadn’t occurred to me until now, them being a couple. I thought Charlie called her his roommate earlier, but maybe he said girlfriend.

I let go of his arm. I’m not even sure why I grabbed on to it in the first place. Historic buildings just have that effect on me, I guess.

Lydia heads inside without us, and he turns to face me, edging backward so we aren’t standing on the same uneven walkway stone. “I had some down payment money saved up, and it was for sale. The end. That’s kind of how buying a house works.”

Nope.

He’s messing with me on purpose, and I grab his shoulders to trap him in place. Dropping my hands quick when I remember those shoulders might belong to someone else. That I shouldn’t be touching a stranger at all.

“Unacceptable. Try again, Blythe.”

He still doesn’t return the nickname favor, but he chuckles, and that’s close enough. His gaze settles on mine defiantly, like he’s challenging me. There’s a faint rakish gleam in his eyes, the barest hint of Dangerous Charlie, and goose bumps trail down my arms.

“Charlie,” I say slowly, “I got my bachelor’s in preservation studies. I used to work at the Office of Historic Preservation in Dallas. Old buildings are my life, and I need details. Spill it.”

He gives in.

“The guy who owned this place inherited it from his grandmother—he never even moved in. It got pretty run down, but it’s always been one of my favorite old buildings. My sister and I used to sneak into the yard to catch minnows in the stream out back.”

There’s a stream in the backyard?

Once Charlie says that, I can hear it. The faint melody of water as it tumbles past, pulled by a slow and gentle current. It’s basically the most relaxing sound on earth, right up there with ocean waves.

“After a while, the guy stopped making payments, and the bank in town foreclosed. They put it up for auction, and I had some money saved up.”

He pauses to glance at the night sky above us, as if he and Mother Nature really had teamed up. “A lot of people wanted it, mostly out-of-towners. But then we had a big spring blizzard last year, right before the big day. It was the most snowfall we’d gotten in over a century—but they didn’t cancel the auction. So I borrowed Carl’s cross-country skis, and I was the only buyer who showed up.” He gestures to the beautiful old building behind him. “And that’s how I scored everybody’s dream home.”

He turns to go in, his voice drifting back toward me as he reaches the front door. “Don’t get too excited, though. It isn’t anybody’s dream home inside. It was practically condemned when I bought it.”

I’m not deterred. If anything, I move faster, hurrying to catch up so I can see what condition this place is in. Part of me—theI studied this in schoolpart—is a little too excited at the mess that unfolds before my eyes, all the tarps and tools and half-finished projects that pepper the main room of his house.

The dark wood wainscoting and the time-bleached shiplap are in various stages of repair, and he’s even kept all the old metal fixtures, including the potbellied stove from its schoolhouse days. The ancient chalkboard is still there too, hanging on the far wall, and I can almost feel what it would’ve been like to walk in here a hundred years ago. Wherever I look, this place still has its old-building charm.

Once we pass the mudroom, there’s a staircase to my left and a long wooden dining table in front of me, the rest of thewide-open living room waiting on the other side. But the real highlight is to my right.

The kitchen.

I’m not even a kitchen person—I barely cook—but that room has been renovated to perfection, the only finished space as far as the eye can see.

The entrance is right off the dining area, and it’s a cozy nook of a room with butcher block counters and a weathered farmhouse sink. The backsplash looks like it’s made out of an old chalkboard, and above it, thin shiplap planks stretch horizontally to the ceiling, painted in the lightest, smokiest blue I’ve ever seen. Like morning mist on mountain peaks.

On the far wall, across from the entrance, there’s a large window that looks out over the yard. Through it, I can see the moon in the distance. It hangs low and bright in the sky, framed by trees.

I let out a blissful sigh, then my cheeks redden. I glance at Charlie, embarrassed, but he isn’t paying attention. His brother dropped off my luggage while we were gone, and Charlie is halfway up the stairs with my suitcase and duffle bag, my backpack slung over one shoulder. A giddy brown dachshund trails after him, tail wagging.

I wait for him to join us again, but only the dachshund comes back, carrying a small stuffed bee. Lydia scoops the dog into her arms, calling him “her darling Cookie,” and I’d swear that dog is smiling when he tips his head to nuzzle under her chin.

After she sets Cookie down, Lydia heats up a small plate of leftovers for herself, and she makes some for me. By the time we finish eating and go upstairs, I’m exhausted again. A slim hallway and three doors wait at the top of the stairs; Lydia leads me to the right. “There’s only one guest room. Do you mind sharing?”

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