Page 29 of Rosie and the Beast Next Door

Okay, I totally wanted to listen, but I knew I shouldn’t.

I’d already created the perfect shade of pale pink paint for Catocles’ fin, and I needed to finish it. There was nothing I could do.

I was just a victim of circumstance and thin walls.

“Maybe you need to find me a new team.” he said, heatedly. Then, after a pause, “Find someone to buy out my contract then.”

I painted in the fin, then squirted darker pink to mix into my shades of pink palette for making scales. The wall shook as it was thumped against several more times. Too light for it to be a fist. I pictured him tipping his head back to knock against it in frustration.

“Just tell me what to do, Harry.” His frustration was laced with desperation, an emotional combination I was intimately familiar with.

I paused along with him, but the only sound I heard was the wind whistling outside the window. I didn’t have blackoutcurtains in here, so the summer evening light shined through the gossamer window coverings.

“Bret says I need to clean up my image, prove I’m not a violent kid-hater, and go to therapy.” It sounded like he was talking through his teeth.

I waited, hoping for some sort of resolution. Maybe Dylan would conveniently repeat Harry’s entire response for me—along with a description of who Harry was. Instead, after a moment, he swore, and I heard a clatter that may or may not have been him dropping his phone, followed by silence.

If only Dylan and I could switch problems. Or have one of those body-swap moments from the movies.

I knew exactly how he could improve his image. A few well-worded posts, some heartwarming reels, a total social media makeover, and he’d be America’s Sweetheart. It wouldn’t be quick—I’d seen the video of the terrified kids at the game—but it wasn’t impossible.

And I happened to be in the market for an unsuitable love interest.

I studied Catocles in all her mermaid glory at the masquerade.

Sometimes dressing up and playing pretend was a lot of fun. Lia did it every time she got on stage—wearing her concert costumes and putting on her extroverted persona. Adults did it all the time when they went to comic cons or regency balls or Halloween parties.

We even sometimes did it less obviously, like Jules toning down pretty much his entire personality when he was at work. Or Charlie acting like she wasn’t as good at things so her moron fiancé didn’t feel bad about himself.

It was normal human nature to adapt. To mold ourselves. Topretend.

Maybe Dylan and I couldn’t swap problems (or bodies).

But I knew exactly what we could do to help us both—if I could get him to agree to it.

Chapter 13

Dylan

Someone was knocking onmy door to the beat of Jingle Bells. In June.

I was exactly zero percent surprised to open the door and see Rosie standing there. She wore cut-off jeans and an oversized Lia Halifax concert T-shirt. I wondered if she still wore the Van Goghs or if she had on some other kind of artistic underwear.

I was still in the sweatpants and t-shirt I’d slept in. What was the point of working out or running or leaving the apartment without hockey?

“Hi, Dylan.” She smiled. A calculating sort of smile. Not the kind women gave me when they tried to give me hotel room keys or their cell numbers.

Nope.

The kind my agent gave me right before he told me that I was going to have to wear boxy black glasses, silk boxer shorts, and striped suspenders while a million puppies licked my face for a children’s hospital fundraiser photo shoot.

Which I refused to do. Everyone else on the team did it, though. Social media accounts proclaimed I hated puppies andchildren and hospitals and charity. The real reason I didn’t do it was because I’d paid for private skating lessons from an Olympic ice skating expert to improve my speed on the ice. But no one wanted to hear the truth when painting me as the bad guy was so much more clickable.

“Do you have a second to chat?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said warily. I hated entering conversations without context. She could be upset with me for living in her nice apartment. Or annoyed at the crowd who had gathered to watch and mock me last night. Or maybe she just wanted to let me know I was a horrible person.

It wouldn’t be the first time someone had pulled me aside to inform me of that. I steeled my spine and let her into the apartment.

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