Page 12 of Deceiving Grier

Chapter Five

Grier

Theboxeswerestillin the living room. I stood in the foyer, glaring at the offending cardboard and gritting my teeth so hard my jaw ached. I’d never ground my teeth in the past, but over the last week, I’d taken to the habit with such enthusiasm that if I didn’t stop, I’d have nothing but nubs left in my mouth by the holiday break.

I sighed slowly and let my backpack slide down my arm to the floor in the hall. Sawyer had been living here a little more than a week, and over the past nine days, I had come to the unfortunate realization that Jett and I had made a big mistake.

Sawyer Banks had been a terrible choice for a roommate.

The man was a slob, constantly leaving dishes in the sink, food on the counters, and his towels on the floor in the bathroom. And he still hadn’t folded down the boxes from moving. If he left this kind of mess in the rooms we shared, I dreaded thinking about what his bedroom looked like.

We were going to end up with bugs or rodents or something equally horrible.

I remembered what Bailey had said about Sawyer not being Alistair, and she was absolutely right. Sawyer was no Alistair, and it was throwing off the dynamic in the house.

Jett was great, one of the best friends I’d ever had, but left to his own devices, he would be happy to live in a state of chaos. Back when Alistair lived here, it was okay. He was like me. He liked to live in a tidy house—a house that wasn’t infested. With both Alistair and I keeping the house clean, Jett had gone along with us. Now though, I was on my own, living with two Jetts.

The sharp pain beating behind my forehead for most of the day throbbed, and I closed my eyes and scrubbed both hands down my face. Though I couldn’t blame the sharp ache gripping my head like a vice entirely on Sawyer, he definitely wasn’t helping. The truth was, I hadn’t been sleeping enough, running on about four hours a night for the last week. My sister had sent me the month-endandquarter-end reports—no doubt at my father’s behest—and I didn’t want to keep him waiting for my input this time, but I also had two major assignments due and a game this weekend. And to make my day perfect, my coach chewed me out in front of everyone for dragging my ass and making stupid mistakes during practice.

Not that I’d blamed him. Between the headache that all the Advil in the world hadn’t taken the edge off and sheer exhaustion, I felt as if I had been playing underwater, my movements slow and awkward.

Now, finally home, Sawyer’s empty boxes were still cluttering the living room. I could fold them down myself and store them in the shed out back or in the basement. But why shouldIhave to? It was bad enough that I’d rinsed his dishes from the night before and put them in the dishwasher, then wiped up the crumbs on the counter before hanging the damp towel that he’d left in a heap on the bathroom floor. The least the man could do was fold down and get rid of his own moving boxes.

“Screw this,” I muttered, then marched to his room and knocked firmly on his door.

“Yeah,” Sawyer called out without opening the door.

My irritation kicked up another. “Can I speak to you?”

“Sure.” The door didn’t open, and I could hear the amusement in his voice.

My hands clenched into fists at my sides. “Are you going to open the door?”

A moment later, the door swung open, and Sawyer stood in the opening, so close to me that our chests nearly touched. Invisible energy lit inside me, warm and humming beneath my skin. Every instinct I had wanted me to back up a step, to put some space between us, but I refused to give him the satisfaction.

As annoyed as I was at the man, even I couldn’t deny how hot he looked standing in front of me dressed in a pair of plaid pyjama pants and nothing else. His dark, too-long hair was messier than normal, a scruff of bear covering his jaw and chin. His chest was more muscular than I would have expected, not bulky, but lean, sinewy, and defined. A smattering of dark hair peppered his chest, trailing from his navel and disappearing past the loose waistband of his pants hanging from his narrow hips.

I forced my gaze away from his bare chest and back to his face. Sawyer’s smirk stretched wider, and heat crept into my face.

“Was there something you wanted?” Sawyer asked, a single straight brow lifting.

“The boxes—” My voice scraped as though I hadn’t used it in years, my mouth suddenly dry. I cleared my throat and tried again. “The boxes from your move are still in the living room.”

“Yeah, I haven’t got to them yet.”

I looked over his shoulder at his unmade bed and the battered paperback on top of his rumpled blankets. Had he been lying in bedreadingjust now? While I’d been considering folding down those boxes because I couldn’t stand looking at them anymore, despite the hours of schoolwork and crap for my family I had waiting for me, and he’d just been enjoying a book.

Whatever weird flutter of attraction I’d experienced at finding the man half-dressed thankfully vanished, a dull fury swelling in its place.

“You’ve had more than a week,” I snapped. “Get rid of the boxes now, today, before you go back to yourbook.”

Rather than get angry, Sawyer chuckled. “Okay, Miller, don’t get your undies all tied in a knot. I’ll take care of the boxes tonight.”

The anger, pounding in time with my aching head, rose to another notch. “You’ve been living here for over a week, and those boxes haven’t moved an inch. I wouldn’t be gettingbent out of shapeif you had just gotten rid of them instead of leaving them all over the living room, which wealluse.” Sawyer opened his mouth, probably to offer some smart-ass retort if history was any indication. Instead, I pushed on and didn’t give him the chance. “And since we’re on the subject of rooms we all share, we’d appreciate it if you washed your own dishes instead of leaving them stacked in the kitchen sink and stopped leaving your wet towels on the floor in the bathroom. It’s gross and inconsiderate.”

Sawyer’s smile had fallen away, and I half expected him to slam his door in my face, but he didn’t.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, gaze narrowing.

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