Page 19 of Roommating

Adam cocks his head. “What didIdo?”

“I’m sure you’ve done many things deserving of pride, but I’m talking about that.” She points to the revolving bookcase now fully stacked with my collection of YA novels.

He ducks his head. “Sabrina and my grams laid all the groundwork. I just finished it.”

“And he’s humble!” Carley looks around the room. “Where’s Marcia?”

There’s no sound coming from her room, and I wonder the same thing.

“She’s at a co-op board meeting and a wine tasting at a neighbor’s,” Adam says. “She told me about it earlier.”

Carley’s eyes widen. “We should crash the wine tasting!”

“There are almost five hundred apartments in this building. We’dhave to go door-to-door like trick-or-treaters to find the right one.” I take her by the elbow. “Let’s go to my room.” I lead the way but stop walking when Adam calls my name. I turn to face him, immediately noting the furrow in his brow. “Yeah?”

“Is everything okay?”

I chew my lip. This would be the perfect opening to come clean with what I overheard, but I want Carley’s input first. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

He shrugs. “No reason.”

I nod and follow Carley into my room, closing the door behind me.

Carley plops her butt on my pink beanbag chair and fans herself. “Time has been good to the grandson. He’s transformed from awk-weird to hot-dorable, à la Josh Peck.” She removes her jacket to reveal the neon-green shirt she’s wearing underneath and shakes her hair free from her hat.

I sit on the edge of my bed and kick off my sneakers. “I guess.”

Carley narrows her eyes. “What’s going on? You said you needed my advice?”

I fill her in.

She twists her mouth thoughtfully. “I don’t buy it. That boy out there”—she points at my door—“does not look like someone who is concerned about you stealing from his grandma.”

I bite my cheek. “I’d agree if I hadn’t heard him with my own two ears.”

“Are you going to say anything to him?”

“I don’t want him to know that I was eavesdropping.” He’s entitled to a private conversation with Marcia, even if it is about me.

“When someone speaks your name in the same context as a Nigerian prince, you listen!”

My lips twitch, but the doubts linger. “What if Adam keeps putting ideas in Marcia’s head and she ends up hating me?”

Carley smirks. “She’s not going to hate you.”

I lie back and spoon my pillow. “You don’t know that.”

She sighs. “I know you’re scared because you think of Marcia as a surrogate grandmother, but—”

I shoot up. This is the second time today I’ve heard this phrase. “Marcia’s like fifteen years younger than my nana was when she died.” The age difference between my grandma and Adam’s isn’t so odd; Marcia had Jeffrey in her early twenties, and he had Adam inhisearly twenties. On my side, Nana Lena was forty when my dad was born and in her late eighties when she died of a sudden stroke. She was whatever generation came before boomers.

“If you say so.” Carley somewhat awkwardly lifts herself off the chair to a standing position and paces my pale wood floor. “Marcia already put out that fire. You said yourself that she defended you.”

My heart plumps recalling the kind things she said about me. “You’re right. I just needed the outside validation.”

Carley’s expression softens. “I think you should tell him what you overheard and clear the air. Otherwise, it’s going to be a really awkward living situation with you all passive-aggressive toward him and him all confused and wounded following you with his puppy-dog eyes.”

“He doesn’t look at me with puppy-dog eyes.”

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