Page 11 of The Drop

“He’s not my type, but yeah, Grant Anders is a good-looking guy.”

I sigh, putting my head to the side of the pillow so I can speak. “What am I going to do?” I ask. I mean it to sound like a joke, but I can hear the desperation.

“I’ve got the room.” She shrugs her shoulders like it is so simple. “I never listed it as available.”

“Cam,” I say, about to tell her I can’t take, but stop because I have no other options. “Okay, thank you.”

“No problem.” She bounces up and down, jostling me. “Besties and roomies.”

I laugh at her, already feeling my mood lift at least for now.

She jumps up. “We will not remember this day as the day Josh made you sit and cry on my sofa; we are going to remember it as the day you moved in.”

“Can we order a pizza?” I smile up at her.

“Fuck yeah,” she shouts, grabbing her phone to order it.

Chapter Six

Grant

I shut the apartment door behind me, dragging a hand down my face.

Our front door leads straight into our living area. It’s a smaller living area than Cami’s, with us having four rooms compared to her two bedrooms. She’s got more space, but we make it work by being college hockey players who are in class, at the rink, or at a party.

Two of the rooms sit next to the open kitchen, and the other two walk directly into the living area. It’s pretty messy in here as clothes hang haphazardly around, and there isn’t much décor apart from hockey gear and game controllers hanging around.

I slap Bear on the head as I walk past the couch. “Hey,” he shouts, continuing to start up his game. I can already see where the night is going. “What was that for?”

“Next time, don’t talk when we are trying to intimidate someone,” I throw over my shoulder, heading to the fridge and finally taking my first sip of beer for the night. Once I got to the party, I was just enjoying myself when Cami texted Bear with the SOS, and I hadn’t even opened my beer yet, as Katy was talking my ear off.

Unlucky me.

“I was trying to be helpful.” He sticks his tongue out the side of his mouth as he plays, and I know he does it in goal, too. “Thought I could hurry it along.”

“That worked out well for us.” I scoff, taking a deep chug of my beer and sitting on one of our bar stools, leaning back against the breakfast bar that sits in front of the balcony doors.

“Hey, he said shit about Cami,” Adam chimes in, walking out of his room and jumping to the back of the couch to sit next to Bear and grabs another controller.

“You know Cami can hold her own.” I laugh, taking a long pull on my beer. “That girl scares the hell out of me.”

The guys all nod, agreeing.

“So, who’s the mystery girl?” Adam asks.

“No clue.” I shrug, thinking about the brunette whom I only know as B; she was a lot better looking without the dirt. Her dark brown hair was long, and she had striking green eyes. Now her skin wasn’t covered in mud. I could see that just how beautiful she was, even without makeup.

In a strange first, she wasn’t all over me.

“She looks hot; I don’t get what you mean when you said she looked dirty,” Bear mumbles, losing his round of Mario Kart and chucking the controller at Gunnar, which hits him in the chest because he was too busy looking at his phone.

“Dude, that’s not cool.” Adam shakes his head at me.

“I didn’t say she looked dirty. I said she was dirty as in covered in mud,” defending myself. “I’m talking. A walking, mud-covered forest was sitting in the back of my car earlier, and that girl out there was a different girl.”

“You don’t think she’s hot, Anders?” Gunnar smirks. “Cami’s probably warning her about you already.”

Of course, I thought she was hot. I hadn’t stopped thinking about how her full lips had curved into an almost smilewhen she flounced back into her apartment after she enjoyed insulting me.

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