Page 14 of My Ex's Roommates
“Hey. Where’d all my popcorn go?”
“Oh, my god! I’ll never get this kitchen clean again! What is wrong with you? I am going to vacuum up this shit this onetime and if you do it again, I’m kicking your ass!” Dylan spotted me and a goofy grin stretched his lips. “Harper! Did you hear? We lost. You should’ve been there. You probably could’ve played better than us.”
I giggled at the sight of them. They were absolutely, totally drunk off their asses and it was endearing to see that they turned into little boys when drunk. Jake had turned into an even bigger raging asshole when he got drunk.
“Harper! Look at my eye. Look at it. Someone hit me.” Carter leaned over the counter in my direction and stretched his face out, blinking his eyes dramatically. “Massage it? Pretty please? It hurts.”
I walked closer and saw that his eye was absolutely fine without a mark in sight. Still, I walked around the island and grabbed a slice of the cold cuts he was spreading around. I put it over his eye and grinned. “There you go. All better.”
He wrapped his arms around me and bent forward so the slice fell off his face and onto mine. His laughter was infectious. “Hey. Give that back.”
Silas peeled it off my forehead and popped it into his mouth. “Yum.”
Dylan had pulled a vacuum from somewhere and was trying his hardest to plug it in. “Damn cord. Just plug in. I used you this morning! I know you work! Did someone change the plug?”
I pried myself away from Carter and took the plug from Dylan. “How about we vacuum in the morning instead?”
He looked like I’d told him his dog died. “What? But there’s a mess.”
Sighing, I plugged it in for him. “Go on.”
The loud roar of the vacuum made conversation impossible but that didn’t stop Silas and Carter from trying. They shouted at each other, only a foot of space between them, and from what I could tell, it looked like they were trying to decide who got to eatthe first sandwich. Their hands came up between them and they played a messy game of rock, paper, scissors, that Carter lost.
Dylan turned the vacuum off after a few minutes and silently walked over to me before unceremoniously lifting me onto the kitchen island. I grabbed his shoulders and squeaked, unsure of what was happening. He swayed as he reached his finger out and tapped me on the nose. “Gotta vacuum under you, Harper.”
I sat there and watched as he finished vacuuming. The veins in his arms stood out as he ran the machine all over the floor and his normally perfect hair was sticking up all over the place. I was still watching when he put the vacuum away and came back over to me. I grabbed his broad shoulders again as he grabbed me and pulled me off the counter. I slid down his body, pinned between it and the island, and stared up at him with what I hoped passed as a normal, relaxed expression on my face.
His hands were still firmly on my hips, his fingers biting into my flesh. “You smell good.”
I was frozen as he leaned towards me, until I saw the bump on his forehead. Gasping, I grabbed his face and had to ignore the goofy smile that stretched his mouth while I inspected his head. “What happened? I didn’t hear anything about injuries during the game.”
Carter moved over to us and showed me his hands. “Hey, I got hurt, too.”
Silas moved to my other side, effectively boxing me in with their large bodies. “Look.”
Sure enough, his knuckles were as swollen and bruised as Carter’s. I grabbed Dylan’s hands but his knuckles were fine. “What happened?”
“I’m not a fighter.” Dylan’s eyes danced with laughter. “A fair one, anyway. I did my fighting with a stick instead of my hands. I’m the quarterback; I can’t hurt these babies. They’ve got games to lose.”
My eyes went wide. “What are you talking about? Who did you fight? Are the cops going to show up here any minute and carry the three of you drunk idiots to jail?”
Carter sighed dramatically. “Would you come to our rescue, Harper?”
“Of course, she would. Deep down, she likes us.” Silas leaned closer and the smell of whiskey washed over me as he exhaled. “Deep, deep down.”
“How deep?” Dylan’s hands moved higher to my waist. “I did some diving on a vacation once. I’m still certified.”
I laughed, despite myself. “Alright. All of you need to take a seat and let me check you out. One of you needs to tell me what happened tonight. And all three of you need to drink some water.”
14.
***Harper***
Istarted with Dylan first. The lump on his head wasn’t as bad as I’d first thought. I gave him a bag of ice to hold to it and forced him to drink water while I listened to Carter explain why they had swollen knuckles.
“We went to a party and we were minding our own business. We didn’t start anything. We’re good guys, Harper. Just downright upstanding citizens, you know?” He nudged Silas with his elbow and winked, like I couldn’t see him the entire time. “These guys started bothering us, talking shit. We tried to ignore them.”
I’d moved to Silas to clean his knuckles and I knew all about trying to ignore someone. Silas’s pupils were blown out as he watched me with his bottom lip caught between his teeth. He’d shifted on his stool at the island so that I was standing betweenhis muscular thighs and the heat from his body was stunting my brain activity.
