Good Girl : An Enemies-to-Lovers, Roommate Romance (Alphahole Roommates Book 2), page 14
I had an aunt who was there for me as a girl in ways that mattered: maturing, my periods, stuff like that, and I spent time with her often growing up, but she moved to Florida three years ago to retire and then suffered a fatal stroke a year later. After Aunt Jade died, I felt truly alone other than Shane.
As for Shane, I’m supposed to go see him tomorrow. He’s back in his cell and allowed visitors. I don’t know what to expect and I feel guilty for being relieved that he’s likely safer in jail and at least unable to get his hands on any drugs or get into any more trouble.
As much as I’m sad my brother’s life isn’t his own right now, I can’t help but feel relief that right now I’m only responsible for myself.
Well, and Mr. Groucho – the alphahole, as Carly would say. But he’s going to be easy compared to living with my father and then trying to take care of my unpredictable older brother. A grouchy man with high expectations: I can do this with my eyes closed.
The guest room I’m staying in is pretty. There’s a double bed, armoire with television, and a huge window with a view of the park. Spending all my time in here I feel a little claustrophobic and creatively stifled, so when he’s not here and I’m not busy shopping or cleaning, I’ve decided I’ll work at that island in the kitchen. The nearby floor to ceiling window offers a billion-dollar view that I figure should be good for creative inspiration. I can stare out from my bedroom or here. One giving me a view of Central Park where I can imagine all sorts of fun guy meets girl in the big city scenarios. Walking a dog at the park or in the zoo. Waiting for the subway. Meeting up for a clandestine rendezvous in a local bar after swiping on a dating app.
The other window gives me a quintessential view of New York City with the Hudson river and it’s pretty inspiring to look at.
I parked my butt at the kitchen island late this afternoon, hoping the change of space – outside my bed - will inspire me to work on a different story than the one I’m currently writing.
No such luck.
Despite that I’ve tried to stop multiple times since I started it last night, somehow that document keeps getting opened back up. Somehow I keep finding my fingers pecking away at it, like some sort of addict. And it’s already over fifty pages and four chapters.
I blame Austin. Austin last night in his underwear, yelling at me in the kitchen while I was trying to make food. Looking so… hot. Flexing his muscles while he yelled and waved his arms. That bulge in those grey, skintight, boxer briefs.
Gulp.
The stories I’ve been writing up until now have been straight erotica between completely fictional characters that don’t exist. Most of my stories are straight sex for twenty pages max with little to no backstory. Not so with the story I started after the berating.
Each chapter has had a graphic sex scene and the chapter I just wrote was verging on not just erotica but erotic romance. Because there are interactions beyond sex.
Somehow I went from the male protagonist reprimanding the female for streaks on the windows that turned into sex against the window with him carrying her to bed and holding her while she cried, told him about her problems, and then he promised to fix them all for her.
She told him she was strong, had always been strong and wasn’t used to a man fixing her problems but he held her face and told her that she shouldn’t have to be strong all the time, that he wanted to give her a break, to take care of her for a little while.
I’m about to backspace that scene out of the story when Austin comes in, so I just hit save and shut the lid instead.
And I’m feeling all sorts of guilt about this story that I’ve aptly named my Austin Smut File, but I bury it under denial as I keep succumbing to the urge to go back to writing it.
Damn it, that guy that paid me that money for that first dirty short story created a monster. I’m some kind of a pervert now.
My male character for this story is bossy. And grouchy. And hot. In fact his name is Austin Groucho the Third, because the ‘third’ makes him sound extra pompous.
My female character was homeless and found a classified ad for domestic duties with room and board included. The job interview for being his housekeeper consisted of her mopping the floor naked while he watched and inspected. And he inspected more than just the floors, I tell you that much.
Chapter two was about her burning his toast at breakfast and this resulting in him sweeping her over his lap, yanking up her French maid outfit out of the way so he could spank her bare bottom. And then I totally shocked myself because he used the burnt toast between her legs, rubbing the toast against her clit and making her come with it. I completely shocked myself with that scene! I’ve never imagined something so filthy in all my life.
I’ve been celibate for three years, have gone on a handful of dates that didn’t turn into anything beyond a good night kiss, and now here I am having those filthy scenes fly out of my fingers? Picturing my jerk of a boss as I write them?
Chapter three opens with the female character (who I’ve temporarily named Jada Sweetheart) cleaning the tub and while she’s bent over doing that, he comes in, lifts her skirt and inspects her work as well as her while she continues cleaning before he uses his cock to rub her off, then spills his load all over her lower back. She wasn’t allowed to stop scrubbing the entire time.
And then the fourth chapter, the window cleaning chapter… where I’m afraid of heights and have to clean the windows with my eyes shut while he fucks me against them is crazy. And I tell him I’m afraid of heights, so he carries me to bed and holds me and coos to settle me and that turns into him offering to fix my problems for me.
God, this story is filthy. Every bit of it. And I’m ridiculous.
Clearly, three years without sex is my problem. Seeing my sexy grouch of a boss in his underwear didn’t help. It’ll be the third anniversary of Joshua’s death this Sunday. Thinking of it makes my chest want to cave in, makes the pain want to come back at full potency. I push it away and try to work on another story. One without faces, ones that aren’t named after me and the alphahole boss I’m stuck having as a roommate, but as the story materializes in my mind, the way I figured out it would do when I first wrote that first paid story for the twenty-five dollars the guy paid, the hero in this new story looks, too, just like Austin Carmichael.
Tall, blue-eyed, muscled and California-tanned Austin Carmichael.
I had a serious crush on Aiden, but I never wrote sexy stories about him.
Damn it! I need help.
I slip out of my room to go to the bathroom and catch a perfect view of the back of Austin doing pull-ups with a contraption that hangs over the door frame of the closet in the master bedroom.
The way his back muscles move with every pull. The look of his hands holding on. The pronounced veins in his forearms. His sexy lower back. The muscles in his legs.
It’s like I’m frozen to the spot for a minute. Superglued in place.
He stops and drops to his feet and I quickly go into the bathroom and shut the door, eyes feeling like they’re going to pop out of the sockets. That is some eye candy right there.
I shake it off.
16
Austin
I haven’t joined a local gym yet, so after some pushups, pull-ups, and chin ups on the closet doorframe, I shower and warm up the food she made for me. She made me a mountain of pasta with shrimp and vegetables in a garlic wine sauce. And it’s delicious.
The apartment is spotless. The master bedroom has been cleaned and dusted. My laundry is even done and put away. Neatly.
I’m kind of impressed. She’s either as efficient as Aiden said or she’s putting on a great show for her trial run. Either way, it’s good I don’t have to fire her tonight. I don’t have the energy.
After showering and eating, I pass out in bed without even getting under the blankets. I’m that exhausted.
***
I wake abruptly at twenty after four in the morning and my stomach is killing. Absolutely killing me.
I run for the bathroom and throw up. And then the explosive diarrhea hits. I have it so badly and for so long that I go through almost all the toilet paper in the bathroom. I’m not sure I’m done yet, and can’t find any more bathroom tissue in the cabinets so I haul up my track pants and, gut churning all the way, make my way down the hall and whip open the closed door on the main bathroom.
And here she is, sitting on the toilet, pajama pants around her ankles, sweat-drenched face sheet-white, and obviously suffering from the same affliction as me.
She shrieks.
I slam the door and turn away.
“Sorry!” I yell, still holding the doorknob with one hand, my gut with the other. “There’s no toilet paper in my bathroom and I’m… I’m sick.”
I hear shuffling and then I back up because the door opens enough for her to toss a four-pack into the hallway.
I squat, grab it, and make a mad dash back to my own bathroom, racing the gurgling that tells me I’m about to erupt again.
This goes on until after six o’clock in the morning before I’m back in my bed, curled into a ball, feeling like death.
So much for that awesome dinner I ate. If I didn’t see her in the same state as me, I’d have thought she poisoned me to get revenge.
At least it’s the weekend. I don’t have to go to work. I was planning to, but I don’t technically have to.
At six forty in the morning with my gut raw, a sore ass, and feeling like I might finally be done, I decide to investigate the fridge for a sports drink and some pink gut remedy, which I know I saw in there.
I find her in the kitchen, chugging back some pink stuff herself.
“What the fuck did you feed us?” I growl.
She shakes her head and holds her stomach, not looking at me. “I don’t know.”
“What the fuck, Jada?”
She glares at me and points.
“I don’t need this from you right now. I feel like crap and you walked in on me while I was on the goddamn toilet!”
I raise my eyebrows.
“Don’t you know that when a bathroom door is closed it means you shouldn’t go in?” she snaps.
“If you’d supplied my bathroom with toilet paper, I wouldn’t have had to hunt for toilet paper in the middle of the night. I didn’t think you were awake. Why are you hoarding it all in there?”
She looks at me like I’m insane.
Maybe I am insane.
“I am not hoarding all the toilet paper. I didn’t realize you were low,” she defends.
“Well I wasn’t until you fucking poisoned me!”
“I don’t need this. If you wanna fire me, can you do it after I’m not feeling like I’m going to either hurl again or shit my pants? Because clearly I poisoned both of us. The cramping is insane, I might even die and the last thing I need to do in my short life is argue with the likes of you.”
“Whatever.”
“Nice comeback,” she snaps.
And I want to throttle her.
I can’t believe that thought crosses my mind as she passes me the bottle of Pepto Bismol. I grab a spoon from the drawer, already feeling guilty about it. She passes me a bottle of blue Gatorade, too, not gently. I think she wants to hit me with it.
“Thanks,” I mutter as I snap it away.
“Again acting like I have the cooties.”
“You do. And you fuckin’ gave ‘em to me tonight.”
She flips me the bird and then heads down the hall. She’s got her underwear all twisted in the back with her pajama pants. One pantleg is up around her knee and the other is long. And her ponytail is crooked.
And I fight the urge to laugh.
She flipped me the bird after food-poisoning me.
She’s got some nerve.
Then again, I walked in on her while she was having diarrhea.
I double over and hold my gut while I take the medicine and then find my way back to bed.
***
I sleep until noon and feel half human when I sit up. But only half.
I take a long shower and then head out to the kitchen.
There’s a note written in neat cursive handwriting, with a purple pen.
Austin,
You forgot to text me your number. I don’t know if you want me cooking for you 7 days a week or ever again, but I have plans today so I won’t be back until later. If you need me to make dinner, please text me. There’s cereal and eggs and bread for breakfast choices. Or yogurt and granola and fruit. I’m only planning on soup today for myself. I’m picking up Pho on my way back later and can get some for you if you like. I’m sorry you got sick from something I cooked. I hope you’re feeling better. I threw out the rest of the shrimp and whatever vegetables I used.”
Jada
She wrote her number on the bottom, so I add it into my phone and send her a text.
“Pho sounds good. Beef please. With crispy noodles. And Vietnamese fresh vermicelli rolls. Extra peanut sauce.”
She replies right away.
Jada: Seafood or vegetarian fresh rolls?
Me: Usually seafood but not in the mood for shrimp today.
17
Jada
Shane has lost weight. And he was skin and bones already.
Bonez.
Yeah, bones. That nickname sends a chill up my spine. Bonez the drug dealer. How did I miss that? How did he have enough money to get high and not help me out with the rent, never put a loaf of bread in the kitchen, not find a way to save us from eviction when the coffee cart went out of business?
And then to steal my last seventy-five dollars and my ex-boss’s credit card after throwing a wild party in Aiden’s apartment? He could’ve gotten me arrested, too. I could be in prison right now!
I’m lucky Aiden and Carly were so awesome.
He looks gaunt through the glass window separating us. Though, he looked like this before everything went bad because of no sleep, no appetite, and I thought it was all the by-product of him being off his medication, but it wasn’t just that. It was also whatever drugs he was on.
But yeah, he looks terrible. Even worse than he did.
I lift the phone and put it to my ear. He does the same.
“Hi,” I whisper.
“Jayjay,” he says, and his expression hurts. It physically hurts me to see the pain and devastation on him. But it’s the first time in weeks he hasn’t looked just vacant to me.
“I’m really sorry about everything, Jada. Really sorry. I fucked up huge this time.”
He’s weeping silently. His shoulders are shaking and his chin is trembling as he rocks back and forth slightly in his chair.
And the sight of my brother crying has always bothered me, but today I feel a little numb, feel like I’ve seen it too many times, fallen for it. I know his illness is real, I do, but it’s been so exhausting. And this time? He really messed things up for me.
“You took my purse, Shane. With my ex-boss’s credit card. I was already putting myself in hot water for staying at his place without getting permission properly first, and then that? It made me look bad. Do you remember that guy that came in yelling?”
He shakes his head. “I remember taking the purse, Jayjay. I don’t know what possessed me.” He shrugs and opens his mouth, nothing coming out for a minute. It’s like he can’t explain himself.
“That was Aiden’s brother, who was moving into the condo that day, who was going to hire me to do for him the job I did for his brother, until he saw the state the place was in, saw you were there getting a blowjob in his brother’s room.”
Shane’s shoulders slump and he closes his mouth.
“And then you took off and I didn’t know what happened to you and my purse was gone with the last of my money and Austin Carmichael found it in the elevator, tossed. You tossed it like I was just a nobody you’d ripped off. And then I was there begging him to not throw me out on the street because I had nothing, no money, nowhere to go and you were… I didn’t know where… gone to party with some girl to get Viagra to help you get off.”
He squeezes his eyes shut tight and starts hyperventilating. He used to do that when Dad would lose it on him, sit there and breathe hard over and over.
It used to make me panic. I was afraid, back then, Shane would stop breathing, give himself a heart attack.
Today, though, I sit and watch him do it and I don’t feel that sense of panic rising in me.
I watch. And I wait.
He needs to hear this. He needs to know what he’s done. I’m not making excuses for him anymore.
He says nothing.
Finally, I speak up again. “Are you back on your meds?”
He nods, not looking at me.
“Are they helping?”
He shakes his head. “Not yet. It takes time.”
I exhale, emptying my lungs and wait. I wait a long time before Shane finally speaks.
“My lawyer is gonna try to get me in rehab and I might spend some time in the psych ward. I might not get jail time. We’ll see if he can cut a deal. I’m sorry, Jada. I really fucked up this time. I own that. I was using because it was taking the edge off what was goin’ on in here.” He points to his temple with his index finger. “Things are wrong in here, baby sis, and I don’t know why I can’t get them to stay right. You did good, you tried to help me and I will never forget that, but I need to fix me now.” He pounds his fist against his chest. “I have to do it; it’s up to me. Okay? You don’t have to worry about me anymore. I’m gonna fix me.”
The dam bursts and I’m weeping.
“You shouldn’t have had to take care of me, sis. I should’ve taken care of you. You’ve been trying to take care of me since you were five and I was nine, when Mom wouldn’t and Dad couldn’t be bothered. You’ve always tried to take care of me, and I let you down. I’m sorry. I love you baby sis.”
“I love you, t-too.”
“You okay? Where are you staying?” he asks, straightening up.
“Aiden’s. I talked his brother into letting me work for him for the three months he’s here. Well, I guess Aiden’s wife Carly talked him into it. But yeah, I’m okay.”
