Romantically Entangled

Chapter 2

Nicki

Two kegs sit in the far corner of the living room. Used plastic cups litter the floor.

With the windows that line two sides of the room open and a hot wind blowing through, I can smell the stale beer.

There's nothing else in the room. Not a stick of furniture.

And obviously, they aren't running the air-conditioning. Or there is no AC.

The living room floor squeaks with each step I take into the house, and my flip flops stick to the boards.

I can see the kitchen through an entryway on one side of the stairs that rise from the middle of the far wall.

There's a closed door. I assume it's a bedroom, on the other side of the stairs.

Bey crosses the living room and sets her share of my stuff on the stairs, and I do the same.

"So, you had a party in here last night, I guess?" I ask, pulling off my sunglasses and tucking them into the front of my shirt. "You moved the furniture somewhere?"

Bey crouches to pick up a drumstick lying on the floor and slides it into her jeans pocket.

"No furniture in this room," she responds nonchalantly. "Makes it easier for the bands to set up."

She laughs as my jaw drops. "You know we have parties here most weekends, with live bands, right? We're known all over campus for our parties.

"Uh, no." I run a distraught hand through my hair. "I didn't know that. This is the first time I've been on campus, except for my interview last spring."

I sound less than thrilled. I am less than thrilled. I've apparently moved into the 21st-century equivalent of Animal House.

"Wow, that's something I really wish I'd known about," I can't help adding.

I'm pissed, mostly at myself. I fought to get into Ikana's top-notch journalism program. And I've got a full load of classes my first semester.

How am I going to get straight A's and work my ass off at the campus newspaper, assuming I can persuade the editor to give me a job, if I'm living in a party house?

"Last night's band was really a good one," Bey says, as if somehow that makes a difference. "The lead singer's kind of a douche, but he's got a great voice. We must have had 100 people last night, just in this room."

She chuckles at the dismal expression on my face. "C'mon, Nick. It's not that bad. You'll meet a lot of really cool people."

I just shake my head and look away. Then I hear what sounds like a dog whining from the front porch.

Bey glances out the living room window. "That'll be Munchie," she says. "I need to get him inside."

She disappears out the front door, and I follow, stepping outside in time to see a long canine snout thrust through the hole in one of the porch boards in the same spot Bey was lying when I first pulled up.

Bey is smiling down at the friendly brown eyes staring up at him. "There you are," she says.

"Oh. Is that who you were talking to when I first got out of the car?"

Now it's making more sense.

"Yeah. That's Munchie." I notice again the tenderness in her voice. "I forgot to lock him in my room last night, and all the noise from the party scared the shit out of him. He gets under the house and hides when he gets scared."

She shakes her head ruefully. "For a big dog, he's kind of a wuss." She whistles. "Come out of there, Munchie".

The dog's snout disappears.

"He has to get out the way he went in, from the back yard. I left the kitchen door open for him. He'll show up in the house in a minute."

She waves me back inside. "Let me show you your room, and then I'll bring in the rest of your stuff."

I start to protest. I should be carrying in my own possessions. I don't need her to do it.

But then I forget what I was going to say, because Bey is yawning and rubbing her defined abs, and my mutinous eyes can't stop ogling her.

Seriously. What the hell is happening to me?

And how am I going to live under the same roof as this lady?

"Only problem with the parties," Bey yawns again, "is cleaning it all up the next day."

She turns to go back into the house. "It'll probably be a while before the other two lazy-asses are awake. You can meet them later."

I follow, trying to get myself under control.

The sight of Bey's scarred back tamps down my lustful thoughts. The poor girl. I'm dying to know what happened to her. What did she mean when she said it was a war wound?

There's a landing halfway up the stairs and a window that looks out over a back deck, strewn with more red cups and beer bottles.

Bey pauses to stare at something in the yard.

"Munchie!" she yells out the open window. "What are you doing out there?"

Then she whistles loudly. "Munchie, come inside!"

After a moment, she yells again. "Corey? Is that you? Man, what the fuck are you still doing here?"

I crane my neck to peer around Bey in time to see a German Shepherd sniffing around a form that is slowly getting up from the ground. It appears to be a grubby-looking male with bushy brown hair.

He is rubbing his eyes and blocking the sun with his hands as if it hurts him.

"Corey! Go home!"

Bey laughs. "He's a member of the band," she explains, continuing up the stairs. "Passed out in the yard last night, I guess. Idiot."

I follow her, looking everywhere but at her back.

"So is Munchie your dog?" I ask, for something to say.

"He's kind of the house dog, although I seem to be the one who takes care of him most of the time. He showed up here one day, mangy and starving. We tried to find his owner, but no one ever claimed him."

"Aw. Poor thing."

We reach the top of the stairs, and I glance from right to left.

I see three bedrooms, all with their doors closed. And one bathroom, door open. I spot an old-fashioned, claw-foot bathtub inside.

Bey sets my possessions in front of the door directly across from the bathroom.

"You're the last one in, so you get the smallest room," she says apologetically. "But at least the AC unit in that room works well."

She points at the door next to mine. "That's Megan's room. And I'm next to her. Kelly's got the big bedroom downstairs, the only one with its own bathroom. Her stepdad owns this house."

She turns the knob and pushes my door open, then steps aside to let me pass. "Here we are."

I walk into the room and stop abruptly, gasping at the sight of a naked couple passed out on my bed.

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