Page 3 of Irreconcilable Attractions (Westwend Boys #1)
Just because he could banter didn’t mean he wasn’t secretly the type to enforce a chore schedule or separate the fridge with painters tape to indicate his side and my side .
Who knows? Maybe we’d be terrible roommates.
Maybe I’d wake up one day and find he’d labeled the shelves in the pantry by varying degrees of healthiness.
I mean, I could be easygoing… generally .
But I’d never had to share my space like this before.
Even in college, my privileged ass lived in my own apartment, paid for by my parents.
I dodged the roommate lottery like it was the plague, especially after hearing my friends’ horror stories of passive-aggressive Post-its and catching roommates fucking on the common room couch.
What if he was the kind of guy who made smoothies at six a.m. while listening to podcasts on productivity? What if he separated his laundry not just by color, but also by item ? Shirts in one load, pants in another and dish towels in their own spa day.
I chewed on my lip, spiraling. I needed to get myself under control before I went too deep while driving. Taking a few slow breaths, I tried to calm myself.
Sixteen loads of laundry would be deeply annoying, but if he folded them himself and let me have washer access, I could make it work.
The water bill would be a bitch, though.
Maybe if he made his smoothies in his bathroom, the blender noise wouldn’t reach my end of the house. Not that I was suggesting he should blend bananas next to his toothbrush, but… options.
I just needed to talk to him. Like a grown-up. A calm, reasonable grown-up. God, I hoped I could be one of those.
As we crossed the bridge heading toward the southern side of Westwend, I made a quiet little deal with myself. I would do my best to make Derek feel welcome, help him settle in, and be a decent human.
If he turned out to be a dick or left passive-aggressive notes about sink cleanliness, well, then I’d march him right back to my parents’ house.
He wasn’t my problem to begin with, so you need to take him back!
Or, you know… something assertive like that.
At one of the town’s few red lights, I grabbed my phone and shot a quick text to one of my employees, letting her know I wouldn’t be back in today.
She responded instantly, hitting me with a “ When’s the funeral and for who?
” I cussed and ran a hand through my hair.
I didn’t have time to go through the whole situation right now, so I quickly typed that I would explain later.
She sent a thumbs-up emoji two-seconds later, and the light flipped to green.
It wasn’t long after that I was pulling into the steep driveway of my home. I pulled to one side, making space for Derek and looked up at my place through my windshield, trying to see it from his perspective.
It wasn’t anything flashy. Just a one-story place with a plain brick exterior and a front yard that was basically just grass that was doing its best to survive in the ungodly heat of a Texas summer.
No trees or bushes, because who had time to tend to landscaping?
The white door sat in the shadow of a tiny awning just above two small concrete steps, and without a real porch, the entrance always looked a little squished.
It wasn’t much, but it was mine. The day I bought this place felt just as big as opening the cafe. Like a little gold star on the list of all my adulting accomplishments.
Derek pulled in the driveway as I hopped out of my truck, the shiny blue paint of his car catching every ray of sun like it was trying to make a statement. I gestured for him to roll down his window.
“Make sure you use your parking brake.” I made the motion with my hand for an old-fashioned handbrake, even though most vehicles had button brakes now.
“Driveway may not look steep but since the whole neighborhood is on higher ground, it is, and when it rains hard, cars have been known to slide right into the street. Learned that one the fun way.”
Derek blinked, then nodded and pressed the button without a word before hopping out.
Huh. No argument? I’d expected at least some pushback. The classic ‘ actually, that’s not necessary ’ from someone who probably alphabetized their spice rack.
“It’s just better to get into the habit, you know?” I added, still waiting for lawyer logic to kick in.
But Derek just nodded again and opened his back door like we weren’t having the world’s most one-sided flood-prep talk.
“Yeah, I get it. Better safe than sorry,” He responded, all matter-of-factly.
He rummaged around in the backseat for a moment before pulling out a large suitcase and a medium duffle, which was promptly tossed over his shoulder like it weighed nothing.
Derek kicked the car door closed behind him, leaving a perfect dirt-print of the sole of his shoe on the side of his pristine paint job.
My brain stuttered.
“That’s it?” I asked, eyebrows nearly in my hairline. “That’s all you brought? You’re moving your whole life , man.”
Derek just smiled like he had expected that response. “Packed the essentials. I’ll buy the rest once I get settled.”
He motioned toward the house, so I turned and led the way up the short path feeling entirely out of sorts. This day was not going the way I’d expected at all.
“I underestimated how fast rentals disappear around here—especially in summer,” He began as we walked. “I figured I’d find a short-term place or maybe stay at a bed-and-breakfast. But, everything was booked solid.”
He shrugged, like that kind of oversight didn’t bother him at all. “I thought maybe your dad was going to let me crash at his place for a while, but… here we are.”
And yeah, okay… I was starting to think I’d pegged this guy wrong.
Everything about him screamed structured.
Pressed polo, clean car, expensive shoes.
He looked like the kind of guy who had his Google Calendar color-coded by the minute so that productivity stayed ‘optimized’.
And yet here he was. Bantering like we’d been friends for years, showing up with two bags, and not spiraling over having zero plans for where he would be living in a brand new town.
Based on looks alone, I knew no one would’ve pegged Derek as a laid-back individual, but this conversation had me feeling like I was the high strung one between the two of us.
Derek followed me up the path, and I pushed open the front door, cool air spilling out around us as we stepped inside.
The living room had an open-concept layout which was decorated neatly with a couch, a couple of chairs, and a TV mounted above the brick fireplace.
To the left and right of the front door were two short hallways—right led to my room, left to the ‘guest bedroom’ and bathroom.
The kitchen was made separated from the living space by a counter toward the back of the room, small but functional.
There was a little table tucked off to the right, just under the window that overlooked the backyard.
Modest, sure, but it worked.
I drew in a breath and spread my arms like I was giving a tour on a home makeover show. “Welcome to your new place,” I said as I stepped farther in.
“You can drop your bags here for now,” I added, nodding toward the space behind the couch. “Your room’s down that hallway. Bathroom’s there too. If you wanna shower or whatever while I get the room in order, go for it. Towels are in the linen closet.”
Derek smiled, that polite one he seemed to have on standby. “Would you mind if I looked around a bit?”
I shook my head and started toward the hallway. “This is your place now, too. Have at it.”
The actual cleaning didn’t take long. Most of the boxes were random cafe things, old impulse buys, and a frankly obscene number of novelty mugs which all got shoved into a corner of the garage. Laundry that had been in limbo got tossed onto my bed to sort later.
Fresh sheets, a bit of tidying, a little strategic fluffing, and the room looked… decent. Livable.
Derek could put his own touch on things, if he wanted to. And if not, no skin off my back. He wouldn’t be here for long, so it wouldn’t matter either way.
A few months was nothing in the grand scheme of things—totally manageable.
We could be civil adults that could talk things out if he did something unreasonable like blend kale at six in the morning.
And if all else failed?
Well… I could always fake a haunting.