Page 34 of The Roommate Problem
After work was done, Lilly left to grab Lincoln at the airport, and Mo headed upstairs to her apartment. It was quiet when she entered. Quiet and clean. Looked like August stress cleaned again. Guess that was one good thing to take away from this whole situation. The apartment hadn’t looked this clean since Lilly lived here.
She hung her purse up on the coat rack and headed down the hall to her room. No sign of August. His door was closed, but the light in his room was off. Was he in the bathroom or still at the flower shop? She didn’t know and didn’t care. Liar. Okay, she was trying not to care. Tonight was about going out to have some fun. Not obsess over her crush on her roomie and pondering where he might be, if he might be thinking about her, too, what he looked like naked.
All very bad things to be thinking about.
Mo opened her bedroom door, determined to slough off this negative attitude and have a good time tonight. Bad attitudes give you indigestion, as Nonna used to say.
Opening her closet, Mo picked out her favorite pair of mermaid print leggings and her off-the-shoulder black peasant crop top. A good outfit always put her in a better mood. Maybe tomorrow night she’d dye her hair again. The pink had been in for four weeks now. Ages. She always felt better with a new color.
She ditched her work clothing, tugging on the leggings and top—sans bra because she’d lost her strapless one months ago in the building laundry somewhere and the top had a shelf bra that worked well enough for her. Now all she needed to complete the look was a hot pair of shoes. Her neon yellow wedge sandals would go perfect with this outfit…if she could just find them.
Mo glanced around her room—the one part of the apartment that still looked like a tornado had hit it. Why bother cleaning when things were just going to get messy again? Never made sense to her.
“Where are you, my cute little sandals?” Not so little because for a short woman, Mo had big feet.
She searched the closet floor, under her bed, in the pile of dirty laundry by her dresser. Nothing. Hands on her hips, she surveyed her small bedroom.
“Where the heck are you?”
Her gaze caught on a flash of bright yellow color way up high on the top shelf of her closet.
“Aha! Found you.”
Glancing around, she grabbed the only thing in her room she could use as a stool, her laundry hamper, and tipped it sideways. Clothing spilled out, but there was already a massive pile on the floor anyway, so who cared? Mo stepped onto the oval bin, arms out to steady herself as the hard plastic dipped and tipped with her body weight. She reached up as high as she could, fingers barely grazing the strap of the wedge.
“Dammit, come on!” she yelled at the shoes. “Sometimes being fun-sized really sucks.”
She grunted, lifting up on her toes. Stretching her arm to the point of pain, her fingers finally caught purchase on the sandals.
“Yes!”
Her celebration was short-lived as she started to ease back down, shoes in hand, when the laundry bin rocked and her feet flew out from under her. Mo went crashing to the floor in a pile of flailing limbs and shouted curses.
“Ow! Son of a b—”
“Moira!”
She screamed when her bedroom door flew open. A huge, dark shadow filled the doorway. A robber? No, that was ridiculous. Why would a burglar know her name? She must have hit her head on the way down for such a silly thought. A few blinks and the form came into focus, and of course it was—
“August!” She struggled to get up from the pile of clothing she’d fallen into. “Do you always barge into people’s rooms without knocking first?”
“When they scream bloody murder, I do.”
She stood facing off against him. “I did not scream.”
“You did.” His trademark scowl was in place. “Sounded like a building toppled over in here and…” His eyes widened, cheeks going as red as the hair on his head as his gaze shot toward the ceiling. “Um, Mo you might wanna—”
“I might wanna do nothing. We might share this place, but this is my room, and you can’t come bursting into my room whenever you feel like it.” Her temper was soaring due to embarrassment, the fact that he had been hiding from her when she got home—coward—and the smarting of her hip where she fell.
“I was coming to see if you were okay,” he said, still looking up. “And I really think you should—”
“I don’t care. It was very nice of you to come to my rescue, but I’m perfectly fine, and you could have knocked first. Besides, I don’t need—”
“Moira!” he shouted, slapping his hand over his eyes. “Your top is down.”
Mo glanced down. Huh, would you look at that. August hadn’t been trying to give her a lecture on bedroom safety or cleanliness. The sweet guy had been embarrassed by her breasts, which were currently holding the neckline of her peasant top directly under them.
“Whoopsie.” She giggled, putting the girls back in their upright and locked position. “You can look now, August. Your delicate sensibilities are no longer threatened by a pair of enlarged mammary glands.”
