Page 9 of The Reluctant Roommate

“Who said anything about talking?” one replied, and they both sniggered.

Heidi waited until they’d left, then stomped over to the manager’s office to report them.

“There’s always a few like that,” the manager said. “Think a mixed dorm is one big orgy. You’re stuck with them tonight, but I’ll move them to a male dorm tomorrow.”

Heidi thanked him. There, right there, was yet another reason she needed to find somewhere else to live.

Her phone pinged with a reply to her email.

Hi Heidi, you sound great, and I’d love to meet you. Do you have your own furniture? The room isn’t furnished. One of my other roomies is moving out tomorrow, so it will just be the five of us until we find someone else. Oh, and the price in the ad doesn’t include power, Internet, and the weekly kitty forshared food, which together adds another $420 to the price per month. Hope that’s okay.

She flicked back to the ad. Nothing about six roomies, everything about only two bathrooms. And the extra costs pushed the room out of her budget.No way, José.

She went to the kitchen and poured a cup of the free coffee. It tasted like dirt, but she wasn’t knocking back free. The two jerks from earlier were there, heads together, obviously rating the women in the room.

Heidi ignored them and sat to check her other replies.

So far, she’d been to see three rooms. The first was an older couple whose adult son was finally moving out of their basement. The basement was roomy but stank of frat boy, and the ventilation was poor. Still, she’d been prepared to give it a go as the rent was cheap and there were always scented candles and air fresheners. But then they told her that although the son had moved out, he still came around every evening to play video games on the faster Internet, so he’d be in the basement studio from around nine at night until the early hours. That was a big, hard no.

The second had been sharing with two girls, one of whom owned the condo. Or, rather, her daddy did. The rent was cheap, utilities included, and it was in a great part of town. They had been pleasant, if a bit nervous, in her company. But then one said she could have the room on the condition that she accompanied them to church for three hours every Sunday, and maybe one evening a week. She mentioned the name of the church, and Heidi knew it as a big, fat anti-gay church rumored to still be doing conversion therapy.

“Your ad says LGBT+ friendly,” she’d said. “That doesn’t sound very friendly to me.”

The tallest, palest girl hadn’t smiled. “We are LGBT friendly,” she’d said. “We’re helping people like you get back on the right path.”

Heidi had clenched her teeth to stop the angry words, and, instead, turned and left.

And now this. The expensive share house with too many roommates. She might as well continue living in a hostel.

She continued scrolling down the roommate ads. She was nearly at the bottom, listings that had been there for three or more weeks, when she saw one for a room in West Washington Park. Sharing with one woman who wanted one female roommate. The rent was within her budget—just—and the photo of the room looked great. There had to be a catch, or else the ad simply hadn’t been removed when the room was taken. She opened the ad. There, right there, was the catch. The list of attributes for a potential roomie was longer than the ad itself. Heidi read through. Neat, clean, quiet. She could be all of those—if she worked at it. Female, queer. Those were a definite tick. No kids or MAGA. She was starting to like this woman.

The ad had been edited three times. The woman was obviously picky. Picky was okay. Picky she could live with. And West Wash Park was an area she’d love to live but had thought she couldn’t afford. She and Lula had gone there on one of their days off. They’d walked around the lake, had coffee at a cute coffee shop, and dropped their résumés off at a couple of small bars located in what were basically back streets.

She opened a message window and started a reply.

Chapter 7

Negotiations

“Hi. Heidi, right?” Morgan smiled at the woman on the doorstep. She was female-presenting, which was a good start, and had an open, honest-looking face. She shook Heidi’s proffered hand.

“That’s me. I’m here about the room.” Heidi glanced around the porch and the street. “This is a great neighborhood. Have you been here long?”

“Just under a year.” Heidi seemed okay, so she stepped back and gestured for her to come inside.

“Shoes off?” Heidi asked.

“Yes, please.” That was a plus point in her favor already. Either she always did that or she was observant enough to notice the rack of shoes by the door.

Heidi slipped her Nikes off, putting them on the rubber tray and her coat on the hook. She straightened and regarded Morgan, her head tilted to one side. “You look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?”

Morgan’s pulse hammered. Was Heidi a client from Mattingley? She didn’t look as if she could be—she was dressed very simply, with no branded fashion, just casual jeans and a loose buttoned-down blue shirt. She didn’t project the monied air that most Mattingley clients wore like a cloak. But she was right; she did look familiar. Morgan’s awareness prickled. That smile, the slightly uneven teeth. “Are you a client of Mattingley Financial?”

Heidi’s smile flashed again. “No. That’s out of my league.”

The prickle of nerves subsided. That was the main thing. Heidi had an Australian accent. Where had she met an Aussie lately? Somewhere. And that purple streak in her hair… The knowledge tapped at the edge of her mind.

“We’ll figure it out. Come look at the house.”