I eyed my bed accusingly, willing the spider to come out and face what he’d done. Dammit. Now I’d have to sleep on the couch for the rest of the semester.
My phone rang, and I limped over to scoop it up. My bestie Isabella was on the ID.
“Morning, Sugartits!” she sang into my ear.
I winced. “Please. I haven’t had coffee yet.”
“Can’t help it. I had sex last night, and it was phe-nom-e-nal.” She drew the last word out and made a crazy meow sound at the end. I held the phone out from my ear to lessen her sound effects.
“Imagine that,” I said wryly. “Who’s the lucky guy?”
She rattled off some boy from the Tau house she’d met at a back to school party. She described him in vivid detail, right down to the piercing on his privates.
“You think I’m a slut, don’t you?” she asked after a few moments.
“Of course not.” Because that’s what friends say.
She kept chatting, clearly in the mood for socializing, even though I could hear customers in the background of the local Starbucks where she worked. How she didn’t get fired, I had no clue.
“I bet he has a buddy,” she added.
“Don’t they all?”
She harrumphed in disgust. “You need to hop on over and meet that sexy neighbor of yours. Hello, Mr. Quarterback. I bet he’s got some backfield in motion. I bet you could score with him. Heck, I bet he knows how to ball—”
“Stop,” I said. “I don’t do athletes anymore. It’s a hard rule. And if it had been my choice, I wouldn’t have rented a house across the street from him.”
“Hello, have you seen how wide his shoulders are—without the pads? Day-um.”
I heard a slurping sound and pictured her sucking down a latte or a steaming mug of hot chocolate. “What are you drinking?”
“Caramel Macchiato.”
I cursed. I loved that drink.
“I’m also eating a raspberry white-chocolate muffin. It’s delicious. There’s this amazing cream cheese in the middle of it—”
“I hate you. I really, really do.” Sweets were my thing, and the image of a muffin made my belly grumble. Not surprising since my dinner last night had consisted of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich—’cause it was cheap and pretty much all I’d had in the house.
Padding to the kitchen with the phone pressed to my ear, I came to a dead halt in front of the stained coffee maker I’d inherited from my grandmother Mimi when she’d upgraded. My heart dropped. I’d forgotten my grocery run last night. I wailed.
“What’s wrong?” Isabella asked.
“Dammit. I was so tired last night, I forgot to stop at the market.” I pressed my forehead against the coolness of the fridge and banged it. “I don’t have any coffee, there’s a giant spider under my bed, my ex is going to be in class, and my toe is falling off. I’m gonna die!”
“God, I love the way your voice gets extra Southern when you get upset. Do I need to come over and give you a pep talk?”
“Maybe.”
She cleared her throat. “You’re Sunny freaking Blaine and you always have your shit together. You’ve paid your own way through college. You’re not Italian yet you make the meanest lasagna in the whole state of Georgia—maybe the world. You don’t care what people think, case in point: yoga pants are your dress up clothes. You drink coffee like I shoot tequila. You once stole a car. You are a badass mama jama, and I’d be your lesbian lover in a heartbeat if I went that way—and if you went that way. I’m so jealous of your blond hair that I dream of shaving you bald—”
“Now it’s weird.” I smiled even though she couldn’t see me. “I feel better, though. Lunch at Hotdog Haven soon?”
“Yeah,” she said around her chews. “I’ll tell you about frat boy’s big wiener.”
I groaned. “Thank you for that parting image.”
We said our goodbyes, and I got off the phone and limped to the bathroom. A small room with an antique claw tub, it had a certain eclectic charm with pale blue walls and a myriad of rainbow and unicorn decals leftover from the previous renters. I hadn’t the heart to take them all down. The biggest one, a white unicorn, was stuck right next to the mirror over the sink. With a glittery pink mane and long eyelashes, he was fit for a princess—so unlike my own childhood. Perhaps that’s why I kept him.
I sent him a nod. “Morning, Charlie. Let’s hope this day doesn’t get any worse.”
It did.