He snickers. “I wish. If anything, it’ll be a total pain in the ass. Have you ever tried lugging boxes through one of those super-narrow dormitory hallways?”
“Dormitory?” I wrinkle my forehead as I drag the bar of soap over my body. “What, you friends with a college freshman or something?”
“Sort of. Jess is starting nursing school this week, so—”
“Jess?” I interrupt. “Which Jess is this?” I only know one. But she can’t be in Toronto. I would have sensed a disturbance in the force. A hot, sassy, blond disturbance.
“My favorite sister-in-law.” Wesley snorts. “She just got off the waiting list at Toronto Nursing College. Big stuff. She got the call four days ago. Had to sell her car and pack some things into a few cartons, quick-like. It’s a better school than the community college where she was supposed to start next week.”
“Oh. That’s cool,” I hear myself say. But it isn’t really. After the wedding, Jess went full-on Amish and shunned me.
We were totally going to bone down in June. She wanted it. Like, wanted it bad. I made her come so hard she couldn’t move, for fuck’s sake.
And then she bailed on me. Gave me the key to her apartment and never came home that night. I couldn’t stick around the next morning because I had a flight to catch, and my ma would’ve murdered me if I didn’t make it home on time. It was my sister’s birthday. Nobody misses a Riley birthday and lives to tell about it.
I’d texted Jess from the plane. She didn’t text back. I’d texted her throughout the summer. She didn’t text back, not even when I sent her the best dick pic ever taken. I experimented with lighting in order to emphasize both length and girth, and she couldn’t be bothered to comment on how great Snake Riley looked?
Wesley shuts off the faucet. “Anyway, we’re gonna grab dinner in Jess’s new neighborhood. I’d invite you, but I’m not sure how long the move will take and I don’t want you waiting around.”
I can help with the move, I almost say, but I bite my tongue. It’s rare, but sometimes I am able to control my verbal impulses.
Jess obviously doesn’t want me around, otherwise she would’ve told me herself that she was moving to Toronto for nursing school.
Whistling to himself, Wesley towels off. I shut off the water, too. But I’m moving slowly, trying to process this turn of events.
“You have a sister in Toronto, Wesley?” O’Connor says from underneath the towel he’s using to dry his hair. “Is she hot? Can I have her number?”
Wes growls. “Touch Jess and die. You hear me?”
O’Connor chuckles, and the sound climbs up my throat like bile. Somehow, fists are clenched at my sides. Jess and I aren’t together, and we never will be, and yet I feel like grinding the newbie into dust just for joking about calling her.
Weird.
Must be time for dinner.
9 One Butt Cheek
Jess
I’m freaking out. But who wouldn’t be, right?
Five days ago I was moving back into my parents’ house to save money and enrolling in a community college nursing program. It wasn’t ideal, but I was determined to do whatever it took.
Then I got the call.
The Toronto phone number didn’t clue me in, because that’s where Jamie and Wes live. I came this close to answering the phone with, “Whassup, Jamester?”
Some benevolent force in the universe caused me to answer “Hello” like a normal person. And a few seconds later I heard something that changed my life.
“There’s a place for you here in Toronto.”
Suddenly, I was no longer slumming it in the only local program that had a last-minute spot for me, but flying out to a top-notch nursing program in a new city. In a different country.
I thought that I’d be easing into this whole back-to-school thing. It’s been five years since I took notes or studied for a quiz. Frankly, I was already terrified. And that was before I won a probationary scholarship that requires me to get good grades. If I do poorly, I’ll lose the funding.
So here I am in this tiny room in a cinderblock dormitory, with its two twin beds and two tiny desks. At twenty-six, I’m starting over.
I tuck my pillow into its pillowcase and lay it on the bed as my brother carries the last bag through the door. “This is it?” Jamie asks, smiling. “I thought we’d be here for hours.”
“Not so much.” All I’d brought to Toronto were two suitcases full of clothes, a box of reference books, my laptop, my teddy bear and an empty bank account. “I still appreciate the help,” I tell him. Moral support is just as important as arm strength today, and I’m not afraid to admit it.
“Your roommate sure is organized,” Jamie remarks, peeking at the books lined up on the other desk. There are at least twenty important-looking medical texts. “What’s radiopharmacology?”
“Uh…” I give a whole body shiver. “I’ll have to get back to you.”
He chuckles. “Let’s eat dinner. Wes is putting some more change in the meter. Want to scope out the falafel joint we saw two blocks down?”