The Notorious Flatmate

Hazel Pov

He had the kind of smile that should have come with a warning label.

Not friendly, exactly.

Not even trying that hard.

Just effortlessly, infuriatingly charming, the kind of smile that had probably gotten him out of speeding tickets and into rooms he had no business being in, deployed now, at nine in the morning, in my kitchen, like he hadn't just been caught holding my coaster up to the light.

I was aware, somewhere in the back of my mind, of exactly how I looked standing across from him.

Pink pajama shorts. An old, soft tank top I'd had since college. My hair shoved into a bun that had been neat approximately four hours ago and had since surrendered to gravity and general exhaustion.

Glasses too big for my face, because I hadn't bothered with contacts for a run, because I hadn't expected to come home to a stranger appraising my drinkware.

He looked like he'd stepped out of a magazine. He obviously did, since he is a well known model. I looked like I'd lost a fight with my own laundry hamper.

It felt, briefly, deeply unfair.

"You have a dog?"

"You have a cat?"

We said it at almost the same time, both of us with the same note of betrayed disbelief, like neither of us had thought to ask the obvious question before agreeing to share a home.

A small, scruffy dog came trotting around the corner from the hallway, tail going at a speed that suggested he hadn't yet learned the apartment had rules.

Mimi, who had been asleep on the back of the couch in the smug, undisturbed way she did everything, lifted her head at the sound of an unfamiliar set of paws and went very, very still.

The dog, oblivious, trotted straight toward her, nose working overtime.

"Coco's really friendly," Rowan offered, like that was supposed to be reassuring.

Mimi's ears flattened against her skull.

"Mimi is not," I said.

A low, furious hiss rolled out of her, sharp enough that even Coco froze mid step, head tilted, genuinely confused about what he'd done wrong, looking back at his owner for an explanation he clearly wasn't getting.

"He's never been hissed at before," Rowan said, sounding almost offended on the dog's behalf.

"He's very well liked."

"Well, he's about to learn humility."

I stood there in my own doorway, keys still in my hand, and felt the full, surreal weight of how fast all of this had happened settle over me at once.

Eighteen days. That was all it had taken, start to finish.

Ari had found a place with Theo almost immediately, the way people do when they already know exactly what they want.

She'd moved her side of the closet out in stages, a box one day, a lamp the next, like she couldn't bring herself to do it all in one go and leave the room looking too empty too fast.

Rowan Ashmore.

I'd met Rowan exactly once before today, for about four minutes, the day he came to see the room. Ari showed him around and I remembered being annoyed about it at the time, mostly because I'd been on a deadline and had to stop typing to let a stranger inspect my home.

I remembered thinking, with real confidence, that there was no way a man who looked like that would actually want this apartment. Normal square footage. No doorman. A neighborhood that was fine, not glamorous.

I'd assumed he'd take one polite lap around the place and disappear back into whatever world people like that actually lived in. He looked like someone who had a permanent suite at Château Marmont, not a color coded chore chart.

So I don't get it.

He'd said yes before he'd even finished the lap.

I still didn't understand why.

"Do you need help with anything?" I asked, mostly out of obligation, gesturing at the boxes.

"I'm good, thanks." He set the coaster down, careful, like he was suddenly recalculating exactly how much chaos he'd agreed to.

"I travel light. Relatively."

I eyed the four boxes, the duffel bag, and what appeared to be a separate, smaller bag exclusively for what I assumed were Coco's belongings, and decided not to comment on his definition of light.

"Okay," I said instead. "Norms. Quickly, since you're clearly capable of unpacking yourself."

He leaned against the counter like he had nowhere else to be, which, I supposed, he didn't.

"Rent's the first of the month, no exceptions, split down the middle," I said. "Quiet hours after ten. Shared spaces stay shared, which means clean, which means if you use it, you wash it. Chore chart's on the fridge, it's color coded, I'll explain the system later."

"There's a system."

"There's always a system."

"Of course there is." He glanced at the fridge like it had personally challenged him to a duel. "And the animals?"

"Separated when we're not home. At least until we know they're not going to kill each other."

"Mimi looks fully capable of killing him on purpose."

"She's discerning."

"That's one word for it."

He studied me for a second, something unreadable behind the easy smile.

"Anything else?"

"That's it for now."

"Great." He picked the coaster back up, turned it over once more, set it down in what I was fairly sure was the wrong stack on purpose.

"One more thing, actually," he turned to look at me with a hideous smile.

"What?"

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

"Excuse me?" I blinked at his incredulous question out of nowhere.

"It's a simple question."

"Why are you asking me that?"

"Because if you do, it's completely fine with me if he comes around. Stays over, whatever. I'm not going to be weird about it."

I stared at him, genuinely unsure for a second whether I'd misheard. "What?"

"I'm a social person," he said, like that explained anything at all. "My friends are going to come around. I figured it's only fair the same goes for you."

There was no version of that sentence that made sense to me, so I did the only reasonable thing available, which was to not engage with it.

I shrugged, picked my bag back up off the floor, and left him standing in the kitchen with my coasters and his deeply confusing opinions about my nonexistent love life.

I should have asked more questions about what he meant by social.

I found out a month later, when the bass started at nine and hadn't stopped by eleven.

I was at my desk, deadline glowing accusingly on my laptop screen, trying to finish a paragraph that had already died twice under the weight of whatever was happening in my own living room.

Voices. Laughter that didn't belong to anyone I knew. A bassline I could feel through the floorboards more than hear.

I rewrote the same sentence four times and deleted it four times.

Someone shrieked with laughter directly outside my bedroom door, followed by the unmistakable sound of a glass breaking and a chorus of voices yelling it's fine, it's fine with the specific confidence of people who would not be the ones cleaning it up.

I gave up entirely on the sentence, closed my laptop harder than necessary, and walked face first into my own bed, pulling the pillow down over both ears like that had ever once in human history solved a noise problem.

It did not solve this one either.

I lasted four more minutes before I sat up, pillow still clutched in one fist, and decided that quiet hours were, in fact, a rule, and rules existed for a reason.

I yanked my door open hard enough that it bounced off the wall behind it, and marched straight into the middle of my own living room, fully prepared to deliver a speech I'd already half written in my head.

I had not, however, prepared for the sight that greeted me.

****
A/N

Flatmates!!! I tell you. I wish to have enough to have my own flat and live a peaceful life.