Page 37 of Dream House
I look back at her and find Stella giving her the evil eye.
“Really?”
The two women have a stare-off before Stella rolls her eyes.
“Yes.”
“What about the kitchen? Is it communal space?”
Stella nods slowly, but I can see she’s thinking. “I’m buying a second fridge for my tenants. They’ll each have a shelf and a drawer in it.”
Pen’s surprised look of appraisal confirms that Stella just came up with this idea.
“And designated pantry space,” Stella adds.
It’s my turn to nod. “And laundry?”
“Included,” she says without hesitation. “Everything on the first floor except our bedrooms is communal space.”
That doesn’t matter so much to me. I don’t really see myself hanging out with any of these people just for the hell of it. I need a place to sleep and study. I just need it now.
“Is there a lease? Or can I rent month-to-month?”
Stella’s eyes brighten. “You only need a month?”
I shrug. “For now.”
I have mixed feelings about her grin. It’s damn pretty, but it makes my stomach hurt. She doesn’t want me here, and she’s not trying to hide it.
“You can rent month-to-month.”
“Stella,” Pen hisses, and I know she’s come up with this on the fly too.
“I’ll take it,” I say. A month solves my immediate problem, and if I don’t like it here—and I’m betting I won’t—I can find something better almost immediately. “When can I move in?”
“If you have the money, right now.” She eyes me like she doubts I have the funds, and it pisses me off.
I don’t come from money. I come from New Iberia, and I sound like it. She thinks she knows just how to label me.Coonass.She’d never guess in a million years that I was one of four recipients for the National Geological Society’s full scholarships last year.
I reach into my back pocket for my wallet. “Cash okay?”
This throws her, and I love it. My smirk makes me feel better than I have in days.
“Y-yeah, cash is fine.”
Do I usually carry hundred dollar bills in my wallet? Hell, no. Again, I had to take the stuff I wasn’t about to leave behind in the apartment. These crisp bills represent the emergency stash I keep in my sock drawer.
Before I walked out, the money went into my wallet. The socks stayed there.
But as I count out the bills into Stella Mouton’s palm, I’m still smirking because she doesn’t need to know that. Judging by her parted lips, she’s having to rethink who I am. An oil exec’s brat? A drug dealer?
Know what? She can keep guessing.
I e-sign the lease she texts me and send it back.
“I’ll be back in an hour.”
ChapterSeven
