Roomies - Christina Lauren Page 0,45
dinner. I’m totally lying, and have my fingers crossed in my pockets hoping that I’m calling Jeff’s bluff. “Mom’s pretty chill—she’s not going to disown me . . . It just . . . it didn’t feel official yet, maybe because we haven’t had the immigration interview. Why worry them?”
“I told my parents,” Calvin says casually.
I squint up at him. This surprises me, given how fast everything happened. “When?”
He sips his drink, lifting it in thanks to Lulu. “Before the wedding.”
“They were fine with it?” I ask.
He nods. “They were thrilled.”
“You told them why we got married?”
“No,” he says, setting his drink down so he can fill his plate. “I told them I met a girl. It’s true enough, innit?”
It is true enough . . . but not a surprise to them how fast it happened? I study him for a second longer, at his easy calm, his constant smile. Maybe it’s that he’s a son instead of a daughter, or the oldest instead of the baby, or maybe he seems confident enough about every move that his family stopped questioning his decisions a long time ago.
The conversation shifts as we grab food and head back to the living room. I don’t have a dining table, let alone enough chairs, so we all find spots on the floor around the coffee table.
Everyone tucks in, and I get up to grab some supplies for the evening. The plan was for Jeff to be able to share information about me with Calvin, but since Lulu came along, I quickly devised a game based entirely on keeping Lulu from dominating the conversation: Lulu, Jeff, and Gene will each have a bag of poker chips. They have to bid to share a story in the category Calvin requests, and are free to outbid the others if they think their story is better. I haven’t known Gene that long, so I’m only giving him a bag of chips to be nice, but Lulu and Jeff have some pretty great—and some pretty terrible—stories about me, and they’re going to need to share the stage, so to speak.
After I explain the rules, we all look at Calvin.
He swallows a bite of dinner, wipes his mouth with his napkin, and then pulls a small notebook from his back pocket. “Can’t we start with some basics everyone can answer?” He pulls the cap off his pen with his teeth.
“I guess so.” I point to Lulu. “But you are limited to a minute per answer.”
She flops dramatically back onto the throw pillow behind her.
“So, first,” Calvin says, “I want to know what you admire most about Holland.”
“Besides her rack?” Lulu calls from the floor.
Jeff groans; Calvin grins, and then, without any subtlety whatsoever, checks out my chest. “All right, yeah. But besides that.”
My pulse riots in my throat.
“Her backbone.” Lulu pushes up onto an elbow to look at me. “She does what she says she’ll do, and doesn’t do things she doesn’t want to do.”
“Cheers. Good answer.” Calvin jots it down before turning to Gene, who shrugs.
“I mean, she’s a really good cook?”
Calvin laughs. “Are you asking me, or telling me?”
Jeff clears his throat and then coughs into his fist, looking at me. “That’s going to be hard. I admire so many things.”
“Aww, Jeffie.” I lean over and kiss him on the cheek.
“I think I admire that she, more than anyone I know, tries to be circumspect about her successes and failures, and who she is. She tries to see herself clearly—both kindly and critically—and I think she’s generally pretty spot-on.”
It’s one of the best, most unexpected compliments of my life, and I’m left momentarily speechless.
“She’s also pretty funny,” Jeff adds, and Lulu is already protesting.
“You only get one,” she says, but Calvin is quick to interject.
“Yeah, but she’s class,” he says with a cheeky smile in my direction. “So I’ll let that infraction slide.”
Calvin asks a couple more general ones—what’s their favorite thing to do with me, what sort of music do I listen to, what sort of movies do I hate, what do I always order at restaurants—before ending with “What bothers you about Holland?”
“Hey!” I protest.
He takes my hand, squeezing. “Come on. I think this is really interesting.”
Damn him. It’s impossible to deny him when think comes out as tink.
“She won’t take risks,” Lulu answers immediately.
“Hello?” I point to Calvin. “Risk, right here.”
She snorts. “I dunno. That’s a pretty fine-looking risk.”
Calvin leans a little closer to me.
Gene thinks for a minute before giving yet another shrug. “She,