My Ex’s Roommates: A Reverse Harem College Sports Romance (Ex Marks the Spot)
My Ex’s Roommates: Chapter 16

Casey and I ended up in the bathroom while I washed my face to take my makeup off. She watched me in the mirror and kept a big smile on her face. “You’re not what I expected.”

I ducked down to rinse my face. “Did you expect the same screaming lunatic that you saw the other day?”

She snorted and when I looked back at her, the face she was making finally allowed me to see the similarities between her and Carter. Besides both of them having fiery red hair and striking green eyes, she had the same deep smile parenthesis around her mouth and the same high cheekbones. “No, I expected the same perfect girl I saw with Jake. I saw you around campus plenty. You’re better off not remembering how to smile because I saw the plastic version you had before and it was flat.”

My mouth hung open as her words struck me. I straightened and patted my face dry as I thought of how to respond.

“Shit. I’m sorry. That was rude. I have a tendancy to put my foot in my mouth. I didn’t mean it to come off so mean. I was trying to say that the way you look happy now, smiling or not, is so much better than the smiles you gave while you were with Jake.” She winced. “Does that make it any better?”

I took a second to think about it and nodded. “I think so. It didn’t always feel plastic. Just so you know.”

“You don’t have to justify anything to me. I’m sorry that I upset you.” She looked down at her feet and then blew out a deep breath. “I need to work on my people skills.”

Shrugging, I turned to face her and waited until she looked up at me to talk. “I don’t think so. You cut through the bullshit. You said what you were thinking. If anything all of this mess with Jake taught me, it’s that when people are all smiles, all the time, things probably aren’t real. I was all smiles and I wasn’t happy. My friends were all smiles with me and now they want nothing to do with me and it’s clear we were never really friends. I’m learning to prefer someone stepping on my toes if it means I can trust them to be honest.”

She threw her arms around me and hugged me tight. “We’re going to be friends now. After hearing you cuss the guys out the other day, I knew it was meant to be. You have to teach me to go off like that. When I get angry, I just cry. It’s humiliating.”

I slowly lifted my arms and hugged her back. It was so different from being hugged by Dylan but nearly as good. I was just starving for human touch those days. “I was raised by my three big brothers. I learned early on that every time I cried they went into battle mode. I could’ve stumped my toe or failed a test and they’d be grabbing bats and readying themselves for war.”

“Ah. See, Carter and I have three older sisters. They went to war, alright, but it was with us. Whatever battles Carter and I tried to fight, they were squashed quickly by the sheer force of our big sisters. Kerry’s a lawyer. Miranda is an ER doctor. And Regan… Regan is the scariest one of them all. She’s in politics.”

I laughed as we walked back to my room. “I always wanted a sister. I never would’ve traded one of my brothers, though. They’re amazing.”

“You do not want a sister. Carter and I barely survived those bitches.” She said it with a big smile on her face so I knew she didn’t mean it. “So, um, I have something to admit.”

I settled on my bed and nervously watched her do the same. “What is it? I’m not sure I’m up for surprises after everything.”

“I’m a giant computer nerd.” She blurted it out so forcefully that I felt her breath from three feet away.

“Okay?”

“I look into things. I can’t help it. I looked you up after seeing you scream at the guys. I shouldn’t have invaded your privacy like that, I realize now. I’m sorry.” She winced hard. “Don’t hate me.”

A hot feeling washed over me. “What did you replace?”

“Everything about your dad and your brothers.”

Another thought occurred to me. “Did you tell the guys?”

She looked away. “I told Carter which is the same thing as telling the rest of them.”

Letting out a slow exhale, I leaned back against the headboard behind me. “Well. It makes sense now they they suddenly stopped being mean to me. They feel sorry for me.”

She let out a bark of laughter that startled me with just how loud and abrupt it was. “You think they’re being nicer because they feel sorry for you?”

I frowned. “Yeah, I do.”

“They want in your pants, girl. They don’t feel sorry for you. Or if they do, it’s in a different part of their brains, a part that exists entirely separately from the part that wants them to undress you and lick you like an ice cream cone.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t make me go into detail because one of them is my brother and that’s disgusting.”

I felt my face slowly heat up as her words sank in, one by one. By the time she finished talking, I was bright red. “Oh.”

She threw her head back and laughed until tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. “Oh, my god. You should see your face. You can’t be surprised. They look at you like they’re considering how fast they can get you naked. I’m pretty sure Silas got you pregnant with the way he was staring at you down there.”

I got up and hurried across the room to close the door so they guys wouldn’t hear anything. “You’re nuts.”

She wagged her brows. “So… Do you want them back?”

“You mean you couldn’t see me slowly redressing them with my eyes down there?” I snorted. “I just got out of a relationship. I don’t need to even think about men right now.”

“Who said anything about a relationship?” She grinned and patted the bed for me to sit back down. “You and I are going to get along fabulously.”