The Roommate Arrangement
Autor Samantha Markumen Limba Engleză Hardback – 27 ian 2026 – vârsta până la 17 ani
Blair might be a little type-A, but she never thought of herself as completely overbearing…that is, until her two best friends drop her from their housing arrangement a week before her pre-college summer coding program is about to start.
Blair knows if she switches to an on-campus dorm, her parents will make her give up her expensive sculpture class with her dream mentor in order to pay for it. Desperate, she agrees to be the fifth roommate to four off-campus sophomores who are also in a last-minute bind. But things get complicated when one of her new roommates turns out to be her brother’s best friend, Jamie Atwater.
Blair begs Jamie not to tell her brother about the new living arrangement. Her brother would go straight to their parents, who would definitely not approve, and all her plans would fall apart. So they strike a deal: she’ll help him finish coding the app he’s building if he promises to keep her secret.
Spending more time together shouldn’t be a problem. Sure, Jamie has a new haircut, a mysterious tattoo, and a year’s worth of earned muscle, but it’s not like Blair is noticing. After all, they’re only roommates, right?
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781665973076
ISBN-10: 1665973072
Pagini: 352
Dimensiuni: 142 x 211 x 33 mm
Greutate: 0.41 kg
Editura: Margaret K. McElderry Books
ISBN-10: 1665973072
Pagini: 352
Dimensiuni: 142 x 211 x 33 mm
Greutate: 0.41 kg
Editura: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Notă biografică
Samantha Markum is the USA TODAY bestselling author of Love, Off the Record; This May End Badly; and You Wouldn’t Dare. She was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, where she got her great literary start writing Newsies fan fiction in middle school. When she’s not writing, she can be found playing cozy video games, attempting to revive her half-dead house plants, and getting in bed before sunset. When she is writing, you can find her staring at the wall in search of inspiration. Visit her at SamanthaMarkum.com.
Extras
Chapter OneOne ![]()
YOU NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST brush with a musty, crusty athletic sock. At this point, I’m so well-acquainted, I have only myself to blame for thinking I was safe reaching thoughtlessly into the back pocket of Starr’s passenger seat, just because soccer season ended a month ago.
“Oh, gross,” I say as I pull my hand out, a pair of stiff, pungent soccer socks threaded between my fingers. “God, Starr, when are these even from?” I toss the socks across the back seat, where they land on the floor.
Starr sighs, flicking her blond ringlets over one shoulder. “Who cares? It’s my car.”
“It’s objectively disgusting.”
I look to Leni for confirmation, but she turns her head toward the window, oddly quiet. Her long, dark hair is down, frizzing around her freckled face, making it impossible to see her expression.
I stick my hand into the back pocket of the seat again, unearthing the travel pack of tissues I stashed there the last time I was in Starr’s car. My allergies are at an all-time high now that summer is here. After two hours at a party in an old, overgrown paddock, I’m sniffly, and my arms and legs are itchy, skin streaked with red scratch marks. I need an ice pack and a hot shower, so I’m almost glad when we pass through the unmanned gate into my neighborhood of cookie-cutter houses. In one week, I won’t have to look at these Stepford houses for months. But tonight I’m relieved to be home.
“Speaking of ‘ew,’ he wasn’t supposed to be back for two more days,” I say when Starr pulls into my driveway behind the crappy silver Honda that belongs to my older brother, Sawyer. The trunk is latched with a bungee cord; one side mirror hangs by the last desperate threads of decaying duct tape, and the hood is a completely different color from the rest of the car. Our parents hate the eyesore, but Sawyer refused to let them buy him something parent-approved, acquiring this death trap with his own money two years ago. The HOA has delivered us several notices about not parking the beater in the driveway, where anyone might have to look at it.
I glance at Starr for a commiserating eye roll, but she doesn’t move, and neither does Leni. That’s when I know something is really off. They’ve both been absurdly quiet tonight, even at the party with half our graduating senior class. Normally Starr would promise to drive and then get wasted, and I’d end up taking us home in her car. But she didn’t have a single sip of beer all night; neither of them did. We stood awkwardly in that field, as sober as three undercover cops and looking just as obvious, until Starr finally grabbed Leni’s arm and announced we were leaving.
“Thanks for driving,” I say to Starr when no one speaks. I slide toward the door. Starr is looking at Leni, who continues to stare out the window.
Starr lets out a small, frustrated sound and twists around to look at me. “Blair,” she says, and I stop with my hand on the door. “I have something to say.”
“O… kay? Is this about the party? I only wasn’t drinking because I thought you’d want to—”
“It’s not about the party. It’s about the house.”
My tense shoulders droop in confusion. “What?”
“Leni and I have been talking, and…” She glances at Leni, then grits her teeth. “We don’t know if the three of us should move in together.”
I turn to stare at Leni. In the window’s reflection, I see her pouty mouth, her watery eyes. She sniffles. Leni is an easy crier—she’s set off by car commercials, dog videos, singing competition shows, and when other people cry about anything. She’s soft in ways Starr and I are not. Starr is all sharp points and skepticism. I’m blunted edges and logic.
Which is why this moment is not making sense to me. We’re moving in a week. Leni’s parents bought a house by the school—an investment property—that they’re letting us rent while we’re in college. It’s two blocks from campus, and when we went to see it three months ago, we’d squealed over the porch swing, the flower boxes, and the sunroom where Leni said she’d spend her time writing, and Starr would nap, and I would work on my miniatures when I had free time.
What could have changed since then?
“What…?” I trail off, confused. “What are you talking about?”
Leni sniffles again, and Starr’s expression softens slightly. Starr has always felt protective of Leni—of us both. She fell into the role easily back in middle school, when we all met. Leni was bullied relentlessly for being a crybaby, and I was bullied for being fat, and Starr was bullied for being poor, but bullying Starr was a bad idea, because she bit back harder, faster, fiercer, and she always, always drew blood.
Now that typical Starr sureness seeps into her expression as she faces me again. She clears her throat. “We don’t want it to ruin our friendship. That’s why we’re doing this now. Sometimes people just… aren’t meant to live together.”
“But—but we haven’t even lived together yet. What…?”
“And we don’t want to move in together and have it mess things up for us later, when we’re stuck together.”
“So Leni’s moving into the house, and we’re…?” I look from Starr to Leni and back. “Where are you going to live?”
Starr winces. “I’m going to live in the house. We’re… I think this came out wrong. Leni and I think it would be better if you didn’t move into the house with us.”
I stare at her, my heart picking up speed as what she’s saying doesn’t just sink in—it whacks me across the face with the force of a major-league swing. I am jarred into another plane of the multiverse, ears ringing, as my best friends tell me that our dream house-share, where we were supposed to spend the next four years of college bliss together, is no longer mine.
They don’t want me.
“Look, we love you. You’re our best friend. And we always knew you were… kind of a neat freak. But we’re worried that living together might make us hate each other. We don’t want to be micromanaged by you.”
“I’m not micromanaging—”
Starr cuts me off with a pointed look toward the back seat, her green eyes lasered on the socks I tossed away.
“That wasn’t—Come on, Starr, it’s gross! Soccer ended over a month ago!”
“This is exactly what I mean,” she says. “I don’t care about dirty socks. Leni doesn’t either. And if we all move in together, you’ll end up resenting us for being messy, and we’ll resent you for wanting us to keep things pristine—”
“I wouldn’t!”
Starr keeps going, not even a hitch in her words now. “—and we’ll end up hating each other. We don’t want that, right?” She looks at Leni again, her eyes begging for backup, but Leni just continues to cry.
“We wanted to give you time to find a new place,” Starr says when Leni doesn’t jump in. “You’ll be able to get a spot in the dorms or a campus-affiliated apartment—”
I would laugh if my chest weren’t collapsing in on itself. My parents will never, ever go for an apartment. It took seven months of me begging for them to agree to let me live with Starr and Leni, and only because Leni’s parents own the house and promised extremely reasonable rent.
Which leaves the dorms. Three times what I was supposed to pay at the house, easily. It’s not that we can’t afford it, but I know the first superfluous cost to be cut from the budget will be the one thing I’ve been looking forward to—sculpting classes at Stone & Spiral, Deonne Tran’s studio near campus.
Dread sweeps through me, numbing everything in its path.
“Okay,” I say at last, dragging my gaze to Leni, willing her to look at me. But Leni refuses to turn around even now. “If that’s what you want.”
“We think this is the best option.” Starr’s smile is forced and overly bright, like this will smooth everything over. “We’ll still hang out! We’ll see each other all the time.”
I don’t respond, my throat closing against the threat of tears. As I climb out of the car and start up the driveway, neither of them says a word to stop me.
Goose meets me at the front door, his nails clicking against the hardwood, tail whipping hard. He sniffs at my shoes, then my shorts, inhaling all the interesting scents of the outside world—the gas station, the paddock, and Starr’s car, which I’m pretty sure has never been cleaned and is an amalgamation of every smell that’s ever wafted inside.
I reach down to pet him but pause as that thought hits me. Is that why they find me so unbearable? Because I can’t stand the thought of letting the stench of old hot dogs and sweaty soccer uniforms and rotting iced coffees stew in my car? Because I’ve spent the last four years picking up after them?
I sit on the floor in the entryway and hug Goose into my lap, pressing my face into the tan fur at his neck. Tears burn at the backs of my eyelids.
As I sniffle, the camera bell trills, announcing that someone is nearing the front door. My heart gives a leap as I twist around to peer out one of the sidelights. Maybe it’s Leni and Starr coming back to tell me this was all a big misunderstanding. Obviously they just meant—they meant…
I sag, rolling my eyes as I reach one hand up to fling the door open. Goose scrabbles in my hold, panting in excitement as our guest is revealed. Not my friends, returning to apologize and take me back, but the looming figure that has darkened our doorstep for the better part of a decade. One I was free of for a single blessed year once he and my brother went off to separate colleges in separate cities, hours from each other for the first time in nearly a decade.
With my brother coming home today, I shouldn’t be surprised.
“What, are you holding him hostage?” Jamie Atwater asks, looking down his nose at me from his lofty position on our front porch. As he crouches, he says, in a softer voice he reserves strictly for animals, “Hey, buddy.”
Goose wriggles out of my hold to paw at Jamie’s knees and snuffle into his shirt, snorting happily.
I needed to be comforted, but sure. This is fine.
“Goose!” my brother calls as he rounds the corner to the entryway. “Gooseter! Let the man breathe.”
I scowl as Goose turns and runs to my brother. Sawyer bends, catching Goose and lifting him into his arms like a giant sixty-pound baby.
Jamie steps inside, shutting the door behind him. I quickly stand, bringing myself up to my full five feet ten inches so we’re at eye level. As I do, I take stock of the changes from the year he’s spent at Central Florida State University in Orlando—the very same school I’m bound for next week, whether I’ve got somewhere to live there or not.
His unruly hair, always worn a little long, has been shorn short, and he looks thinner yet somehow more muscular, like every soft part of him has been carved away. His jaw and cheekbones, always defined, are now sharp enough to draw blood.
The rest of him seems unchanged—the hooded hazel eyes and flat mouth with its fuller lower lip, which have always given him a slightly judging air. Even when we were younger, Jamie seemed like he was assessing every room he walked into. It pairs nicely with his patronizing tone as he says, “Hi, Blair.”
“Hello, Jamie,” I reply, aiming for equally haughty, if not more so.
Sawyer, who’s drifted closer, eyes me. “Ew, are you crying?”
My haughtiness falls away in an instant. “No! I have allergies!” I cannot show any sign of weakness in front of my brother. He’s a scavenger—if he senses the rot of my sadness, he’ll dive in for a meal like a vulture feasting on a flattened squirrel. “Maybe it’s because you’re back. I could probably smell your body spray all the way from the Gas ’n’ Go.”
Sawyer sets Goose down and gives his armpit an exaggerated sniff. “Smells like masculinity.”
“Toxic masculinity,” I reply. “And toxic BO. What a combination. No wonder your romantic prospects are beating down our door. Oh wait, that was just Jamie—unless there’s someone else out here?” I make a big show of swinging the front door open again, and it pops Jamie in the back. He stumbles forward with a glare in my direction as I poke my head out, pretending to look around, prompting another chime from the motion-sensitive doorbell.
“Nope, just a raccoon,” I say as I shut the door again, glancing in Jamie’s direction. “I’m assuming you were both lured in by the stench of eau de garbáge?”
Having borne witness to many, many Milligan sibling spats, Jamie wisely chooses not to wade in.
“Whatever, virgin,” Sawyer says in that dismissive older-brother voice of his.
I can’t even look at Jamie. Despite not caring what he thinks of me or my sex life—obviously!—my cheeks still flame. But trying to argue would just be embarrassing—Actually, Sawyer, I’ve had a lot of sex! With my real live boyfriend! Kyle!—and Kyle isn’t even my boyfriend anymore, so I settle for flipping him off. He flips me off back, and we stand like that for a long time, each waiting for the other to give up. As always with my brother, it is a battle of wills, not strength.
“You’re such a waste of time,” I say to Sawyer, still flipping my middle finger at him as I start up the stairs.
“Yeah, I can totally tell,” Sawyer replies.
I’m halfway up, middle finger held over the banister, when a deep voice says from above, “Sawyer.”
We all look up. Our stepdad, Victor, stands on the landing that overlooks the entryway. Even with bedhead, in an old Gators shirt and plaid pajama pants, Victor sucks all the air out of the room. “It’s a weeknight,” he says. “Your mother and I have work in the morning. All I’m hearing is the bell chirping over and over again.”
“That wasn’t me,” Sawyer says. “It was Blair.”
I backtrack down the stairs, glancing at Jamie. As much as I don’t want to involve myself here, I also don’t want Jamie to witness me throwing my brother to the wolves. “He’s right. That was me. Sorry.”
Victor keeps his eyes on my brother. “I still think it’s a little late for guests.”
I close my mouth, because I don’t want to piss him off. Victor rarely gets angry with me the way he does with Sawyer—theirs is an extremely contentious relationship—but sometimes if I venture too close to one of their spats, I can get caught in the crosshairs by accident. I’m not willing to risk it after everything else that’s happened tonight.
“Sorry, sir,” Jamie says stiffly at the same time that Sawyer answers, “Fine. Then we’ll leave.”
Mom, who’s just come up behind Victor, says, “Sawyer,” in the semi-soothing voice she uses to smooth over these fights.
“It’s late,” Victor says, decidedly not soothing.
“I think I’m a little old for curfews,” Sawyer replies.
“Not if you’re living in our house,” says Victor.
“Then it’s a good thing I don’t anymore.”
I roll my eyes. One year in the dorms that our parents are paying for, and suddenly he’s Mr. Independent? Please.
“Goose,” I whisper, even knowing it’s fruitless. Goose is pressed protectively against my brother’s legs, and he won’t abandon Sawyer until the front door shuts behind him.
And it will shut. Sawyer has never been cowed by Victor, let alone the My house, my rules threat. He’s got a spine of steel. Something else that he sucked out of the gene pool before I even had a chance.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Victor demands as Sawyer grabs his keys from the dish by the door.
My brother ignores him, shooting me a withering look as he mutters, “Thanks for the backup, as always.”
I feel a momentary flash of guilt, but what am I supposed to do? Sawyer’s been back from Tallahassee all of, what, five hours? And he’s already found a way to get under Victor’s skin. I don’t need that extra stress on my night, especially not when we have a few more days of this before Sawyer heads back to school. He might fight our parents on everything, but when they insisted we both do summer session every year—getting our credits in faster, graduating as quickly as possible—Sawyer accepted this without argument. A shocking twist from the guy whose favorite hobby is antagonizing others.
Case in point: As Sawyer flings the door open and steps out, the doorbell trills again like a middle finger pointed straight at Victor.
“Bye, Blair,” Jamie says to me, direct as always.
“Goodbye, Jamie.” As he turns to follow Sawyer, I lean out the front door and add, “Hey, if you see me on campus, do me a favor? Pretend you don’t know me.”
Jamie laughs, quirking a brow at me as he ambles backward down the front walk. “You first.”
YOU NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST brush with a musty, crusty athletic sock. At this point, I’m so well-acquainted, I have only myself to blame for thinking I was safe reaching thoughtlessly into the back pocket of Starr’s passenger seat, just because soccer season ended a month ago.
“Oh, gross,” I say as I pull my hand out, a pair of stiff, pungent soccer socks threaded between my fingers. “God, Starr, when are these even from?” I toss the socks across the back seat, where they land on the floor.
Starr sighs, flicking her blond ringlets over one shoulder. “Who cares? It’s my car.”
“It’s objectively disgusting.”
I look to Leni for confirmation, but she turns her head toward the window, oddly quiet. Her long, dark hair is down, frizzing around her freckled face, making it impossible to see her expression.
I stick my hand into the back pocket of the seat again, unearthing the travel pack of tissues I stashed there the last time I was in Starr’s car. My allergies are at an all-time high now that summer is here. After two hours at a party in an old, overgrown paddock, I’m sniffly, and my arms and legs are itchy, skin streaked with red scratch marks. I need an ice pack and a hot shower, so I’m almost glad when we pass through the unmanned gate into my neighborhood of cookie-cutter houses. In one week, I won’t have to look at these Stepford houses for months. But tonight I’m relieved to be home.
“Speaking of ‘ew,’ he wasn’t supposed to be back for two more days,” I say when Starr pulls into my driveway behind the crappy silver Honda that belongs to my older brother, Sawyer. The trunk is latched with a bungee cord; one side mirror hangs by the last desperate threads of decaying duct tape, and the hood is a completely different color from the rest of the car. Our parents hate the eyesore, but Sawyer refused to let them buy him something parent-approved, acquiring this death trap with his own money two years ago. The HOA has delivered us several notices about not parking the beater in the driveway, where anyone might have to look at it.
I glance at Starr for a commiserating eye roll, but she doesn’t move, and neither does Leni. That’s when I know something is really off. They’ve both been absurdly quiet tonight, even at the party with half our graduating senior class. Normally Starr would promise to drive and then get wasted, and I’d end up taking us home in her car. But she didn’t have a single sip of beer all night; neither of them did. We stood awkwardly in that field, as sober as three undercover cops and looking just as obvious, until Starr finally grabbed Leni’s arm and announced we were leaving.
“Thanks for driving,” I say to Starr when no one speaks. I slide toward the door. Starr is looking at Leni, who continues to stare out the window.
Starr lets out a small, frustrated sound and twists around to look at me. “Blair,” she says, and I stop with my hand on the door. “I have something to say.”
“O… kay? Is this about the party? I only wasn’t drinking because I thought you’d want to—”
“It’s not about the party. It’s about the house.”
My tense shoulders droop in confusion. “What?”
“Leni and I have been talking, and…” She glances at Leni, then grits her teeth. “We don’t know if the three of us should move in together.”
I turn to stare at Leni. In the window’s reflection, I see her pouty mouth, her watery eyes. She sniffles. Leni is an easy crier—she’s set off by car commercials, dog videos, singing competition shows, and when other people cry about anything. She’s soft in ways Starr and I are not. Starr is all sharp points and skepticism. I’m blunted edges and logic.
Which is why this moment is not making sense to me. We’re moving in a week. Leni’s parents bought a house by the school—an investment property—that they’re letting us rent while we’re in college. It’s two blocks from campus, and when we went to see it three months ago, we’d squealed over the porch swing, the flower boxes, and the sunroom where Leni said she’d spend her time writing, and Starr would nap, and I would work on my miniatures when I had free time.
What could have changed since then?
“What…?” I trail off, confused. “What are you talking about?”
Leni sniffles again, and Starr’s expression softens slightly. Starr has always felt protective of Leni—of us both. She fell into the role easily back in middle school, when we all met. Leni was bullied relentlessly for being a crybaby, and I was bullied for being fat, and Starr was bullied for being poor, but bullying Starr was a bad idea, because she bit back harder, faster, fiercer, and she always, always drew blood.
Now that typical Starr sureness seeps into her expression as she faces me again. She clears her throat. “We don’t want it to ruin our friendship. That’s why we’re doing this now. Sometimes people just… aren’t meant to live together.”
“But—but we haven’t even lived together yet. What…?”
“And we don’t want to move in together and have it mess things up for us later, when we’re stuck together.”
“So Leni’s moving into the house, and we’re…?” I look from Starr to Leni and back. “Where are you going to live?”
Starr winces. “I’m going to live in the house. We’re… I think this came out wrong. Leni and I think it would be better if you didn’t move into the house with us.”
I stare at her, my heart picking up speed as what she’s saying doesn’t just sink in—it whacks me across the face with the force of a major-league swing. I am jarred into another plane of the multiverse, ears ringing, as my best friends tell me that our dream house-share, where we were supposed to spend the next four years of college bliss together, is no longer mine.
They don’t want me.
“Look, we love you. You’re our best friend. And we always knew you were… kind of a neat freak. But we’re worried that living together might make us hate each other. We don’t want to be micromanaged by you.”
“I’m not micromanaging—”
Starr cuts me off with a pointed look toward the back seat, her green eyes lasered on the socks I tossed away.
“That wasn’t—Come on, Starr, it’s gross! Soccer ended over a month ago!”
“This is exactly what I mean,” she says. “I don’t care about dirty socks. Leni doesn’t either. And if we all move in together, you’ll end up resenting us for being messy, and we’ll resent you for wanting us to keep things pristine—”
“I wouldn’t!”
Starr keeps going, not even a hitch in her words now. “—and we’ll end up hating each other. We don’t want that, right?” She looks at Leni again, her eyes begging for backup, but Leni just continues to cry.
“We wanted to give you time to find a new place,” Starr says when Leni doesn’t jump in. “You’ll be able to get a spot in the dorms or a campus-affiliated apartment—”
I would laugh if my chest weren’t collapsing in on itself. My parents will never, ever go for an apartment. It took seven months of me begging for them to agree to let me live with Starr and Leni, and only because Leni’s parents own the house and promised extremely reasonable rent.
Which leaves the dorms. Three times what I was supposed to pay at the house, easily. It’s not that we can’t afford it, but I know the first superfluous cost to be cut from the budget will be the one thing I’ve been looking forward to—sculpting classes at Stone & Spiral, Deonne Tran’s studio near campus.
Dread sweeps through me, numbing everything in its path.
“Okay,” I say at last, dragging my gaze to Leni, willing her to look at me. But Leni refuses to turn around even now. “If that’s what you want.”
“We think this is the best option.” Starr’s smile is forced and overly bright, like this will smooth everything over. “We’ll still hang out! We’ll see each other all the time.”
I don’t respond, my throat closing against the threat of tears. As I climb out of the car and start up the driveway, neither of them says a word to stop me.
Goose meets me at the front door, his nails clicking against the hardwood, tail whipping hard. He sniffs at my shoes, then my shorts, inhaling all the interesting scents of the outside world—the gas station, the paddock, and Starr’s car, which I’m pretty sure has never been cleaned and is an amalgamation of every smell that’s ever wafted inside.
I reach down to pet him but pause as that thought hits me. Is that why they find me so unbearable? Because I can’t stand the thought of letting the stench of old hot dogs and sweaty soccer uniforms and rotting iced coffees stew in my car? Because I’ve spent the last four years picking up after them?
I sit on the floor in the entryway and hug Goose into my lap, pressing my face into the tan fur at his neck. Tears burn at the backs of my eyelids.
As I sniffle, the camera bell trills, announcing that someone is nearing the front door. My heart gives a leap as I twist around to peer out one of the sidelights. Maybe it’s Leni and Starr coming back to tell me this was all a big misunderstanding. Obviously they just meant—they meant…
I sag, rolling my eyes as I reach one hand up to fling the door open. Goose scrabbles in my hold, panting in excitement as our guest is revealed. Not my friends, returning to apologize and take me back, but the looming figure that has darkened our doorstep for the better part of a decade. One I was free of for a single blessed year once he and my brother went off to separate colleges in separate cities, hours from each other for the first time in nearly a decade.
With my brother coming home today, I shouldn’t be surprised.
“What, are you holding him hostage?” Jamie Atwater asks, looking down his nose at me from his lofty position on our front porch. As he crouches, he says, in a softer voice he reserves strictly for animals, “Hey, buddy.”
Goose wriggles out of my hold to paw at Jamie’s knees and snuffle into his shirt, snorting happily.
I needed to be comforted, but sure. This is fine.
“Goose!” my brother calls as he rounds the corner to the entryway. “Gooseter! Let the man breathe.”
I scowl as Goose turns and runs to my brother. Sawyer bends, catching Goose and lifting him into his arms like a giant sixty-pound baby.
Jamie steps inside, shutting the door behind him. I quickly stand, bringing myself up to my full five feet ten inches so we’re at eye level. As I do, I take stock of the changes from the year he’s spent at Central Florida State University in Orlando—the very same school I’m bound for next week, whether I’ve got somewhere to live there or not.
His unruly hair, always worn a little long, has been shorn short, and he looks thinner yet somehow more muscular, like every soft part of him has been carved away. His jaw and cheekbones, always defined, are now sharp enough to draw blood.
The rest of him seems unchanged—the hooded hazel eyes and flat mouth with its fuller lower lip, which have always given him a slightly judging air. Even when we were younger, Jamie seemed like he was assessing every room he walked into. It pairs nicely with his patronizing tone as he says, “Hi, Blair.”
“Hello, Jamie,” I reply, aiming for equally haughty, if not more so.
Sawyer, who’s drifted closer, eyes me. “Ew, are you crying?”
My haughtiness falls away in an instant. “No! I have allergies!” I cannot show any sign of weakness in front of my brother. He’s a scavenger—if he senses the rot of my sadness, he’ll dive in for a meal like a vulture feasting on a flattened squirrel. “Maybe it’s because you’re back. I could probably smell your body spray all the way from the Gas ’n’ Go.”
Sawyer sets Goose down and gives his armpit an exaggerated sniff. “Smells like masculinity.”
“Toxic masculinity,” I reply. “And toxic BO. What a combination. No wonder your romantic prospects are beating down our door. Oh wait, that was just Jamie—unless there’s someone else out here?” I make a big show of swinging the front door open again, and it pops Jamie in the back. He stumbles forward with a glare in my direction as I poke my head out, pretending to look around, prompting another chime from the motion-sensitive doorbell.
“Nope, just a raccoon,” I say as I shut the door again, glancing in Jamie’s direction. “I’m assuming you were both lured in by the stench of eau de garbáge?”
Having borne witness to many, many Milligan sibling spats, Jamie wisely chooses not to wade in.
“Whatever, virgin,” Sawyer says in that dismissive older-brother voice of his.
I can’t even look at Jamie. Despite not caring what he thinks of me or my sex life—obviously!—my cheeks still flame. But trying to argue would just be embarrassing—Actually, Sawyer, I’ve had a lot of sex! With my real live boyfriend! Kyle!—and Kyle isn’t even my boyfriend anymore, so I settle for flipping him off. He flips me off back, and we stand like that for a long time, each waiting for the other to give up. As always with my brother, it is a battle of wills, not strength.
“You’re such a waste of time,” I say to Sawyer, still flipping my middle finger at him as I start up the stairs.
“Yeah, I can totally tell,” Sawyer replies.
I’m halfway up, middle finger held over the banister, when a deep voice says from above, “Sawyer.”
We all look up. Our stepdad, Victor, stands on the landing that overlooks the entryway. Even with bedhead, in an old Gators shirt and plaid pajama pants, Victor sucks all the air out of the room. “It’s a weeknight,” he says. “Your mother and I have work in the morning. All I’m hearing is the bell chirping over and over again.”
“That wasn’t me,” Sawyer says. “It was Blair.”
I backtrack down the stairs, glancing at Jamie. As much as I don’t want to involve myself here, I also don’t want Jamie to witness me throwing my brother to the wolves. “He’s right. That was me. Sorry.”
Victor keeps his eyes on my brother. “I still think it’s a little late for guests.”
I close my mouth, because I don’t want to piss him off. Victor rarely gets angry with me the way he does with Sawyer—theirs is an extremely contentious relationship—but sometimes if I venture too close to one of their spats, I can get caught in the crosshairs by accident. I’m not willing to risk it after everything else that’s happened tonight.
“Sorry, sir,” Jamie says stiffly at the same time that Sawyer answers, “Fine. Then we’ll leave.”
Mom, who’s just come up behind Victor, says, “Sawyer,” in the semi-soothing voice she uses to smooth over these fights.
“It’s late,” Victor says, decidedly not soothing.
“I think I’m a little old for curfews,” Sawyer replies.
“Not if you’re living in our house,” says Victor.
“Then it’s a good thing I don’t anymore.”
I roll my eyes. One year in the dorms that our parents are paying for, and suddenly he’s Mr. Independent? Please.
“Goose,” I whisper, even knowing it’s fruitless. Goose is pressed protectively against my brother’s legs, and he won’t abandon Sawyer until the front door shuts behind him.
And it will shut. Sawyer has never been cowed by Victor, let alone the My house, my rules threat. He’s got a spine of steel. Something else that he sucked out of the gene pool before I even had a chance.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Victor demands as Sawyer grabs his keys from the dish by the door.
My brother ignores him, shooting me a withering look as he mutters, “Thanks for the backup, as always.”
I feel a momentary flash of guilt, but what am I supposed to do? Sawyer’s been back from Tallahassee all of, what, five hours? And he’s already found a way to get under Victor’s skin. I don’t need that extra stress on my night, especially not when we have a few more days of this before Sawyer heads back to school. He might fight our parents on everything, but when they insisted we both do summer session every year—getting our credits in faster, graduating as quickly as possible—Sawyer accepted this without argument. A shocking twist from the guy whose favorite hobby is antagonizing others.
Case in point: As Sawyer flings the door open and steps out, the doorbell trills again like a middle finger pointed straight at Victor.
“Bye, Blair,” Jamie says to me, direct as always.
“Goodbye, Jamie.” As he turns to follow Sawyer, I lean out the front door and add, “Hey, if you see me on campus, do me a favor? Pretend you don’t know me.”
Jamie laughs, quirking a brow at me as he ambles backward down the front walk. “You first.”
Recenzii
“The Roommate Arrangement made all my enemies-to-lovers dreams come true. Compelling characters unite around tense family and friend situations, and the found family vibes are simply spectacular. A beautiful, dynamic read.”
“With sparkling banter, sizzling chemistry, and a deeply moving coming of age story at its core, The Roommate Arrangement is a perfect YA romance. Samantha Markum’s captivating voice had me giggling, tearing up, and swooning until the very last page.”
"I tore through this without pausing for breath! Nerdy, charming, delightful, and swoon-worthy, THE ROOMMATE ARRANGEMENT has it all: a dreamy love interest, a heroine worth rooting for, and the banter-iest found family around. Samantha Markum served up an absolute treat."
"Equal parts funny, emotionally charged, and heartwarming, this is a feel-good story about finding your inner strength and pursuing your passions that’s well-paced and strongly characterized. The cast members’ endearing bonds liven the world and enhance the story’s relatability...A sweet enemies-to-lovers romance with a healthy dose of empowerment."
"Budding romance provides frothy, carefree fun, while earnest prose depicts Blair’s struggle to balance her secret passion for art with her parents’ expectations."
"Markum captures the liminal space between high school and college with nuance and authenticity. Blair is a funny, snarky, and quick-witted protagonist whose internal tug-of-war between pleasing her parents and forging her own path will resonate with many teens."
“With sparkling banter, sizzling chemistry, and a deeply moving coming of age story at its core, The Roommate Arrangement is a perfect YA romance. Samantha Markum’s captivating voice had me giggling, tearing up, and swooning until the very last page.”
"I tore through this without pausing for breath! Nerdy, charming, delightful, and swoon-worthy, THE ROOMMATE ARRANGEMENT has it all: a dreamy love interest, a heroine worth rooting for, and the banter-iest found family around. Samantha Markum served up an absolute treat."
"Equal parts funny, emotionally charged, and heartwarming, this is a feel-good story about finding your inner strength and pursuing your passions that’s well-paced and strongly characterized. The cast members’ endearing bonds liven the world and enhance the story’s relatability...A sweet enemies-to-lovers romance with a healthy dose of empowerment."
"Budding romance provides frothy, carefree fun, while earnest prose depicts Blair’s struggle to balance her secret passion for art with her parents’ expectations."
"Markum captures the liminal space between high school and college with nuance and authenticity. Blair is a funny, snarky, and quick-witted protagonist whose internal tug-of-war between pleasing her parents and forging her own path will resonate with many teens."
Descriere
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A college freshman accidentally becomes roommates with her brother's best friend in this hilarious new rom-com from bestselling author Samantha Markum, perfect for fans of Lynn Painter.
A college freshman accidentally becomes roommates with her brother's best friend in this hilarious new rom-com from bestselling author Samantha Markum, perfect for fans of Lynn Painter.