“Are you the new roommate?” he says with his mouth full.
I shake my head. “No,” I mutter. “I’m a friend of Ridge’s.”
He cocks his head and looks at me suspiciously. “Ridge only has one friend,” the guy says. “Me.” He shoves another spoonful of cereal into his mouth and fails to back out of my personal space.
I push my palms into the couch and sit up so that he’s not right in my face. “Jealous?” I ask.
The guy continues to stare at me. “What’s his last name?”
“Whose last name?”
“Your very good friend, Ridge,” he says cockily.
I roll my eyes and drop my head against the back of the couch. I don’t know who the hell this guy is, but I really don’t care to compete over our levels of friendship with Ridge. “I don’t know Ridge’s last name. I don’t know his middle name. The only thing I know about him is that he’s got a mean right hook. And I’m only sleeping on your couch because my boyfriend of two years decided it would be fun to screw my roommate and I really didn’t want to stick around to watch.”
He nods, then swallows. “It’s Lawson. And he doesn’t have a middle name.”
As if the morning could get any worse, Bridgette appears from the hallway and walks into the kitchen.
The guy on the floor takes another spoonful of cereal and looks at Bridgette, finally breaking his uncomfortable lock on me. “Good morning, Bridgette,” he says with an odd, sarcastic tone to his voice. “Sleep well?”
She looks at him briefly and rolls her eyes. “Screw you, Warren,” she snaps.
He turns his gaze back to mine with a mischievous grin. “That’s Bridgette,” he whispers. “She pretends to hate me during the day, but at night, she loves me.”
I laugh, not really trusting that Bridgette is capable of loving anyone.
“Shit!” she yells, catching herself on the bar before she trips. “Jesus Christ!” She kicks one of my suitcases, still on the floor next to the bar. “Tell your little friend if she’s staying here, she needs to take her shit to her room!”
Warren makes a face as if he’s scared for me, then turns his head toward Bridgette. “What am I, your bitch? Tell her yourself.”
Bridgette points to the suitcase she almost tripped over. “GET . . . YOUR . . . SHIT . . . OUT . . . OF . . . THE . . . KITCHEN!” she says, before marching back to her bedroom.
Warren slowly turns his head back to face me and laughs. “Why does she think you’re deaf?”
I shrug. “I have no idea. She came to that conclusion last night, and I failed to correct her.”
He laughs again, much louder. “Oh, this is classic,” he says. “Do you have any pets?”
I shake my head.
“Are you opposed to porn?”
I don’t know how we just began playing Twenty Questions, but I answer him anyway. “Not opposed to the principle of porn but opposed to being featured in one.”
He nods, contemplating my answer for a beat too long. “Do you have annoying friends?”
I shake my head. “My best friend is a backstabbing whore, and I’m no longer speaking to her.”
“What are your showering habits?”
I laugh. “Once a day, with a skipped day every now and then. No more than fifteen minutes.”
“Do you cook?”
“Only when I’m hungry.”
“Do you clean up after yourself?”
“Probably better than you,” I say, taking in the fact that he’s used his shirt for a napkin no fewer than three times during this conversation.
“Do you listen to disco?”
“I’d rather eat barbed wire.”
“All right, then,” he says. “I guess you can stay.”
I pull my feet up and sit cross-legged. “I didn’t realize I was being interviewed.”
He glances at my suitcases, then back to me. “It’s obvious you need a place to stay, and we’ve got an empty room. If you don’t take it, Bridgette wants to move her sister in next month, and that’s the last thing Ridge and I need.”
“I can’t stay here,” I say.
“Why not? From the sound of it, you’re about to spend the day searching for an apartment anyway. What’s wrong with this one? You won’t even have to walk very far to get here.”
I want to say that Ridge is the problem. He’s been nice, but I think that might be the issue. I’ve been single for less than twenty-four hours, and I don’t like the fact that although I should have been consumed with nightmares about Hunter and Tori all night, instead, I had a slightly disturbing dream involving an extremely accommodating Ridge.