5 Our Home

HUNTER

I loved watching her. The way she carried herself, the way her face lit up when she talked… hell, I even liked her smile.

But nothing was more attractive to me than her laugh.

The kitchen was still a mess, but right now it was warm and clean and well lit. After another few hours of scrubbing things down and tightening some screws here and there, there was room enough for the four of us to sit down around the old linoleum table and split a pizza.

"Thanks for the dinner invite," Lily smiled, helping herself to a second piece. "You guys really didn't have to."

"Well you looked hungry," Brandon smirked. "And I wouldn't exactly call this 'dinner'."

"I am hungry," she said. "Or rather, I was. I haven't eaten since—"

"The pieces of granola we caught you picking out of your hair?"

Lily blushed, and she suddenly looked even cuter. She elbowed Brandon just as he got up to hit the fridge again.

"One of the many perils of eating on the go," she explained.

"That's not eating," Colin countered. He wagged a finger in her direction. "Come by again once we've got everything set up in here. I'll make you a real dinner."

She laughed casually, probably not realizing how serious my fraternity brother actually was. Back at Omega Alpha, he'd done more than his fair share of the cooking. He could whip up some mean grub.

"Sorry about the appliances," she said, glancing around. "I'll talk to the University's Housing Department tomorrow. See if there's enough wiggle room in the budget for some new ones."

"Even second-hand ones would be an improvement," Brandon noted.

"We could probably sell these on the Antique Roadshow," Colin quipped. "Raise some money."

She grinned again, and I knew I was in trouble. There was definitely something about her. Something that spoke to me on levels I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Shit.

She was a genuinely nice person for one, but she also had a very no-bullshit way about her. In other words, she said what she meant and she meant what she said. I liked that. Probably a little more than I wanted to admit.

And she was beautiful too. High cheekbones, full lips, and a shrewd intelligence behind her emerald eyes. The whole time she'd been here, she'd listened more than she talked. She asked more questions than she answered. I also noticed she stopped at two beers, not three.

She was in control. I liked that too.

Enough already. Forget about it.

And how old was she? Twenty four? Twenty six? Not much older than us. And yet…

And yet it didn't matter how much older she was. She was a professor. And now, apparently our landlord. Or maybe the University was our landlord, and Lily was just the Keeper.

Whatever.

Either way, she was off limits. Colin had realized that right away, and so did I. We had talked about that first night, after realizing how pretty she was. And after collectively warning Brandon not to go after her, too.

Still, after the couple of weeks the three of us just had? Looking at something pretty was a pleasant distraction.

"So you're all from Omega Alpha?" Lily was asking. "The three of you?"

"Yes," Colin answered, leaning back in his chair. He jerked a thumb at me. "Actually, you're looking at our Prez."

"Ex-President," I corrected.

"Oh yeah. Right."

Omega Alpha wasn't something I wanted to think about anymore. When the University Board's decision came down, I'd fought it tooth and nail. Dwelled it on for days. What were we supposed to do? Not call an ambulance? We'd never seen the kid before; he was never even in our house. And yet they were more concerned with appearances than the truth, so they disbanded our chapter anyway.

I even begged and pleaded with the kid himself. Maybe he was willing to talk to them, set the record straight. Unfortunately he was more embarrassed than anything else. So drunk he didn't even remember where he'd started drinking. Typical freshman bullshit, only he'd taken it way too far.

Every time I pressed him, he kept telling me to forget about it. He wanted to put it in the past. And yet… he'd wrecked our fraternity. Thirty-two guys — no, they were brothers — sent in all different directions. Some of them now homeless, like us.

I looked around the kitchen. The mood had turned sullen fast. Thankfully Lily recognized it quickly enough not to ask any more questions.

"Well I'm glad you guys are here," she said cheerfully. "Thanks for the pizza, but I've really got to be getting home."

"Boyfriend waiting up for you?" I suggested slyly.

"No. Nothing like that."

She said no, but she'd hesitated. Like there was something right about what she said, but also something wrong.

"Husband then?"

This time her reaction was even more strange. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Opened her mouth, then closed it without speaking.

"You don't have to tell us if you don't want to," I offered, giving her a way out. "It's none of our business anyway."

"I've got an ex-husband," Lily said, with the hint of a sigh. "We divorced a year ago."

Her sentence trailed off, like there was still more to it. The three of us stayed silent, hoping for the other half of the story.

"We still live together though," she admitted guiltily. "In separate bedrooms, obviously. It's… well, it's complicated."

"Is it a money thing?" Colin asked.

Then She nodded.

"Then it's not all that complicated."

All three of us knew financial hardship — not one of us really had two quarters to rub together. It was one of the reasons we'd been so grateful for the opportunity she'd given us.

"Hey, no worries," I told her. "We get it. I can't even imagine where we'd be right now if you hadn't let us move in here. Probably in some shithole motel off campus. Or maybe sharing a couple of bedrooms in someone's moldy basement."

"Hell yeah," added Colin.

I watched as her shoulders seem to relax. "Thanks guys. And thanks again…" she waved an arm around, "for helping with all this."

"You should probably stop thanking us," I said. "This is our home now, right? We''ll make it nice."

"Damn straight," Brandon grinned. He pounded his big fist on the table enthusiastically. "We're going to make this place shine!"